Sources of Recruitment

The sources of employees can be classified into two types, Internal and External.

Filling a job opening form within the firm has the advantages of stimulating preparation for possible transfer/promotion, servers as a key motivator for internal employees who are aspiring for a move, increasing the general level of morality, and provides more information about job candidates through analysis of work histories within the organization. A job posting has a number of advantages. From the viewpoint of the employee, it provides flexibility and greater control over career progress. For the employer, it should result in better matches of employee and job. However, not all jobs are posted by an organization internally.

External Recruitment is when the organization clearly prefers to hire from outside the organization for the job. Organizations most definitely go for external hiring for lower level jobs, when they are expanding, during phases of rapid growth and for positions whose skills/experience specifications cannot be met by existing human resources.

Common outside sources available:

1. Advertising – In both the print as well as the web media. Among the best methods when the organization needs to reach a large audience and usually at least 5-6 or more job openings. First, advertisements can be placed in the appropriate media to be read by particular media groups. Secondly, more information about the company, the job, and the job specification can be included in the advertisement to permit some self-screening. Advertisement invites a fair amount of poor candidate profiles and therefore a fair amount of time and effort of the firm’s recruitment team is spent in screening. Often organization that can afford the cost, outsource this to a placement agency those take care of the first steps in the screening process.
2. Professional Placement Organizations or Recruiting firms or Executive Headhunters – Maintain complete information about employable candidate, who usually are already employed elsewhere. These consulting firms therefore maintain an active database of skilled and experienced resources. They work closely with organizations through contractual agreements to source appropriate candidate for the firm’s requirements.
3. Job Portals and Job Sites – Job portals are hosted by a recruitment agency with a large database of skilled and experienced candidates. An organization looking for a particular skill set can register on the portal for a monthly/quarterly/annual fee and browse for the desired candidate profile and obtain a potential list of candidates who fit the profile. That these candidates would be interested in a new job and would keen to move from the existing role/organization is another matter all together. A significant amount of time and effort of the recruitment team goes in reaching out to these candidates and validating that the information on the resume is accurate and the person matches the requirement and that the candidate is indeed looking to change the job.
4. Employment Agencies – Additional screening can be affected trough the utilization of employment agencies, both public and private. Today, in contrast to their former un-popular reputation, the public employment agencies in several states effective, particularly in the fields of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled operative jobs. In the technical and professional areas, however, the private recruiters are doing most of the work.
5. Employee Referrals – Fast emerging as the latest most effective method is the referral route to staffing. Friends and relatives of present employees are also a good source from which employees may be drawn. In the current times when the talent market is most challenged, large employers frequently offer their employees bonus or prizes for any referrals that are hired. This is usually linked to the referred employee’s stay with the company for a specific length of time.
6. Schools, Colleges and Professional Institutions – Popularly called Campus Recruitment, organizations engage with education institutions that educate students for ready-to-work jobs, like engineers and management graduates by offering opportunities for recruiting their students. These institutions operate (usually annual) placement services/events where complete bio-data and other particulars of the students are made available along with interviewing opportunities. The companies that hire such resources maintain contact with Placement Bureaus of these institutions and enlist with them to showcase the organization and carryout the selection process for those who fit the organizations’ requirement and are interested.
7. Casual Applicants – Unsolicited applications, both at the gate and through the career site on the web page and even on post mail, constitute a much-used source of human resources. But are fast losing their value and are no longer counted as a valid method. Similarly unsolicited applications for positions in which large numbers of candidates are not available from other sources, the companies may gain keeping files of applications received from candidates who make direct enquiries about possible vacancies on their own, or may send unconsolidated applications. The information may be indexed and filed for future use when there are openings in these jobs.
8. Indoctrination seminars for Colleges Professors – Such seminars are arranged to discuss the problem of companies and employees. Professors are invited to take part in these seminars. Visits to plants and banquets are arranged so that the participant professors may be favorably impressed. They may later speak well of a company and help it in getting the required human resources.
9. Contractual Staffing – To adjust to short-term fluctuations in human resources needs, it is commonplace in organizations to contract employees of another employer by the hour or day. While this practice has been particularly well-established in the office administration field today almost any job can be sub contracted through a third party vendor with whom the firm enters into a contract. This way the firm not only obtains well-trained and selected human resources while its liability as a permanent employer of the resources is absolved.
10. Voluntary Organizations – Such a private clubs, social organizations might also provide employees – handicaps, widowed or married women, old persons, retired hands, etc. in response to advertisements.