Selection Strategies for Organizations
The various selection strategies for organizations that are helpful in selecting qualified candidates are
Selection on basis of KSAs
One of the more traditional selection strategies is to make selection of candidates based on their knowledge, skills and abilities or KSAs. This selection strategy first begins with job analysis. The human resource department analyzes each job and its requirements, then creates a job specification that lists all required knowledge, skills and abilities needed by the applicants to perform the job. The human resource department then determines the best way to assess each candidate to determine whether he possesses those KSAs or not. The final step is then to process all job applicants using various assessment tools.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing is a selection strategy that human resource departments may adopt for hiring executives, employees for temporary positions or for positions that require a specialized skill or knowledge set. The most common strategy here is to hire search firms, consultancies or “headhunters” to recruit, conduct assessments, check references, perform initial interviews and screen the large application pools. However, the final selection is still an internal responsibility that is performed based on the external firm’s recommendations.
Multi-stage Selection Strategies
A multistage selection strategy combines a number of assessment tools as part of the selection process. The human resource department is responsible for validating and approving each assessment tool and ensuring that it is only related to the requirements of the open position or job. Examples of different stages in a multistage selection strategy include personality tests, behavioral skills tests, interviews and sample work performances, including many others. This strategy is paired and then used with either a conjunctive or compensatory strategy.
Conjunctive Selection Strategies
When the human resources department uses a conjunctive model, it attempts to administer multiple assessment tools in a series of stages. If a candidate does poorly on an initial assessment, he/she is eliminated from the pool of applicants. When using this strategy, assessment tools must be carefully ordered so that a candidate is not eliminated on the basis of a less important criteria than one that is assessed later in the process. The advantage to this strategy, however, is that it is less costly than a compensatory strategy because later assessment tools are administered to fewer people, which is not the case in the compensatory strategies.
Compensatory Selection Strategies
A way of avoiding the disadvantages of the conjunctive selection strategy is to use a compensatory selection strategy. This method administers all assessment tools to all applicants at the same time, or at least all of them are administered before any candidate is eliminated or selected. The scores of all assessment tools are combined to give each applicant a specific composite score. Under this system, an applicant is thus very less likely to be eliminated based on the results of a single assessment tool and comparisons can be made among the composite results of all applicants, to select the one who is most qualified.
The Importance of Effective Recruitment and Selection Strategies
Research indicates that companies that deal with viability options such as attraction, retention and development can sustain much superior performance. Increasingly skilled employees desire to work for companies that offer not only employment, but also employment that will enhance their overall skills and abilities. Effective recruitment and selection strategies are thus very important to the success of any organization’s employee recruitment and retention attempts. When an organization fails to recruit and retain the talent it needs; it can find itself stuck in high turnover rates that drain both morale and resources.
The Role of HRM Recruiting Specialists
As a result, HRM recruiting specialists must be very well acquainted with the organizational culture and job requirements of their organizations. The goal is to find a match between the work outcomes that candidates want and value and the work outcomes that an employer is seeking to associate with superior job performance.
Conclusion
To remain competitive today, it is important to recruit the best qualified candidates for the job at hand. Efforts that are focused on the correct job seekers will obviously be much more effective in building a qualified applicant pool rather than a scattered approach. The breadth of the skill required for various positions as well as the increasing demand for speed and efficiency in today’s workplace indicates the desirability of recruiting an individual who will be immediately productive.
