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.

Job design logically follows job analysis. Job analysis provides job related data as well as the skill and knowledge expected of the incumbent to discharge the job. Job design involves organizing tasks, duties and responsibilities into a unit of work to achieve certain objectives.

Job design is the process of deciding on the contents of a job in terms of its duties and responsibilities, on the methods to be used in carrying out the job in terms of techniques, systems and procedures, and on the relationships that should exist between the job holders and his supervisors, subordinates and colleagues.

The main objectives of job design are to integrate the needs of the individuals and the requirements of the organization. Needs of the employees include job satisfaction in terms of interest, challenge and achievement? Organizational requirements are high productivity, technical efficiency and quality of work.

1. Job Rotation

It is one of the methods of job design which is an answer to the problem of boredom. Job rotation implies the shifting of an employee from one job to another without any change in the job. With job rotation, a given employee performs different jobs but, more or less, jobs of the same nature.

Advantages of job rotation are as follows:

• Decreases monotony and boredom
• Reduces disinterest of employees and stimulates the development of new ideas
• Broadens the work experience of job holders
• Transforms the specialists into generalists
• Prepares employees for assuming greater responsibilities.

2. Job Simplification

Here the jobs are simplified or specialised. A given job is broken down into small sub-parts and each part is assigned to one individual.

Job simplification involves –

• Mechanical processing of work
• Repetitive work process (assembly lines)
• Working on only one part of a product
• Predetermining tools and techniques
• Few skill requirements.

Work simplification is done so that less-trained and the less paid employees can do these jobs.

This method has limitations. Over simplification results in boredom which lead in turn to errors.

3. Job Enlargement

It is the process of increasing the scope of a job by adding more tasks to it. The related tasks are combined. Job enlargement involves expanding the number of tasks or duties assigned to a given job. Job enlargement therefore, naturally is opposite to work simplification. Adding more tasks/ duties to a job does not mean that new skill and abilities are needed to perform it. There is only a horizontal expansion.

Job enlargement reduces monotony and boredom. It helps to increase interest in work and efficiency. But there is no time increase of the job. Enlarged jobs require longer training period as there are more task to be learned.

The key benefits provided by job enlargement are as follows:

• Increases the number of tasks to include variety and reduce the monotony and boredom in the existing job
• Increases employees’ job satisfaction by providing them an opportunity to develop and learn new skills
• Utilizes mental and physical skills and abilities of employees optimally and makes them satisfied
• Enables the employees to vary the rhythm and sequence of work at their own pace to make the job enjoyable for them.

There are certain shortcomings of the job enlargement approach, which are as follows:

• Increases the training cost
• Leads to decrease in productivity as employees take time to gel with the new system
• Gives rise to conflict with trade unions as they demand increase in pay with increase in workload
• Finds it difficult to remove the monotony and boredom from many jobs as one set of boring tasks is added to the existing set of boring tasks.

4. Job Enrichment

It involves designing a job in such a way that it provides the workers greater autonomy for planning and controlling his own performance. It seeks to improve tasks, efficiency and human satisfaction by building into people’s jobs, greater scope for personal achievement and recognition, more challenging and responsible work and more opportunity for individual advancement.

The features of an enriched job are described as follows:

• Personal Accountability: Makes job incumbents responsible for their output and performance. The job incumbents are rewarded according to their work.
• Increased and Direct Feedback: Ensure timely and fair evaluation of performance of employees.
• New and Unique Learning: Helps the job incumbent to grow intellectually and acquire unique qualities or features.
• Power to plan own work: Involves freedom to schedule own work and decide when to undertake which task.
• Control over resources: Provides job incumbent the authority of ordering and managing supplies and other resources necessary for performing their jobs.
• Encouraged participation: Ensures that the job incumbent feels committed and get a sense of belongingness through his/her enriched job.
• Client Relationship: Refers to direct or indirect interaction with clients. An enriched job may provide an opportunity to the employees to develop strong client base by maintaining good relationship with them.
• Authority of direct communication: Allows the job incumbent to converse directly with the persons who require his/her output.

The advantages of job enrichment are as follows:

• Makes the work interesting for employees
• Provides greater sense of responsibility, self-control, and self-esteem by allowing more autonomy in the tasks
• Motivates the employees by providing them the opportunities to develop and progress
• Facilitates the higher job satisfaction to employees
• Develops the new skills of the employees
• Makes the task reinforcement easy
• Reduces the absenteeism rate and attrition rate.

Further an enriched job shall meet certain psychological needs of job holders (Identity achievement) etc. Job enrichment is motivating and satisfying as it adds status to one’s job. Empowerment, a by-product of job enrichment, gives the employees a sense of ownership and control over their job.

