Month: June 2020

Outside agency recruiters do earn a small base salary, but the largest part of their salary comes from the commission they make placing clients. The average commission the recruiting agency earns varies from case to case, but a 40% cut of the placed employee’s first-year salary is not uncommon.

For example, outside recruiters who place a $100,000 marketing executive at a firm earn 40% in commission for their agency for the placement. That earns $40,000 for the recruiting agency while the individual agency recruiter earns a percentage of the gross commission, which can be as high as 50% to 60% for quality individual recruiters.

The pay is lower for internal recruiters. According to Glassdoor, the average pay in 2019 for an external recruiter is $51,000 annually, with $77,000 at the top end of the pay scale.

Inside recruiters earn their monthly on a salary, and in some cases with an annual bonus attached. According to Glassdoor, the average salary for an internal (or “in-house” recruiter is $45,000

There is some confusion out there as to how recruiters get paid for their contracted job placement services. Furthermore, there seems to be even more confusion about how a recruiter’s contract with an employer may affect job seekers.

External Recruiters are contracted by companies to find them the best candidate for an open position. The contract between an employer and the recruiter is usually done in one of three ways: on a retained basis, a contingency basis or a contained basis. Below you’ll find a breakdown of these methods and what they mean for you as a job seeker. 

Retained Recruiters

When recruiters work on a retained basis it means that they are charging the employer an upfront fee to conduct a search. It also means that they are working on an exclusive basis. In other words the job will only be filled by using that particular recruitment company.

Working with a retained recruiter is usually a slow process because they work very closely with their client. They will even use an agreed methodology to screen and interview candidates. The service doesn’t come cheap as recruiters may charge up to 50% of the candidate’s salary.

As a job seeker this means that interviewing with a retained recruiter is almost equivalent to interviewing with the actual company. It also means that you’d better bring your A-game to make yourself worthy of a high fee.

Since the stakes are high for the employer, chances are that only a select few candidates will be chosen to meet with them. However, if you are chosen to interview with the employer retained recruiters will have all the information you need to know about the job.

Contingency Recruiters

Contingency recruiters get paid once they find the right candidate for the job (usually 25% of a candidate’s salary). Recruiters working on this basis are often times competing with the client’s internal HR department which will also be conducting a search for the same job. They may also be in competition with other recruitment companies.

Since the pressure is on for contingency recruiters, the process is usually a bit faster. They will also be delivering more candidates, meaning job seekers may be in competition with other candidates represented by the same firm.

While you may not get the same amount of attention as you would with a retained recruiter, it is worth noting that recruiters being paid on a contingency basis have excellent sales skills that will come in handy when presenting you to a company.

Contained Recruiters

Contained recruiters are a hybrid of the previously mentioned payment methods. They collect a portion of the fee up front and the rest is paid upon the placement of a candidate.

Some would say you’re getting the best of both worlds: a recruiter working very closely with the employer (possibly with less competition) with the ability to get hired quickly.

Finding out how a recruiter gets paid

When speaking with a recruiter about a potential job simply ask them how they came across the vacancy. This should give you clues as to how they are being paid by the employer. It will also clue you in on how the entire hiring process may go down.

There are pros and cons to working with different kinds of recruiters. At the end of the day no one method is better than the other. As a result you should always keep your doors open with recruiters, no matter how they are being paid.

Social recruiting (social hiring or social media recruitment) is recruiting candidates by using social platforms as talent databases or for advertising. Social recruiting uses social media profiles, blogs, and other Internet sites to find information on candidates. It also uses social media to advertise jobs either through HR vendors or through crowdsourcing where job seekers and others share job openings within their online social networks.

Social recruiting’s effectiveness and return on investment have been difficult to determine, since applicants do not usually apply through the social channels which first attracted them. In May 2013, Maximum Employment Marketing Group released the Social Recruitment Monitor, which ranks the reach, engagement, and interactivity of employers’ social recruiting efforts around the world

Benefits of Social Recruiting

1. Reach passive candidates

You won’t find passive candidates on job boards or your company careers site, so social media might be the only way to for your job ad to reach them.

2. Get more referrals

Make it easy for your employees to refer candidates. With just one click on their social networks, they can share the information about your job opening with all their family members, friends and colleagues!

