Unit - 4

External Hiring
Advantages :
 1. Open Process:
 Being a more open process, it is likely to attract large
number of applicants/ applications. This, in turn, widens its
options of selection.
 2. Availability of Talented Candidates:
 With large pool of applicants, it becomes possible for the
organisation to have talented candidates from outside.
Thus, it introduces new blood in the organisation.
 3. Opportunity to select the best candidates:
 With large pool of applicants, the selection process
becomes more competitive. This increases prospects for
selecting the best candidates.
 4. Provides healthy competition:
 As the external members are supposed to be more trained
and efficient. With such a background, they work with
positive attitude and greater vigour. This helps create
healthy competition and conducive work environment in
the organisation.
Disadvantages
 1. Expensive and Time Consuming:
 This method of recruitment is both expensive and time
consuming. There is no guarantee that organisation will get
good and suitable candidates.
 2. Unfamiliarity with the Organisation:
 As candidates come from outside the organisation, they are
not familiar with the tasks, job nature and the internal
scenario of the organisation.
 3. Discourages the Existing Employees:
 Existing employees are not sure to get promotion. This
discourages them to work hard. This, in turn, boils down to
decreasing productivity of the organisation.
Sources of external recruitment
 Advertisement in newspaper
 TV/Radio
 Internet
 Wanted signboards
 Consultants
 Employment exchange
 Campus recruitment
 Employee referrals
 Unsolicited applications.
 Advertisement in Newspapers:
 Senior posts are largely filled by this method. This method
is, however, followed by companies in 3 different ways:

 First, there are some companies which do not do their own

advertising. They send their requisitions to certain
specialised agencies

 Second, there are some companies which although do their

own advertising but give only box numbers.

 Third, there are some companies which divulge their names

in their advertisements.
Advantages
 Targeting
 Flexibility
 User Access
 Candidate Segmentation
 For positions that must be filled quickly, newspapers
may be a good source.
 INFORMATION ON THE CANDIDATE
 • Years of experience
 • Three to five key characteristics of the successful candidate
 INFORMATION ON THE JOB AND PROCESS OF APPLICATION
 • Job title and responsibilities
 • Location of job
 • Starting pay range
 • Closing date for application
 • Whether to submit a resume and cover letter
 • Whether calls are invited or not
 • Where to mail application or resume
 INFORMATION ON THE ORGANIZATION
 • Its primary business
 Radio Ads
 Radio can be very inexpensive and effective.
 Are there certain times or shows that your target
group listens to on a regular basis?
 Put a recruitment plug at the end of your regular
radio ads. If you are running 60 second ads,
shorten it to 50 seconds and insert a line like, “ABC
Company has immediate career opportunities for
qualified people in sales. Call 111-111-1111 for details”
Tips For Effective Radio Recruitment Advertising
 Use current employees in your radio commercial to extol
the benefits of working for your company.
 Choose radio stations whose qualitative profile is consistent
with the profile of your best candidate.
 If the radio stations you choose also broadcasts on the
internet (streaming), then be sure to place commercials in
their stream as well.
 Point candidates to your website.
Advantages of Radio Advertising
 Radio is a universal medium enjoyed by people at one time
or another during the day, at home, at work, and even in the
car.
 The vast array of radio program formats offers to efficiently
target your advertising dollars to narrowly defined
segments of consumers most likely to respond to your offer.
 Gives your business personality through the creation of
campaigns using sounds and voices
 Free creative help is often available
 Rates can generally be negotiated
Disadvantages of Radio Advertising
 Because radio listeners are spread over many stations, you
may have to advertise simultaneously on several stations to
reach your target audience
 Listeners cannot go back to your ads to go over important
points
 Ads are an interruption in the entertainment. Because of
this, a radio ad may require multiple exposure to break
through the listener’s “tune-out” factor and ensure message
retention
 Radio is a background medium. Most listeners are doing
something else while listening, which means that your ad
has to work hard to get their attention
Television
 Advantages of Television Advertising
 Television permits you to reach large numbers of people on
a national or regional level in a short period of time
 Independent stations and cable offer new opportunities to
pinpoint local audiences
 Television being an image-building and visual medium, it
offers the ability to convey your message with sight, sound
and motion
Disadvantages of Television Advertising

