The recruitment process can be viewed as a sales activity. A qualified job candidate is your customer when you are trying to sell the job to him or her. Some keys to approaching recruitment from the perspective of applicants-as-customers are presented in the Manager’s Notebook, “Taking an Applicant-Centered Approach to Recruitment.”

A great number of recruitment sources are available to organizations.15 The most prominent are:

• ▪ Current employees Many companies have a policy of informing current employees about job openings before trying to recruit from other sources. Internal job postings give current employees the opportunity to move into the firm’s more desirable jobs. However, an internal promotion automatically creates another job opening that has to be filled.

• ▪ Referrals from current employees Studies have shown that employees who were hired through referrals from current employees tended to stay with the organization longer and displayed greater loyalty and job satisfaction than employees who were recruited by other means.16 Some organizations offer incentives to their employees for successful referrals. For example, the Container Store pays employees between $200 and $500 for successful referrals, after the new hire has completed a probationary period. REI, the outdoor outfitter, found that employee referrals increased by 850 percent after it doubled its referral bonus to $100 per hire.17 Employee referrals can be an effective recruitment tool, because employees have a good sense of what it takes to be a successful worker and member of the organization. However, to the extent current employees tend to refer people who are demographically similar to themselves, it can create equal employment opportunity (EEO) problems.

• ▪ Former employees A firm may decide to recruit employees who previously worked for the organization. Typically, these are people who were laid off, although they may also have worked seasonally (during summer vacations or tax season, for example). Forming an online alumni network could be a simple and cost-effective way to maintain a hiring pool of competitive candidates.18 Furthermore, a network of former employees can be a source of employee referrals because they are familiar with the company, its culture, and its values.

• ▪ Former military Since the war on terror began, employers have had the option to hire discharged soldiers. This is more than patriotism. Some organizations recruit former military in the belief that military experience will result in better and more consistent job performance. In some situations, the link between military experience and the job that needs to be filled is direct. The U.S. Border Patrol, for example, has been hiring thousands of new border patrol agents. The job involves protecting the U.S. border from illegal immigration and illegal contraband, as well as from infiltration by terrorists. The job requirements of a border patrol agent line up well with the basic experience of many military, and it is little wonder that the U.S. Border Patrol is targeting former military as a source of new agents.19

• ▪ Customers Customers can be a convenient and cost-effective source of employees. Customers are already familiar with the organization’s products or services. Recruiting customers can capitalize on this familiarity, as well as on enthusiasm and alignment with the brand that often goes along with being a committed customer.20

• ▪ Print and radio advertisements Advertisements can be used both for local recruitment efforts (newspapers) and for targeted regional, national, or international searches (trade or professional publications).

• ▪ Internet advertising, career sites, and social media Employers are increasingly turning to the Web as a recruitment tool because online ads are relatively cheap, are more dynamic, and can often produce faster results than newspaper help-wanted ads. The Web is not only an economical, efficient means to recruit, but it is also a convenient tool for job seekers. Thousands of career Web sites exist, and almost all are free to people searching for jobs. One of the best known sites is [no longer online] Monster.com. Job seekers can search for jobs by industry, geographic location, and, in some cases, by job description. Social media sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are also being used by applicants and employers as a way to connect with each other. The Manager’s Notebook, “Don’t Get Screened Out in a Social Media Screen,” points out, however, that employers may also use these sites to evaluate you as a potential employee.

• ▪ Employment agencies Many organizations use external contractors to recruit and screen applicants for a position. Typically, the employment agency is paid a fee based on the salary offered to the new employee. Agencies can be particularly effective when the firm is looking for an employee with a specialized skill.

• ▪ Temporary workers Temporary workers provide employers the flexibility to quickly meet fluctuating demands. Bringing in temporary workers enables employers to bypass the time-consuming hiring process of job interviews and background checks. Temporary workers also provide a buffer between the changing business environment and the permanent workforce. For example, a decrease in demand for the product or service provided by a business could be balanced with a layoff of temporary workers. The temporary workers may have been hired with the hope they would become permanent, but the presence of temporary workers can mean that permanent workers aren’t affected by a business downturn.

  

  The demand for temporary workers can increase in times of economic uncertainty. In difficult and uncertain times, firms may be reluctant to hire permanent staff, preferring instead to bring in temporary workers who can be dismissed more easily than permanent employees.21 In addition to providing flexibility, the increase in the demand for temporary workers may also be due to employers using temporary workers as a way to avoid paying benefits. However, this practice can lead to abuse, unfair treatment, and, as we saw in Chapter 3, potential legal liability.

• ▪ College recruiting Your school probably has a job placement office that helps students make contacts with employers. Students whose majors are in accounting, engineering, computer programming, and information systems at the undergraduate level and those with graduate degrees in business and law are often considered the most desirable candidates because of the applied training they have received.

  You might think that college recruiting may change in its nature and shift from face-to-face meetings to Web-based interactions. For example, Hewlett-Packard has a Web site specifically focused on college recruiting at www.jobs.hp.com . However, savvy organizations recognize that the Internet cannot do the entire recruiting job.22 There is value in interacting with college students, developing relationships, and generating interest in the college pool of candidates. Company visits to college campuses, job fairs, and various relationships such as internships are likely to continue for the long term.

Finding qualified and motivated employees is a key concern for small businesses. Bad hires can be catastrophic for small businesses, which do not have the luxury of reassigning workers who are not well suited for their positions.23

How do employers evaluate the effectiveness of different recruitment sources? One way is to look at how long employees recruited from different sources stay with the company. Studies show that employees who know more about the organization and have realistic expectations about the job tend to stay longer than other applicants.24 Current employees, employee referrals, and former employees are likely to turn up applicants with realistic expectations of the job.

Another way of evaluating recruitment sources is by their cost. There are substantial cost differences between advertising and using cash awards to encourage employee referrals, and between hiring locally and hiring beyond the local area (which entails relocating the new employee).

Comparing the effectiveness of various recruiting sources is easier with the use of a simple spreadsheet. As shown in Figure 5.5, the spreadsheet could have recruiting sources in the rows and effectiveness measures (say, on a scale of 1 to 10) in the columns. The columns might track various outcomes from each of the recruitment sources, such as number of employment offers, number of acceptances, turnover at one year, and employee performance ratings at one year.