Critical Review of Recruitment and Selection Methods: Understanding the Current Practices

Syed Iradat Abbas, Muzafar Hussain Shah and Yusuf Haji Othman, "Critical Review of the Recruitment and Selection Methods: Understanding Where We Stand”, Annals of Contemporary Developments in Management & HR (ACDMHR), Print ISSN: 2632-7686, Online ISSN: 2632-7694, pp. 46-52, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1st August 2021, Published by International Association of Educators and Researchers (IAER), DOI: 10.33166/ACDMHR.2021.03.005, Available: http://acdmhr.theiaer.org/archive/v3/v3n3/p5.html. Review Article


Introduction
In this globalization era, the role of human resources is very prominent as its influence is growing along with the developing world (Enis, 2018). The employees considered as human capital are the most valuable asset for any organisation as they play direct role in the performance of the organisation. Therefore, the development of an organisation depends on the effective management of human resource. Selection and recruitment are among fundamental components of Human resource management practices taken by organisations to develop and enhance employee capability to enable them to obtain both individual and organisational objectives (Ogedegbe 2014;Selase 2018). Such practices should be in tandem with the overall organisational strategy and ensure that an organisation has the right number of personnel, at the proper place at the proper time and doing the correct thing in the right way. Armstrong (2009) posits that human resource management practices support organisational goals and objectives and should be responsive to changes in the organisational environment. Moreover, the role of human resource department in an organisation works like a powerhouse as they have to hire the most suitable persons according to the need of the organisation (Ogedegbe, 2014). www.acdmhr.theiaer.org As human resource has great importance for the organisation, likewise, it can be observed in the process of recruitment as well as in the domain of the staffing of employees which is of a great importance for the overall performance of the organisation. It is important to note that good employees can take an organisation to the heights of success, whereas a single bad selection may cause business destruction. Recruitment and selection is the first step to choosing the right person for the right job and the development of organisation directly depends on it as it consists of planning, targeting, identifying, shortlisting, and selecting the most suitable talent for the specific job. The current study looks into the widely used recruitment and selection practices to help refresh concepts and understanding for researchers on the topic.

Recruitment
Recruitment is a decision of human resource management planning regarding the number of employees needed, when needed, as well as the criteria for what is needed in an organisation. It is the first step in acquiring staff and is considered a positive function that aims to attract a large pool of qualified candidates to apply for available job vacancies (Armstrong, 2009). In the views of Henry and Temtime (2009), it can be said that they considered the fact that recruitment is a process by which talented individuals can be allowed to get entry into an organisation and with the time tenured training, the rationality of such type of recruitments can be testified and verified. According to Abbasi, Tahir, Abbas, and Shabir (2020) that recruitment can be considered to be a process in which the different types of desirable candidates who are in search of a suitable type of job can be allowed for entry to the said organisation for gaining a talents pool of employees and gaining a competitive edge in the said market dynamics. Moreover, Geetha and Bhanu (2018) maintain that with the era of increased global competition and rapidly changing business environment, corporate process depends largely on recruiting and retaining high-quality individuals whose contribution will add a considerable value to the employing organisation or institution.
The above evidence thus allows us to understand that different types of recruitment and selection methods are considered by the different types of organisations. Here, organisations use different methods so that they can have a cost-effective approach for sustainable practice. The overall objective of recruitment is to assess the most qualified applicants from the data of applicable applicants for a said job in the domain (Gamage, 2014). Recruitment is all about making sure that qualified people are available to meet the job needs of the business. Ineffective recruitment prevents any chance for effective candidate selection because when recruitment falls short, selection must proceed with a pool of poorly qualified candidates. He (Gamage) further opined that the task of recruitment is to generate a sufficient pool of applicants to ensure that there are enough people available with necessary skills and requirements to fill positions (Geetha & Bhanu 2018).

Recruitment Techniques and Types 2.2.1 Advertisement
It has been observed that the organisations do advertise their vacant positions both on the electronic print media as well as the different types of other media channels to attract different types of talented applicants for their said organisation (Russo et al., 2000). An advertisement is generally developed in such a manner that it could trigger the responsiveness of different types of individuals in the concerned process.

Contracting Agencies
A recruitment agency, also known as a labour broker, is an organisation that takes contract responsibilities of recruiting employees for an organisation for an agreed consideration. This arrangement seems to be very efficient in recruiting the most able type of people in the different types of employability (Florea, 2014).It has been observed that in exchange of pre-determined fees, mostly from the employers and www.acdmhr.theiaer.org in some cases from the employees, these types of agencies do some pre-selection activities that are very beneficial in choosing the suitable candidates according to the need in the said organisation. The role of activities of the different types of private employment agencies may differ in their policy of execution and work methods in this said domain. It has also been observed that these types of employment agencies are highly beneficial to the employers in the selection of a proper type of candidate if a proper type of briefing of the required profile of candidates in given to them.

Employee Referrals
Employee referral is typically denoted as a recruitment technique where employees are asked to recommend potential individuals outside of the organisation for vacant positions (Stephen et al., 2013). In this method, it is generally observed that the employees are selected on the basis of the referrals of the present employees in an organisation (Rajarao, 2010). In most cases, several organisations are seen to be dependent on this system of employee referral for better performance results. The most beneficial aspects of such a method are that it saves time, cost of recruitment procedures for an organisation, and enhances the process of recruitment to a greater extent. The HRM managers are also observed to offer different incentives, including cash rewards, to the present employees for referring to the best types of candidates in the said domain. It has also been observed that there are some significant behavioural differences between referred and non-referred workers, even though referred and non-referred workers look similar on most observable characteristics (Stephen et al., 2013).