The limitations are, if the employee is lazy or does not give due attention to his/her job, job enrichment will not have the desired outcomes. The cost of design and implementation increases. Further job enrichment by itself does not motivate. This must be preceded by the provision of other variables which contribute to the quality of work life.

Job Analysis is an important component of human resource management system. It provides important information which aids in redesigning jobs and organization structure, planning staffing procedures, designing training and appraisal programs.

Job analysis is beneficial for the overall management of all HR activities. Information obtained from job analysis is useful in various personnel activities, such as HRP, employee recruitment, training, job evaluation, compensation, and performance assessment.

1. Human Resource Planning

Job analysis is useful in human resource planning in terms of demand forecasting. It finds out the requisite knowledge and skills required to perform a job.

2. Recruitment

Job analysis helps in recruitment in terms of finding how and when people should be hired for new job openings. It makes the recruitment process easier by highlighting the skills, knowledge and abilities required to perform a job.

3. Selection

Job analysis helps in selecting the right person by making the employer understand what is to be done on a job.

4. Placement and Orientation

Job analysis is useful in putting the newly selected person at the right place in the organization.

5. Training

Job analysis eases the training process by identifying the duties and responsibilities associated with a job. If the candidate doesn’t have enough knowledge, then training is provided to make him effective.

6. Counselling

Proper counselling of the employee is possible only after knowing the details about the employee’s job. This helps in grooming the career of the employees.

7. Employee Safety

Through a proper job analysis the analyst can know the health hazards and accidents associated with a job. By knowing, proper steps can be undertaken to eradicate those situations.

8. Performance Appraisal

In case of performance appraisal the appraiser compares the performance of the employee with the standard performance based on job analysis. It makes the process of performance appraisal easy and simple.

9. Job Design and Redesign

Through job analysis the details of job are identified. From this the weak areas in a job are identified. It helps in reducing unnecessary movements, simplify certain steps and improve the existing ones through continuous monitoring.

10. Job Evaluation

It is finding the relative worth of a job in relation to other jobs in the organization. This is done with the help of the job analysis. Job evaluation helps in fixing the pay package of employees with internal and external pay equity.

Utility of Job/Task Analysis

The activity of job analysis is noted to serve several purposes in human resource management. It is useful not only to the organization but also to the individual employees.

(a) In recruitment and selection, task analysis especially competency analysis helps the organization to place people in jobs in which they can be more effective—matching role/job with the people.

(b) Job analysis helps in work planning in the following respects –

• Setting individual tasks,
• Helping the job incumbent to decide priorities of task,
• Minimizing overlaps between jobs, and
• Job enrichment

(c) In performance appraisal, job analysis helps in identifying the activities to be performed against which appraisal has to be done.

(d) Analysing the job helps in performance of the tasks and its evaluation by the supervisor.

(e) In potential appraisal, the exercise of task analysis helps in preparing a system of the competency analysis and actual potential appraisal work.

(f) In respect of employee development, task analysis provides feedback on strength and weakness, performance counselling, and training needs of employees.

(e) In team building activity through tasks analysis, better understanding is noted to be developed among employees, building linkages and mutuality between jobs.

Uses of Job Analysis

Job Analysis is an important component of human resource management system. It provides important information which aids in redesigning jobs and organisation structure, planning staffing procedures, designing training and appraisal programs.

The uses of job analysis are as follows:

1. Human Resource Planning

Job analysis represents the qualitative aspect of human resource requirements since it determines the demands of a job in terms of responsibilities and duties and then translates these demands in terms of skills, qualities and other human attributes. It helps in determining the number and kinds of jobs and qualifications needed to fill these jobs.

It is job analysis which reveals what an average person can do on a job in a day. It facilitates the division of work into different jobs which is an essential element of effective human resource planning.

2. Recruitment and Selection

To make employment program successful, it is necessary to have clear statements of jobs to be performed and of the skills and knowledge that must be possessed by the employees who will fill these jobs. The information regarding these two is procured from job descriptions and job specifications respectively.

These help in matching as closely as possible the job requirements with workers’ aptitudes, abilities and interests to facilitate the execution of employment program.

3. Placement

A clear understanding of job requirements helps in matching these with the abilities, interests and aptitudes of people. Each job can be assigned to the person who is best suited for it. Similarly, the orientation program can be geared towards helping the employee learn the activities, and understand duties that are required to perform a given job more effectively.

4. Training and Development

Training and development programs are administrated to help the employees to gain the skills and knowledge to perform the tasks assigned to them efficiently. This purpose can be achieved conveniently if the employees fully understand the job description and job specification, and are thus familiar with what they are expected to perform.