3. Target your perfect candidates

Social media networks are a perfect place to reach the candidates with different backgrounds, ages, nationalities, genders and industries. But what if you have a very specific, narrowly defined candidate persona? No worries – just use advanced search filters to find your ideal candidates.

4. Showcase your company culture

Developing and displaying a unique company culture is a critical part of recruiting new talent and employer branding. If you display a great culture within your company, people will want to become a part of it!

5. Establish a more personal connection with potential candidates

Effective social recruiting should operate like a conversation. Social media allows candidates to connect with your company in a low-key, low-pressure environment.

6. Save money

Sourcing for candidates via social media platforms is very cost–effective compared to traditional methods of recruitment (like newspapers, TV, radio ads and the use of specialized publications and paid websites).

How does social recruiting work?

For believers in social recruiting, the method offers a more-efficient and cost-effective alternative to conventional online recruiting, like Indeed.com.

Social recruiting practices include things like:

• Identifying potential candidates on LinkedIn.
• Sending a potential applicant a direct message on Facebook.
• Tweet links to available positions, and include relevant hashtags to build long-term cohesion.
• Post employee photos on your organization’s Instagram account with a message encouraging others to join your team, apply for open positions (with links), or add their resume to your recruiting pool.
• Creating videos to share on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram pages that highlight and outline your organization’s culture.

Tips for effective social recruiting

Each organization determines its own social recruitment strategy tailored to its own employment needs. From a philosophical standpoint, however, there are important fundamentals of effective social recruiting.

1. Network and directly engage with your audience

If a potential candidate adds a comment to an Instagram of Twitter post, for example, that suggests interest in joining your organization, so be sure to respond to them in a personal way. This can be as simple as using their first name and encouraging them to check out available positions. Making a personal connection, however small, is essential.

2. Make sure your social recruiting highlights, directly or implicitly, your company culture

You should have a clear and detailed idea about your organization’s core values and culture. You should also be able to directly connect that culture and those values to your social recruiting outreach. How, in other words, is your social recruiting broadcasting your corporate culture to a broader audience.

3. Involve your staff

Encouraging your staff to help in your social recruiting efforts is beneficial for multiple reasons. First, it expands the reach of your social recruiting content. Second, and mentioned in point #1, making a connection is essential. Creating the conditions where candidates might connect with peers provides another opportunity for a connection. Lastly, “selling” your corporate culture is most effective when assisted by employees. Organizations are obviously going to try and sell their culture, but candidates know that. To see that culture shared or advocated for by employees, however, is potentially a much more convincing sell.

4. Be consistent

Social recruiting requires consistent engagement with your audience of potential candidates. In addition, you should always stay current with the latest industry trends and concepts by reading the top recruiting books published each year. Remember, social recruiting is not as simple as posting jobs and receiving applicants. The best candidates already have jobs and potentially are not actively looking to move. The way to attract those candidates, therefore, is to consistently build an attractive corporate brand and culture over time. This means posting regularly in ways that illuminate your corporate culture and organization goals. It also entails responding directly to people who reach out, comment, or share your content in a friendly and personal way. The goal, therefore, is to eventually create desire among potential applicants to join your organization as soon as a position opens up.

Choosing the right social media platform

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn all present potentially useful tools for social recruiting. Twitter enables organizations to share links to open positions, news about their company, etc. Facebook offers similar tools, but also adds the functionality of sharing photos and videos. Instagram is an ideal place to share photos and videos that highlight your corporate culture, showcase new products and services, etc. Further, many social media platforms offer advanced search features that are highly beneficial for social recruiting. These advanced features can help you learn more about the current audience of your social recruiting and help you target the right groups moving forward.

Facebook’s Graph Search allows you to search various variables of a user’s profile, including location, interests, areas of study, etc. You can, for example, search for something as specific as “people interested in SEO marketing and live in Los Angeles.”

Twitter’s Advanced search has more limitations than Facebook, but still allows you to search for people using specific phrases, hashtags, and keywords.

The most effective social media tool for social recruiting is LinkedIn. Because it is built for job seekers, employers and professional networking, the entire site utilizes a wide range of functions to help highlight your corporate culture and recruit potential candidates.

5 Tips for Niche Recruitment

1. Specificity in the job description

Recruiting for a niche position starts with the recruiter, after all. Make sure that you’re being very specific about the job description at hand. List out the qualifications necessary and whatever skills and experience the candidate should possess. Be concise and to-the-point because your niche candidates aren’t just looking for any job that comes along. You’re recruiting people already interested in your career field, so feel free to use specific language and jargon. If they don’t get it, they’re probably not right for the position.

