CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONTEMPORARY PRACTICES OF RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION IN HRM

ABSTRACT

HRM is one of the critical aspects of international business. Scholars and practitioners all over the globe are constantly searching for the most effective and efficient frameworks to utilize in management practice. However, as the field is rapidly developing, a number of new approaches have been proposed regarding human resource management practices in organizational management. Furthermore, organizational performance is typically set as the main indicator for the evaluation of organizational efficiency. Our article is aimed to critically examine the existing HR practices in contemporary organizations with a focus on the impact of such practices on the level of organizational performance.

АННОТАЦИЯ

Управление человеческими ресурсами является одним из важнейших аспектов международного бизнеса. Ученые и практики во всем мире постоянно ищут наиболее эффективные и действенные модели и структура для использования в управленческой практике. Однако, поскольку эта область быстро развивается, был предложен ряд новых подходов в отношении практики управления человеческими ресурсами в организационном управлении. Кроме того, организационная эффективность обычно играет роль основного показателя для оценки эффективности процессов управления персоналом. Наше статья направлена на критический анализ существующих HR-практик в современных организациях с акцентом на влияние таких практик на уровень организационной эффективности.

Keywords: HRM, organizational performance, management theories.

Ключевые слова: управление человеческими ресурсами, организационная эффективность, теории менеджмента.

Introduction

The discipline of Human Resource Management evolved successively over the decades and a critical appraisal of it shows that despite the advancements and innovations selection processes remained HRM’s central activity and function (Ekuma, 2015). On the other hand, according to scholars, selection is struggling with an image issue. That is to say, selection is frequently perceived as an ‘old’ deep-rooted HRM major. It seems like, unchanging presence of conventional selection and recruitment procedures ignoring the uncertainty of external and internal business environments is weird.

As for the concept of selection, it refers to the set of activities designed to select the candidates with a perfect fit from the applicants’ pool (Pak, Yeltayeva & Nurgabdeshov, 2020).  Selection processes substantially differ from business to business based on organizational structure, size and type. But still, general steps considered within its framework are traditional for the vast majority of organizations and consists of screening, testing, interviewing, checking, and finally making a selection (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2016).

In other words, the procedure starts with the identification of candidates  via recruitment and with endeavours  to cut off their number to the people best qualified to perform the available positions (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2016).

Objectives

The article is intended to contribute to the existing gap of theoretical knowledge in the research domain of HRM practices. The main objective of the paper is to critically evaluate the techniques of personality tests, social networking website assessment, and interviews as the most common tools for personnel selection and recruitment in HRM.

Methods

The article adopted an inductive qualitative research approach. The existing HRM theories of recruitment and selection have been analysed with the documentary review of the existing theoretical articles and research literature.

Recruitment and selection

Selection methods is another topic of consideration which addresses the use and order of the listed steps. Paramount objective of the businesses is to design a selection method that supports organization’s values, strategy, vision and job description. For instance, for job positions that imply direct interactions with customers the best decision would be to develop a method that assesses an individual's interest in customers. Moreover, it must assess the framework of KSAOs which stands for Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other Skills. Besides that, the main pillars of the method must be reliability, validity, generalizability, practical value and legal aspects (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2016). 

Significance of the proper selection methods might be observed by the example of a survey conducted by CareerBuilder which is among the most trusted platforms for finding a job. According to CareerBuilder, businesses lost 14900 USD on average as the result of a bad hire (2018).

All in all, what are the measures and methods which will enhance the company’s operations?

Personality tests

One of the major trends in personnel selection is the companies opting to integrate personality tests. The history of personality tests date back to the World War I and the Word War II periods when demand on people with no behavioral and mental health issues rocketed for the military needs (Kumar, 2019). Examples of tests that were created in early 20th century but are in a wide application up to these days are BPI made by Robert Bernreuter and aimed to measure four dimensions as Neurotic Tendency, Self-Sufficiency, Introversion-Extraversion, and Dominance-Submission (Gibby & Zickar, 2008).  As reported by Gibby and Zickar the dimension of Introversion-Extraversion is efficiently used in hiring individuals for positions as the salesforce since it is a job which requires high interactions, willingness to help and openness (2008). Another test which has a high popularity among all managerial levels and for variable purposes is Sixteen Personality Test (16PF) that matches with  Myers Briggs Indicator (MBTI).  In comparison with the previous, these tests make an in-depth assessment and have ample dimensions which result in more precise results (Catell and Mead 2008).  Key objective of the MBTI is to measure a person's personality type and identify what kind of roles he or she are suited to. Conforming to the data MBTI  is the widely used measure employed by more than 88% of Fortune 500 companies  ("Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) | Official Myers Briggs Personality Test", n.d.).