 Message is temporary, and may require multiple exposure

for the ad to rise above the clutter
 Ads on network affiliates are concentrated in local news
broadcasts and station breaks
 Preferred ad times are often sold out far in advance
 Limited length of exposure, as most ads are only thirty
seconds long or less, which limits the amount of
information you can communicate
 Relatively expensive in terms of creative, production and
airtime costs
Internet – online recruitment
 Pay careful attention to the job title: The job title is often
the first thing a job seeker will see and in many cases, the
only thing unless they are interested enough to click
through for further information.
 Use familiar job titles and ensure they give a sense of what
the job entails (“Manager of Financial Services” instead of
just “Manager”)
 Use key words: Job boards and candidates will use key
words to pull your position up in a search, so describe the
position using words and phrases commonly associated
with this type of role
 Internet Job Postings
 Write for the web: When viewing job postings online
readers typically scan rather than review each word.
 Make the most important points stand out by highlighting,
using headings for each section (e.g., About the
Organization, About the Job, How to Apply), and using
bulleted lists
 STEPS:
 Attract the candidate
 Sort the applications
 Make a contact
 Close the deal
The Advantages of Online Recruitment
 Lower costs to the organization. Also, posting jobs online is cheaper
than advertising in the newspapers.
 No intermediaries.
 Reduction in the time for recruitment (over 65 percent of the hiring
time).
 Facilitates the recruitment of right type of people with the required
skills.
 Improved efficiency of recruitment process.
 Gives a 24 X 7 access to an online collection of resumes.
 Online recruitment helps the organisations to weed out the unqualified
candidates in an automated way.
 Recruitment websites also provide valuable data and information
regarding the compensation offered by the competitors etc. which helps
the HR managers to take various HR decisions like promotions, salary
trends in industry etc.
 Disadvantages of E-Recruitment:
 Apart from the various benefits, e-recruitment has its own
share of shortcomings and disadvantages.
 Some of them are:
 Screening and checking the skill mapping and authenticity
of millions of resumes is a problem and time consuming
exercise for organizations.
 There is low Internet penetration, no access and lack of
awareness of internet in many locations across India.
 Organizations cannot depend solely on the online
recruitment methods.
 In India, the employers and the employees still prefer a
face-to-face interaction rather than sending e-mails.
 Signs and Billboards
 It is an inexpensive and very productive employee
recruiting strategy. A sign outside your front door that says,
“Positions Available, Please Apply Within” can have great
results.
 A sign in your lobby or at your reception desk listing open
positions may generate results.
 Try to think of as many places as you can to post signs
announcing your open positions. This is a strategy that can
improve your employee recruiting efforts dramatically.
Consultants
 Recruitment for certain professional and technical
positions is made through professional associations also
called ‘ head hunters’.
 Institute of Engineers, Indian Medical Association, All
Indian Management Association, etc., provide placement
services for their members.
 Professional associations prepare either list of job seekers
or publish or sponsor journals or magazines containing
advertisements for their members.
 The professional associations are particularly useful for
attracting highly skilled and professional personnel.
 Employment Agencies:
 In addition to the government agencies, there are a number of
private employment agencies who register candidates for
employment and furnish a list of suitable candidates from their
data bank as and when sought by the prospective employers.
 ABC Consultants, Datamatics, Ferguson Associates, S B
Billimoria, etc. are the popular private employment agencies in
our country.
 Generally, these agencies select personnel for supervisory and
higher levels.
 The main function of these agencies is to invite applications and
short list the suitable candidates for the organisation. The final
decision on selection is taken by the representatives of the
organisation.
 At best, the representatives of the employment agencies may also
sit on the panel for final selection of the candidates.
 The employer organisations derive several advantages
through this source.
 Proves cheaper than the one organisations recruiting
themselves. The time saved in this method can be better
utilized elsewhere by the organisation.
 As the organisational identity remains unknown to the job
seekers, it, thus, avoids receiving letters and attempts to
influence.
 There is always a risk of loosing out in screening process
done by the agencies, some applicants whom the
representatives of the organisation would have liked to
meet and select
Campus Recruitment:
 Though campus recruitment is a common phenomenon
particularly in the American organisations, it has made its
mark rather recently of late, some organisations such as
HLL, HCL. L &T, Citi Bank, ANZ Grindlays, Motorola,
Reliance etc., in India have started visiting educational and
training institutes/campuses for recruitment purposes.
 The major determinants ;
 Current position requirements
 Experiences with placement offices and previous graduates
 Organizational budget constraints
 Cost of available talent (typical salaries)
 Market competition
 College reputation
Advantages
 Most of the candidates are available at one place.
 Interviews are arranged at short notice
 Teaching faculty is also met
 It gives them opportunity to sell the organisation to a large
student body who would be graduating subsequently.
 Disadvantages
 Organisations have to limit their selection to only “entry”
positions and they interview the candidates who have
similar education and experience.
Media Pros Cons Summary
TV Live motion can create a Expensive mode of advertising · Television ads can reach large
sense of immediacy using due to high production costs. audiences, and one can target
sensory appeal. May have too broad of a reach specific populations by targeting
It can be more engaging to and, therefore, prove specific programs frequented by
a diverse and / or niche ineffective for geographically those groups. It is also expensive
target population by targeted groups. This may offer and may cast too wide of a net. It
providing images that a low return (number of may be a more engaging tool.
resonate with the target subjects) on a high investment
audiences. (costs to run a television ad).
Ability to target specific
demographic groups via
programming selection.