2. Know your job seeker

Recruiting for a niche position means that job seekers will often share attributes. Are they more technically minded or more creative? Knowing information about the typical job seeker in your niche will allow you to tailor the outlets you use to advertise your position. It will also allow you to seek out your ideal candidate in the places they most often visit, both online and off.

3. Get specialized

If you post your job listing on one of the huge job boards, you’re going to get a lot of responses. Some of them will be from great, talented candidates uniquely qualified for the position. However, more will be from candidates with no relevant experience at all. Sorting through these resumes will take a good chunk of time, even if you only spend about 6 seconds apprising a resume. So what’s a better way to let qualified job seekers know about your position?

Getting specialized could be the answer. Take that job listing and share it with a community or network of individuals looking for opportunities in your career field. After all, that’s what networking is for! Sharing your job posting within your networks will help you to find the most qualified candidates. It’s likely you’re not the only one who knows about these communities; motivated, career-minded job hunters have surely already found them. This will help to significantly cut down on the initial weeding out process.

4. Get social

Social media is a great way to connect with niche job seekers. With 66 percent of online adults on one or more social networks, there’s a good chance that great candidates have found their way to social media. Social media also allows for greater self-selection based on interest and career aspirations. Candidates interested in your niche will most likely be following a lot of the same companies and people. They’ll also be reading a lot of the same blogs and attending the same events. Tools like Twitter chats are invaluable resources for finding the plugged-in job seeker. You know the individuals putting time and effort into growing their niche networks will put the same time and effort into your position.

5. Prize creativity

The best job candidates are the ones who can think outside the resume. Job seekers who expand their job hunts in new and creative ways will similarly be able to expand the business of their companies. These professionals are motivated and not hemmed in by rigid thought patterns. Job seekers are finding tons of creative ways to apply for jobs, from infographics to video resumes. For instance, a candidate that sends in a video resume is more likely to be a creative problem solver in the office. Candidates who find ways to work their career niche into innovative applications are showing their passion.

In today’s highly competitive job market, you may decide to enlist the services of an employment agency to help you find your next position. There are a variety of different types of employment agencies that help job seekers get hired.

The one that is most appropriate for you will depend upon your work history (are you an entry-level candidate or a seasoned professional?), your career field, possibly your geographical location (do you want a local job or are you willing to relocate?), your flexibility (are you able to accept a part-time or a temp-to-hire position?) and your skillset.

Traditional Employment Agency

A traditional employment agency assists job seekers in finding work, as well as helping companies to hire staff. Although this is increasingly unusual, some firms charge the job seeker for their services. Before you sign a contract with them, be sure to clarify, up front, if there will be a fee involved.

The employer pays other traditional employment agencies. Many agencies specialize in a particular industry, such as sales and marketing, accounting, human resources management, legal, sports, or IT career searches. In most cases, we would not recommend using an agency that charges the job seeker. Given the number of agencies that are retained by employers to find a talented job candidate pool, most people will do just as well to submit their resumes, free of charge, to these agencies for consideration.

Contingency Employment Agency

A contingency agency is paid when their candidate is hired by the employer. Some contingency agencies charge the candidate, and you should be careful to clarify who pays their fee before you sign up. These types of firms are most often used for low and mid-level searches, and they often send a large number of resumes to the employer.

When applying for a position through a contingency agency, you will likely be competing with candidates who found the job opening from a variety of sources, including the company’s HR department, job boards, and possibly other recruiters.

Retained Search Firm / Executive Search Firm

A retained search firm has an exclusive relationship with the employer. Search firms are typically hired for executive- level and senior-level searches and for a specific period of time to find a candidate to fill a job. These firms specialize in sourcing and contacting the best candidates they can find for an employer, and often will even approach executives who are not actively looking for a new job to see if they can entice them away from their current employer. Sometimes referred to with the slang term, “headhunters,” retained search firms are paid expenses, plus a percentage of the employee’s salary, regardless of whether the candidate is hired.

Retained agencies will be thorough in reviewing the candidate’s qualifications before sending them to the hiring manager, as their agreement with the company is to present only the most appropriate applicants for the position.