All in all, effective and efficient performance on different kinds of jobs are the results of different behaviour. Individuals’ personality defines who tends to perform well in certain jobs and organizational environments. Thus, the key purpose of the personality tests is to depict who has the proper skill-set and abilities to succeed in a certain position (Anderson, n.d.).

Nevertheless, as we know, personality tests work on the ground of probability and statistics. Subsequently, the results might not be absolutely valid. As was mentioned before the appropriate selection method must fall under the criteria of validity. The recommendation to tackle this limitation is to run a validity test based on correlation coefficient which will vary from -1 to 1 from a negative correlation to a positive respectively (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2016).

Another limitation on the example of MBTI is that such tests often fail the test-retest coefficient. In other words, results of the respondents who took the test tend to change even within a short period of time which is not supposed to happen (Pittenger, 1993 cited in Kumar, 2019).

Social Networking Website’s Assessment

Another selection method which is advancing in response to the rapid digitalization and use of AI is Social Networking Websites’ (SNWs) Assessment. Industry surveys and observations state that the use of SNWs for recruitment purposes from both recruiter’s and candidate’s sides are increasing at extreme rates. The most widespread platforms for such purposes are divided into two professionally and non-professionally oriented vivid examples are Linkedin and Facebook*(Nikolaou, 2014).  The active use of social media might be supported by CareerBuilder’s recent study which identified that the overwhelming majority of the managers found content on social media which caused them to not to hire a candidate. Other findings are that 70% of managers in the US use SMWs in order to look for the candidates ("More Than Half of Employers Have Found Content on Social Media That Caused Them NOT to Hire a Candidate, According to Recent CareerBuilder Survey", 2018).

One of the major arguments in favor of this practice is the speed. However, despite the time-efficiency, this type of selection practices fail to fit the legal framework in terms of consent and privacy (Kozhakhmet & Nurgabdeshov, 2022).

In addition to that, such methods increase the risk of using non-job related information for the job related purposes. All in all, the influence of social media on HRM performance of an organization will depend on the ways of management and application of the accessed information.

Interview

The third common procedure in selection is an interview. The feature which differentiates it among other instruments is the possibility to learn more about each other (the candidate and recruiter). Moreover, an interview is considered as a centerpiece of every selection process which follows after CV. Initially, the interview's main objective was to determine the subject knowledge and assess the intelligence. But, today’s interviews aim to learn more about the candidate's interest in the organization and candidate’s personality (Azarpazhooh, Ryding & Leake, 2008).

Overall, based on the type of questions interviews are divided into three categories. According to study, the most efficient type which implies higher employee performance is the structured type (Zee and Bakker 2002). In a structured interview, the participation of the interviewer’s subjective opinion and bias is minimised as the result of subject- related questions answers to which will be assessed using a predetermined scale (Azarpazhooh, Ryding & Leake, 2008).

Limitations of the instrument include factors such as personal bias and applicant order since experiences show that the interview result depends on who attended the interview before you.  Was it an outstanding candidate or the one below average as well as the number of candidates assessed before you. Recommendations for minimizing the controversies is to use the structural interview which is listed earlier and train interviewers.

Results

Our article was inspired by the rapid development of the various HRM recruitment and selection methods. Our findings provide some interesting results. Firstly, it was identified that despite personality tests being a common practice in HRM the validity of the test is still questionable. Furthermore, the personality test should be tailored in accordance with the type of job and the functional responsibilities. The assessment of social networking websites is another common practice in HRM. However, there is a risk of the use of non-job-related information in job-related practice. Finally, the method of interview selection was analyzed as the most popular and widely used tool for recruitment and selection. However, as it was found personal bias is one of the most common disadvantages of the interview methods as it decreases the validity and reliability of the tool.

Conclusion

Taking everything into account, it is clear that no businesses commit a single step or method in selection procedure. Usually, it is a complex measure. The process itself is extremely dynamic and pivotal for the organization since along with the new employees it brings the company changes which might be both positive or negative. In order to avoid negative implications, the company must have a clear vision of whom it wants for a certain position and develop a selection method which fits the vision.  In order to minimize risks it would be great to use quantitative methods and assess the fit of the method under the reliability and validity indicators by using a correlation test as an example. Additionally, along with the subject knowledge managers have to pay significant attention to personality traits and emotional intelligence due to the demand for subject skills being replaced by transferable skills. Furthermore, organizations must control the quality of the people who represent the company in selection processes. For instance, the interviewing skills of the manager to eliminate the deviations caused by a human factor as a bias. Last but not least,in response to the rapid changing business environment organizations must adjust their selection processes and work on innovations.

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