The same job information is also useful to those who administer training and development programs. It helps them in determining the contents and subject-matter to be incorporated in such programs.

5. Job Evaluation

Job evaluation aims at determining the relative worth of various jobs. The worth of a job would in turn help in determining the base compensation of the job. Job evaluation ensures internal pay equity of one job to another. To calculate the worth of a job, information concerning the job is provided by the job descriptions.

6. Performance Appraisal

Performance of the employees can be appraised objectively if clear-cut standards of performance for every job are established. Job analysis data can be adapted to establish clear-cut standards of performance for every job. In evaluating the performance of an employee, the supervisor can compare the actual contribution of each man with the set standards.

7. Employee Counselling

Job analysis provides information about career choices and personnel limitations. Such information is helpful in vocational guidance and counselling. Employees who are unable to cope with the hazards and demands of given job may be advised to opt for subsidiary jobs which are less demanding.

8. Job Design

Job analysis information helps in designing and redesigning of jobs by industrial engineers through time and motion study, work specification, work improvement and work measurement.

9. Organizational Design

Job analysis information is useful in classifying jobs and creating interrelationship among them. Responsibility commensurate with authority and accountability for various jobs can be specified so as to minimize duplications or overlapping. In order to improve organizational efficiency, sound decisions concerning hierarchical positions and functional differentiation can be taken on the basis of information obtained through job analysis.

10. Safety and Health

The process of job analysis provides an opportunity to uncover and identify hazardous conditions and unhealthy environmental factors like heat, noise, fumes, dust, etc. Corrective measures can be taken to minimise the chances of various risks, ensure safety to workers, and avoid unhealthy conditions.

Scope of Recruitment

The scope of Recruitment is very wide and it consists of a variety of operations. Resources are considered as most important asset to any organization. Hence, hiring right resources is the most important aspect of Recruitment. Every company has its own pattern of recruitment as per their recruitment policies and procedures.

The scope of Recruitment and Selection includes the following operations:

• Dealing with the excess or shortage of resources
• Preparing the Recruitment policy for different categories of employees
• Analyzing the recruitment policies, processes, and procedures of the organization
• Identifying the areas, where there could be a scope of improvement
• Streamlining the hiring process with suitable recommendations
• Choosing the best suitable process of recruitment for effective hiring of resources

Any organization wants it future to be in good and safe hands. Hence, hiring the right resource is a very important task for any organization.

Importance of Recruitment

Recruiters play an important role in the success of an organization. They essentially act as a filter that when used properly only selects the best candidates. In a constantly changing business world, companies need to hire people who are adaptable, loyal, knowledgeable, dependable and confident, thereby creating a foundation for success.

(i) Cost

Cost is a major reason why effective recruitment and selection is important. There are many ways in which poor recruitment practices can result in financial losses. For example, if a candidate’s competency is not accurately assessed, he may make mistakes that can hinder productivity. If he needs to be retrained or replaced, this takes up more company time that could otherwise be invested toward remaining competitive.

(ii) Retention

Improper recruitment and selection practices can often result in high turnover or involuntary separations. If a recruiter is not careful when analyzing resumes and conducting interviews, she may hire an employee with a weak work ethic or a tendency to move quickly from one job to the next “job hopping.” Recruiters should pay close attention to the lengths of time at each previous job and carefully check references. Another so-called “red flag” is a gradual decrease in responsibility. For example, if the candidate starts out working as a senior manager and slowly shows progression to a less complex role, this could indicate that he is not as competent as he claims.

(iii) Loyalty and Productivity

Loyalty and productivity are linked. Employees who feel dedicated to the organization will work hard to help it succeed. With this in mind, recruiters must ask questions that provide information about a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses. Additionally, interviewers should inquire about a candidate’s greatest achievements throughout her career. Generally, loyal employees will have a track record of striving for excellence, resulting in a more competitive, innovative and profitable business.

(iv) Legal Issues

Discrimination is a serious concern among recruiters. If discriminatory hiring practices can be proven, this could result in serious harm, both financially and in terms of reputation. The United States Department of Labor forbids discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, religion, political affiliation, religion or age. Steps can be taken to avoid such complications. First, advertise only the essential requirements for the position. Provide an accurate job description, listing only the position name and the specific duties involved. Things such as language proficiency or physical capabilities should not be listed unless they are absolutely essential for the role. When conducting interviews, ensure that the location is accessible by people with disabilities and refrain from holding interviews on religious or cultural holidays. Use the same questions for every candidate and try to have more than one recruiter present during the interview. Careful notes must be taken so that recruiters can justify hiring or not hiring the particular candidate.