Temporary (Temp) Agency

Temporary agencies are employment agencies that find employees to fill temporary jobs. For example, temps are often hired to work during seasonal increases in business, during tax season, during harvest seasons, or to cover vacations or illnesses. Temp agencies often also help to place professional consultants in short-term assignments.

Many temporary agencies have expanded their role in the employment sector to fill “temp to perm” positions where the position starts as a temporary job but could become permanent if the employer decides to hire the candidate.

Temporary staffing agencies (like, for example, Spherion, which finds temp work for people in the office / administrative, light industrial, non-clinical medical, and customer service sectors) may place job candidates on a retainer where they assign them to temp jobs as these arise. The staffing agency is the employee’s official “employer” who issues the paycheck.

They may also provide benefits like health insurance, childcare allowances, or vacation pay. If a temp job turns into a permanent position, then the relationship with the staffing agency ends, and they are paid directly by their new employer.

Usually, online job boards allow recruiters to use some features without charge, offering options for free job postings or trials. Job boards also offer premium schemes, such as sponsored jobs or unlimited access to their candidate database. Some job boards, for example, Monster and Careerbuilder, can be used by employers in all industries, while others are niche, for industries like tech (e.g. Dice), design (e.g. Behance), and other types of roles.

Job boards are most often free for job seekers.

The benefits of using job boards

Job boards are valuable tools for recruiters and hiring managers aiming to attract and find new talent. Here’s why:

(i) Job boards are well-known job advertising tools

Job seekers have been using job boards for years, so these sites give employers access to millions of good candidates. Most of the job boards are candidate-focused and user-friendly, allowing applicants to complete the process quickly, using simple tabs and buttons.

Nowadays, many job boards are integrated with Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS), such as Workable, which have improved candidate experience by making the application process more fluid and efficient.

(ii) Job boards provide resume databases

Candidates can sign up at job boards and upload their resumes. This way, recruiters can actively search for potential employees, setting the right Boolean commands or criteria and contacting high-potential professionals. This is a benefit because some great candidates aren’t currently looking for a job so they won’t see your job ad; but with the resume database, you can proactively reach out to a good candidate.

(iii) Job boards help with employer branding

Many job boards, such as Glassdoor and LinkedIn, allow employers to craft their own company page in the website. Companies can showcase their vision and culture, and, with the right storytelling, attract candidates who would be good culture fits.

Internship

Under this method, an educational institute enters into arrangement with industrial enterprises for providing practical knowledge to its students. Internship training is usually meant for such vocations where advanced theoretical knowledge is to be backed up by practical on the job experience.

For instance, engineering students are sent to big industrial enterprises for gaining practical work experience and medical students are sent to big hospitals to get practical knowledge. The period of such training varies from six months to two years.

The trainees do not belong to the business enterprises, but they come from the vocational or professional institutions. It is quite usual that enterprises giving them training absorb them by offering suitable jobs.

Consultant

A consultant (from Latin: consultare “to deliberate”) is a professional who provides expert advice in a particular area such as business, education, law, regulatory compliance, human resources, marketing (and public relations), finance, health care, engineering, science, security (electronic or physical), or any of many other specialized fields.

A consultant is usually an expert or an experienced professional in a specific field and has a wide knowledge of the subject matter. The role of consultant outside the medical sphere (where the term is used specifically for a grade of doctor) can fall under one of two general categories:

• Internal consultant: Someone who operates within an organization but is available to be consulted on areas of their specialization by other departments or individuals (acting as clients); or
• External consultant: Someone who is employed externally to the client (either by a consulting firm or some other agency) whose expertise is provided on a temporary basis, usually for a fee. Consulting firms range in size from sole proprietorships consisting of a single consultant, small businesses consisting of a small number of consultants, to mid- to large consulting firms, which in some cases are multinational corporations. This type of consultant generally engages with multiple and changing clients, which are typically companies, non-profit organizations, or governments.

By hiring a consultant, clients have access to deeper levels of expertise than would be financially feasible for them to retain in-house on a long-term basis. Moreover, clients can control their expenditures on consulting services by only purchasing as much services from the outside consultant as desired.

Consultants provide their advice to their clients in a variety of forms. Reports and presentations are often used. However, in some specialized fields, the consultant may develop customized software or other products for the client. Depending on the nature of the consulting services and the wishes of the client, the advice from the consultant may be made public, by placing the report or presentation online, or the advice may be kept confidential, and only given to the senior executives of the organization paying for the consulting services.

