“Recruitment is a process of searching for candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization” (Flippo 5). In recruitment there are factors which affect the process. Such factors can be categorized into, the internal factors and external factors. Foot and Hook argue, “Internal factors are those factors that can be controlled by the organization while the external factors are those ones that are beyond the control of the organization” (492).
Under internal factors, there is firm size, recruitment cost, planning of human resource and finally growth and expansion. The external factors on the other hand include Supply and demand, Competitors, Image/Goodwill, Labour market, Political-Social-Legal Environment and Unemployment rate
Supply and Demand is one of the external factors. It is one of the vital determiners in the recruitment procedure; it includes the availability of labour force both in the organization and outside the organization/firm. If the firm demands for more workers than there are in the job market then they will be forced to seek for manpower internally by providing the current employees with further training and development.
Competition is also another external facto. There is also competition among firms which offer the same job opportunities; this competition arises when they have different recruitment policies. Job seekers tend to go for jobs with favorable policies thus for a firm to compete with other it should adjust its policies according to the competitors.
Similarly Image/goodwill is also another external factor. Image matters a lot, job seekers are more attracted to positive image of a firm than the negative image. If a firm has a tendency of not retaining employees it might have a problem recruiting as opposed to the one which provides employment and even retain employees.
Another factor is labor market. This depends on the location of the firm, if the community where the firm is located has surplus manpower, any attempt for job advertisement will lead to more than required applicants.
Political-social-legal environment makes up one of the factors. Government and trade unions regulations also play an important role in the recruitment process. A firm may therefore not have the freedom to employ the employees who it believes are better performer.
Ashok (431) adds that unemployment rate growth in the economy also affects the availability of job seekers. Unemployment is mainly visible when a firm does not create more job opportunities; this in turn leaves more qualified people jobless.
Size of the firms is another key issue to consider in the recruitment process. Size of firm is among the internal factors (Aswathappa 45). When the firm has a vision of expanding its operation through opening other branches elsewhere; it will seek more employees and most likely the current workers to run their new branch.
Cost of recruitment process has a cost, this cost lies in advertisement, contracting a firm to do the interviews etc. therefore the firm should go for a method that has the lowest cost of recruitment. Finally Growth and expansion of a firm should be considered when seeking for more employees.
Work Cited
Ashok Khurana, ParveenKhurana & HiraLal Sharma. Human Resource Management: Ambala: VK Publications. 2000. Print.
Aswathappa. Human Resources and Personnel Management. Tata McGraw Hill. 2003. Print.
Flippo, Edwin. Personnel Management. 6th edition: California: McGraw-Hill College. 1984. Print.
Foot, Magaret and Hook, Caroline . Introducing Human Resource Management. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publication. 2008. Print.