Radio Effective way to reach Message cannot be visually Radio spots can reach a very
target audience. depicted. captive audience
Minimal production cost Air time can be expensive. (e.g., commuters on their way to
compared with TV. work) but they lack visual appeal
Accessibility to captive and can be expensive.
audiences (e.g., “talk
radio” shows).
Newspaper Readers can “tear and Does not elicit an
clip” your ad/article. immediate response due
Use of demographic- to inability to capitalize
specific publications can on emotions as TV and
help enrol a diverse radio can.
study population. · Message may be buried
among a vast variety of
information.
· Readership may not be
as high as it used to be.
While newspaper ads are
less expensive than TV and
radio, with well-written
simple text, the return on
investment can be quite
positive.

Internet Multiple strategies Not all potential research Online advertising can be a
available: e-mail, study- subjects have internet cost-efficient way to reach a
specific websites, You- access. large audience, but may be
Tube videos, site-based ineffective for populations
advertisement, social that generally lack internet
networking sites. access.
· E-mail as an alternative
to direct mail reduces
postage and printing costs.
· Ads can be targeted to
users’ searches on the
internet.
Unsolicited Applications

 Unsolicited applications constitute a sizable part of the

supply of the potential recruits in the economies with high
unemployment.
 Unsolicited applications can be kept on file even if there are
no particular openings.
 Unsolicited applications made especially by the qualified
professionals is often short-lived.
 Some good companies are sensitive enough to unsolicited
applications to include its prohibition in the company
recruitment policy.
Job advertisement: Drafting, size and contents
 Employers should ask these key questions:
 Who are the people we want to reach?
 What should the advertising message convey?
 How should the message be presented?
 In which medium should it run?
Before advertising in the press …

 The paper’s readership profile

 The paper’s geographical coverage
 The best day to advertise for the post
 On which page your advertisement will appear
 The cost involved
Preparing the Advertisement

 There are three areas to consider when designing

an advertisement for the press.
 Size of the advertisement
 Style of the advertisement
 Contents of the advertisement
Size of the advertisement

 The size of the advertisement will be affected by :

 Your budget versus the cost of space in the publication
 The seniority and speciality of the post on offer
 The known scarcity of quality candidates to fill the post
 The size of other advertisement competing for similar
posts
Style of the Advertisement

 The style is to do with the way the advertisement looks on

the page. It consists of following elements:
 1.Produce easy-to-read copy with plenty of white space.
 2.Use the borders to draw the readers into the
advertisement.
 3.Avoid using a small type size to fit in more words – it will
look only cramped.
 4.Visuals that are integral part of the organization like logos
should be included.
 5.It is another marketing vehicle for the company
Content of the Advertisement

 The content of advertisement is the main element in

attracting suitable applicants. The following details are all
relevant:
 1. Name and brief detail of the employer organization –
better known the employer in the market the less important
the details.
 2.Certain organizations choose to remain anonymous and
publish only a blind ad.
 3. Job title and basic information based on the job
description.
 4. Job tenure, for example length of contract
 4. KSAs needed, based on person specification
 5. Any essential qualifications
 6. Pay scale/salary & other benefits in clear terms
 7. How, where and to whom to apply
 8. The closing date
 9. Telephone number, fax number, e-mail address to request
an application form and further details, if so.
 10. Other general tips
 General tips for writing ads
 Do’s
 1.Include any organizational successes, e.g. recent growth
 2. State that development opportunities are on offer
 3. Highlight benefits that may attract applicants, specifically if the salary
is not overly attractive
 Don’t…
 1. Do not exaggerate the job or the organization’s track record
 2. Do not use generalised statements about the responsibilities of the job
 3. Do not include criteria that applicants do not need to meet but just to
make the job sound more attractive and challenging.
 4. Do not use the adjectives like “dynamic”, “vibrant”, “excellent career”
etc. These terms have lost their importance.