A job advertisement is basically a paid announcement about a job opening or vacancy in a company or organization. It is one of the many components of a recruitment process, and considered to be one of the essential tools used by hiring managers, recruiters and human resource professionals in order to fill existing openings or needs for skills and manpower in organizations, companies and firms.

When you say “job adverts”, the first medium that will probably come to mind is the classified ads section of newspapers. But that is not the only place where you can find these job advertisements these days.

• Newspapers and publications with sections devoted entirely to job advertisements. Traditional and old-school recruitment processes still entail the publication of job adverts in publications of local and national circulation. There are even magazines that are specifically and purely targeted towards jobseekers and headhunters, and they are filled with job adverts.
• Online job boards and job sites. Thanks to the internet, the recruitment process now has a wider and more dynamic reach. Online job boards, job sites, and other forums that deal with connecting jobseekers with recruiters are also sure places to find job advertisements that cut across industries.
• Television and other audio-visual multimedia platforms. Job advertisements are also broadcasted over the television and radio, basically announcing that this or that organization is currently looking for someone to fill this or that position.
• Social media platforms. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn these are only a few of the many social media platforms where you can find job advertisements. Companies with strong social media presence often advertise their job openings in their social media accounts, and their followers are the first ones to know about them.
• Companies’ and organizations’ bulletin boards. Head over to the offices and headquarters of the companies, and they are likely to have a large space in their lobbies or reception areas that are filled with advertisements regarding vacancies and openings in their ranks.

The venue or medium where the adverts appear will vary, depending on several factors, mostly with respect to the size of the company and the nature of the organization, as well as its financial resources. Larger companies that can afford to spend on its recruitment processes may put out its job adverts in multiple platforms, while those who are on a tight budget may opt to pick just one or two.

The importance of job advertisements

Product advertisements have one goal: to attract consumers into buying the product or service. The same goes for job adverts, since they are designed to attract the suitable candidates for the open position being advertised.

How can an organization benefit from an effective job and recruitment advertisement? Let us count the ways.

• It will increase the chances that the candidates who will apply are suitable for the open position, meaning that the applicants have the skills, talents and competencies required specifically for the job being advertised. A poorly written job advertisement will lead to just about anyone applying for a job, even if they are not qualified for it. For example, a company that is looking for an engineer may find itself pelted with application submissions from people with zero background and knowledge in engineering.
• It reduces the time spent by recruiters and hiring managers going through applications of unsuitable applicants. In the previous example, they would not waste time sifting through the resumes of people with medical backgrounds, because the job advertisement precisely stated that the company needs an engineer. And it is not just the time spent in the preliminary screening that will be saved, because they will also save time on the rest of the recruitment process. Imagine a hiring manager realizing only during the interview process that the person has no knowledge whatsoever about production engineering processes. That means he just wasted time on that applicant, when it could have been spent on other, more qualified prospects.
• It improves the quality of staffing of the company. A company’s growth is not just reflected by the numbers, or how much profit it made during its several years of operation. Even the quality of manpower will also be indicative of its growth. Many companies have gained repute for having a structure that is staffed by quality people, with brilliant minds, talents and skills. Another result of this is that qualified candidates will be keeping their eyes on the company, in case it has job openings in the future. The company will then have less trouble attracting the top candidates for its open positions.

Types of Job Advertisements

Job adverts, just like product and service adverts, also come in different “shapes and sizes”, in order to attract more potential applicants. There are two main forms or types of job advertisements:

Display advertisements

These advertisements are designed to be displayed and to grab attention at first glance. It makes use of bold headlines and a generous amount of photographs, illustrations and other graphics. Thus, they are usually prepared with the help of graphic ad designers.

In display advertisements, size matters, and so does creativity. The adverts can come in various sizes, and the general principle is “the bigger, the better”. Of course, those with limited budget may settle for adverts the size of a small box, while those with more money to spend may pay for job adverts that will be run on full pages of newspapers or magazines. Those who have even more money to spend could even run their advert in two pages, making it a full-spread job advertisement.

Classified advertisements

Compared to display advertisements, classified advertisements are simpler and much more straightforward. Think of an entire page filled with job advertisements that, at first glance, essentially look the same. There is a general heading indicating a job category, and under that category will be the job advertisements, which are usually composed of a heading and text relevant to the job being advertised.

There is often no room for the company advertising the open position to exercise its creativity in this type of advertisement, and neither does it have the freedom to style it in a way that is sure to grab the attention of jobseekers perusing that page.

Basic elements of job adverts

According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, a job advert is effective if it reflects the role that the selected applicant or candidate will perform once he is hired by the company, as well as the expectations of the employer regarding his performance.

Various literature and sources have quoted the basic elements of a successful job posting or advertisement, listing varying numbers of these elements. Some compressed the basic elements into five, namely:

1. Information about the job opening or vacancy: This includes the duties and responsibilities of the position or job opening that the organization aims to fill.
2. Candidate profile: This is an outline of the education, experience, skills and other requirements of the open position.
3. Company information: This provides potential applicants an insight into the working environment.
4. Employee benefits: This includes the salary range and other benefits that the employee who will be chosen for the job will receive once he is employed and performing.
5. The application process: This basically provides instruction on how the applicants will apply, and where they will send in their application letters and resumes.

For any organization, staffing is a crucial part of emerging and upholding an effective and efficient team. A good staffing plan will cut down the wastage of time and money, which would have experienced for wide training and growth of unqualified resources.

Have you ever believed of, how a recruiter finds the right candidates? Recruiters use, unlike methods to source, screen, shortlist, and select the resources as per the necessities of the organization. Recruitment types clarify the means by which an organization reaches potential job seekers.

Recruitment is of two types:

Internal Sources of Recruitment

Internal bases of employment refer to appointment employees within the group internally. In other words, candidates looking for the diverse positions are those who are presently employed with the similar organization.

At the time recruitment of teams, the initial contemplation should be given to those staffs who are presently working within the organization. This is an significant source of staffing, which delivers the chances for the growth and utilization of the current resources within the organization.

Internal sources of recruitment are the best and the coolest way of choosing resources as presentation of their work is previously known to the organization. Let us now debate more on the numerous internal sources of recruitment.

(i) Promotions

Promotion refers to advancement the team of the employees by estimating their presentation in the organization. It is the procedure of shifting an employee from a lower position to a higher position with more tasks, remuneration, facilities, and status. Many organizations fill the higher vacant positions with the process of promotions, internally.

(ii) Transfers

Transfer refers to the procedure of switching from one job to another without any alteration in the rank and duties. It can also be the shifting of employees from one department to another department or one location to another location, depending upon the requirement of the position.

Let’s take an instance to know how it works. Take on there is a financial corporation called ABC Ltd. Having two branches, Branch-A and Branch-B, and an employee from Branch-A accepting from his job accountabilities. Therefore, this position has to be occupied for the continuance of the project with Branch-A.

In this situation, as a substitute of searching or sourcing new candidates, which is time consuming and costly, there is an opportunity of shifting an employee from Branch-B to Branch-A, contingent upon the project necessities and the proficiencies of that respective employee. This internal shifting of an employee from one branch to alternative branch is called as Transfer.

(iii) Recruiting Former Employees

Recruiting former employees is a procedure of interior sources of recruitment, where in the ex employees are called back contingent upon the prerequisite of the position. This procedure is cost effective and saves time. The other main advantage of recruiting former staffs is that they are very well experienced with the roles and tasks of the job and the organization needs to spend less on their training and development.

(iv) Internal Advertisements (Job Posting)

Internal Advertisements is a procedure of posting/advertising jobs inside the organization. This job placement is an exposed invitation to all the employees inside the organization, where they can put on for the vacant positions. It delivers equal chances to all the employees working in the organization. Therefore, the recruitment will be done from within the organization and it saves a lot of cost.

(v) Employee Referrals

Employee referrals is an real way of obtaining the right applicants at a low cost. It is the procedure of hiring new resources through the references of employees, who are currently working with the organization. In this procedure, the current staffs can refer their friends and relatives for filling up the available positions.

Organizations inspire employee referrals, since it is cost effective and saves time as likened to hiring candidates from external sources. Maximum organizations, in order to inspire their employees, go ahead and prize them with a transfer bonus for a successful hire.

(vi) Previous Applicants

At this point, the hiring team orders the profiles of preceding applicants from the organizational employment database. These candidates are those who have applied for jobs in the past. These resources can be simply advanced and the reply will be optimistic in most of the cases. It is also a cheap way of filling up the vacant positions.

2. External Sources of Recruitment

External bases of recruitment, refer to hiring staffs outside the organization outwardly. In other words, the candidates seeking job chances in this case are those who are external to the organization.

External employees carry innovativeness and fresh opinions to the organization. Though hiring over external sources is a bit costly and tough, it has marvelous potential of driving the organization forward in achieving its goals. Let us now debate in detail the numerous external sources of recruitment.

(i) Direct Recruitment

Direct recruitment mentions to the external source of employment where the recruitment of experienced candidates is done by assigning a notice of opportunity on the notice board in the organization. This technique of sourcing is also called as factory gate recruitment, as the blue-collar and technical workers are hired over this process.

(ii) Employment Exchanges

As per the law, for definite job vacancies, it is compulsory that the organization offers details to the employment exchange. Employment exchange is a government object, where the particulars of the job seekers are stored and given to the bosses for filling the vacant positions. This external recruitment is cooperative in hiring for inexpert, semi-skilled, and skilled workers.

(iii) Employment Agencies

Employment agencies are a decent external source of employment. Employment agencies are run by numerous sectors like private, public, or government. It offers inexpert, semi-skilled and skilled wealth as per the necessities of the organization. These agencies hold a database of capable applicants and organizations can use their services at a cost.

(iv) Advertisements

Advertisements are the maximum popular and very much favored source of external source of recruitment. The job opportunity is stated through numerous print and electronic media with a precise job description and stipulations of the requirements. Using ads is the best way to source candidates in a short span and it offers an well-organized way of screening the candidates’ specific requirements.

Let’s take an instance. Accept that there is a Sales Company called XYZ Ltd which has got a new project of retailing a product in a short span of time, as the opposition is very high. In this situation, selecting the specific staffing plays a vital role. Here the ideal type of staffing which should be chosen is Advertisement.

Advertisement is the best appropriate repetition for this kind of hiring, because a large capacity of hiring in a small span can be done through Ad only. Advertisement is one of the highest way to recruit candidates, but when time and number are significant, then advertisement is the best basis of recruitment.

(v) Professional Associations

Professional associations can help a business group in signing professional, technical, and managerial personnel, on the other hand, they focus in sourcing mid-level and top-level resources. There are various professional relations that act as a bridge between the administrations and the job-seekers.

(vi) Campus Recruitment

Campus recruitment is an exterior basis of recruitment, where the educational organizations such as colleges and universities offers chances for hiring students. In this procedure, the organizations visit technical, management, and professional institutions for recruiting students directly for the new positions.

(vii) Word of Mouth Advertising

Word of mouth is an imperceptible way of obtaining the candidates for filling up the empty positions. There are numerous reputed administrations with good image in the market. Such administrations only requisite a word-of-mouth advertising concerning a job opening to attract a large number of candidates.

A number of contemporary issues in the design of work have emerged in the recent past. The issues include telecommuting, alternative work pattern, techno stress, task revision and skill development. Firms use these approaches to the design of work as ways to manage growing business, while contributing to a better balance of work and family life of employees.

1. Telecommuting

One of the recent changes and potentially the most far-reaching is telecommuting. Two of every three Fortune 500 companies now use telecommuting. It is the use of microcomputers, networks and other communication technology such as fax machines to do work from home, which was traditionally done in the workplace. The employee has no contact with other employees, but is able to communicate with them using electronic means: A variant of telecommuting is the virtual office, where employees are in the field selling or serving customers.

2. Alternative work pattern

Job sharing is an example of alternative work pattern. It involves two people sharing a full time job. It can be implemented in several ways:

• Each working a half day, five days a week.
• Each working two or three hill days a week
• Each working every other week
• Each working alternate months or seasons.

Companies that use job sharing are primarily in the legal, advertising and financial services sectors.

One advantage of job sharing is that it enables a firm to retain valued employees who, for personal reasons, no longer want to work hill time. The problem of maternity leave can almost be eliminated. It is also suited to the needs of older employees who want to phase into retirement by shortening their working days. Job sharing can also limit layoffs during hard economic times. Absenteeism is much less as employees can avoid the leisure time during the week to attend to their personal needs.

However, job sharing goes against the concept of employer employee relationship. Traditionally, a single job is held by one employee and it sounds rather strange that one post is shared by two individuals.

Assuming it is in place, the employer faces the problem of pro rating remuneration and administering benefits between tow part time employees.

3. Techno stress

Techno stress is stress caused by new and advancing technologies in the workplace, mostly by information technology. For example, the widespread use of electronic bulletin hoards as a forum for rumors of layoffs may cause feeling of uncertainty and anxiety. However, the same boards can be an important source of information for workers.

Advanced information technologies enable organizations to monitor employee performance, even when the worker is not aware of such arrangement. These new technologies also allow organizations to tie pay to performance because performance is electronically monitored.

4. Task Revision

A new concept in the design of work is task revision. Task revision is an innovative way to modify an incorrectly specified role or job. Task revision assumes that organizational roles and job expectations may have been correctly or incorrectly defined. Where the role is correctly defined, behavior of the employee fits the role and performance tends to be high. Performance suffers because of deviant behaviors which result from incorrectly defined jobs. Task revision helps correct such incorrectly, defined jobs.

5. Skill Development

Ability of the employees should be an important consideration in job design. Where employee’s skills and competence do not match with the requirements of job, performance suffers. Thus, organizations must consider the talents and skills of their employees when they engage in job design efforts.

A well defined job will make the job interesting and satisfying for the employee. The result is increased performance and productivity. If a job fails to appear compelling or interesting and leads to employee dissatisfaction, it means the job has to be redesigned based upon the feedback from the employees.

Job design requires the assembly of a number of tasks into a job or a group of jobs. An individual may carry out one main task which consists of a number of interrelated elements or functions. On the other hand, task functions may be split between a team working closely together or strung a long an assembly line.

In more complex jobs, individuals may carry out a variety of connected tasks, each with a number of functions, or these tasks may be allocated to a group of workers or divided between them. Complexity in a job may be a reflection of the number and variety of tasks to be carried out, or the range and scope of the decisions that have to be made, or the difficulty of predicting the outcome of decisions.

Broadly speaking the various factors that affect a job design can classified under three heads. They are:

• Organizational Factors
• Environmental Factors
• Behavioural Factors

1. Organizational Factors

Organizational factors that affect job design can be work nature or characteristics, work flow, organizational practices and ergonomics.

(i) Work Nature

There are various elements of a job and job design is required to classify various tasks into a job or a coherent set of jobs. The various tasks may be planning, executing, monitoring, controlling etc. and all these are to be taken into consideration while designing a job.

(ii) Ergonomics

Ergonomics aims at designing jobs in such a way that the physical abilities and individual traits of employees are taken into consideration so as to ensure efficiency and productivity.

(iii) Workflow

Product and service type often determines the sequence of work flow. A balance is required between various product or service processes and a job design ensures this.

(iv) Culture

Organizational culture determines the way tasks are carried out at the work places. Practices are methods or standards laid out for carrying out a certain task. These practices often affect the job design especially when the practices are not aligned to the interests of the unions.

2. Environmental Factors

Environmental factors affect the job design to a considerable extent. These factors include both the internal as well as external factors. They include factors like employee skills and abilities, their availability, and their socio economic and cultural prospects.

(i) Employee availability and abilities

Employee skills, abilities and time of availability play a crucial role while designing of the jobs. The above mentioned factors of employees who will actually perform the job are taken into consideration. Designing a job that is more demanding and above their skill set will lead to decreased productivity and employee satisfaction.

(ii) Socio economic and cultural expectations

Jobs are nowadays becoming more employee centered rather than process centered. They are therefore designed keeping the employees into consideration. In addition the literacy level among the employees is also on the rise. They now demand jobs that are to their liking and competency and which they can perform the best.

3. Behavioural Factors

Behavioural factors or human factors are those that pertain to the human need and that need to be satisfied for ensuring productivity at workplace. They include the elements like autonomy, diversity, feedback etc. A brief explanation of some is given below:

(i) Autonomy

Employees should work in an open environment rather than one that contains fear. It promotes creativity, independence and leads to increased efficiency.

(ii) Feedback

Feedback should be an integral part of work. Each employee should receive proper feedback about his work performance.

(iii) Diversity

Repetitive jobs often make work monotonous which leads to boredom. A job should carry sufficient diversity and variety so that it remains as interesting with every passing day. Job variety / diversity should be given due importance while designing a job.

(iv) Use of Skills and abilities

Jobs should be employee rather than process centered. Though due emphasis needs to be given to the latter but jobs should be designed in a manner such that an employee is able to make full use of his abilities and perform the job effectively.