Labour and Union Offices
Labour Offices world over have a system of Unions that are very useful in the recruitment of the different types of labour and also in meeting the different types of labour requirements of the various types of organisations in the business domain of mostly the building and construction industry as well as the printing industries (Keshav, 2013). It has been observed that a labour pool is generally available with such type of union and they, in some cases, also predict the nature and the type of the employees that will be hired and also in respect to the positions where they will be placed.

E-Recruitment
In the wake of COVID-19 Pandemic, e-recruitment has become a widespread workforce sourcing technique. As nations across the globe are experiencing social distancing measures, majority of companies are using technology for all the possible business activities, including recruitment (Ptel, 2020). Let us see how technology and electronic platforms are used for recruitment.

Electronic Application system
Although companies widely use electronic applications, in the wake of COVID-19 Pandemic, it has become a much common practice. Local or international, majority of companies are noticed adopting electronic application systems. These systems let candidates to fill the application form and submit all necessary documents. Small and medium enterprises are also pushing themselves into this practice which is interesting to learn (Nguti & Mose, 2021). Also, government units in developing nations have also been attracted to using electronic recruitment systems since the Pandemic has started (Schislyaeva & Plis, 2021), showing substantial improvement, much needed across the public sector institutions in the world. This is important to understand since organisations across the globe are working hard to improve overall business processes to improve organisational efficiency. The transformation of businesses in the shape of digitization is much needed to boost economic functioning.

E-Advertisement
Electronic advertisement outlines two major platforms, which are e-recruitment portals and social media. The COVID-19 has given a new boost to such recruitment websites such as Monster, Career Builder, www.acdmhr.theiaer.org Indeed, Glassdoor, etc. Many business and occupational sectors use these platforms to reach out to potential candidates (Smythe et al., 2021). With a small fee, these platforms let companies advertise and help attract thousands of applicants from all over the world. According to D`Silva (2020), the use of erecruitment has made the staff procedures more effective and timely, leading to improving business and organisational effectiveness. Generally, this was a common practice for international and multi-national organisations and has become a widely accepted practice for local small and medium enterprises over the recent years (Junejo et al., 2019). As many enablers are required to transform to e-recruitment (Mishra & Kumar, 2019) and many small and medium businesses, especially those with limited resources, were unable to quickly transform their sourcing activities during COVID-19 Pandemic e-recruitment platforms appears to be a great help.
Social media has already been used for various business activities and therefore has become an unavoidable part of daily life for many across the globe (Qualman, 2012). Ranging from a wide variety of business activities such as procurement, finance, trade and other possible activities, social media is also used now for recruitment purposes. Particularly, since the COVID-19 has started, social media has become a widely used recruitment platform (Ali et al., 2020). Social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook are noticed to be heavily used for job advertisement and initial screening, helping both individuals and organisations effectively and timely connect during the ongoing Pandemic (Mudili & Trivedi, 2020). A recent article has reported LinkedIn to be one of the best social media platforms for job searching and advertisement and has predicted its further growth and launch of more similar platforms in the future if the Pandemic situation continues (Hosain & Liu, 2020). In a nutshell, e-advertisement through social media has become a common practice, and organisations actively reach out to such platforms to attract desired candidates.

Employee Selection
Employee selection commences after prospective employees have been recruitment in an organisation. In the views of Maloney (2001), the selection can be considered to be a process where the best candidate is considered from a pool of available candidature. It is generally a type of procedure-oriented activity in which the different types of techniques and methodologies are used to select the most deserving candidate from the list of the available candidates (Ofori & Aryeetey, 2011). In the view of Gamage (2014), the process of selection can be considered to be a specific type of process that can be used to either select the most suitable candidate from the list of the available candidates or to reject a large number of candidates that do not fulfil the entire set of the criteria for the available job vacancies for the said vacancy from the vast pool of candidates. It can be observed that the process of selection can be considered to be one of the process in which the employers do try to find the type of the person that is most suited for a particular type of job in the said organisation by the fulfilment of all of its desirable criteria's. In the opinion of (Pulakos, 2005), it can be observed that the selection process can be considered to be a process in which the employer may think before offering a particular job offer to a particular type of candidate.
Selection is an extremely important aspect in the domain of the organisational effectiveness and efficiency in order to maintain the space and the quality of the organisational efficiency the right kind of people will have to be placed at the right place for ensuring a better type of organisational performance (Henry & Temtime, 2009). The different types of discussion of facts that have been above do interpret the fact that selection is basically the type of process in which an organisation tries to find out the most suitable candidate from the list of a large number of available candidates present for the evaluation. The recruitment is a costly process, and so it is generally observed that the organisations do their best to select the right kind of people from the very beginning of the process so that at the end of the process, that organisation can have its worth of spending time and money for the selection of the proper candidate for a better type of www.acdmhr.theiaer.org business proficiency. In the view of Gamage (2014), the selection process ensures the probability of the selection of the right kind of candidates and it is a general fact that when the right candidate gets the right kind of job, then the organisational efficiency and productivity is bound to be enhanced. In the views of Kaliannan (2018), the selection procedure is basically a firing process in which the employers try to find out the best types of candidates by gathering the different types of information about them so as to compare their suitability for the said job from amongst a large pool of eligible contestants.

Interviews
The process of interviews is probably one of the most common methods that are generally used in the process of selection of candidates (Akuamoah et al., 2016). It generally reveals much subjective analysis if the applicant and the person's compatibility with the said type of job in the concerned organisation. Different types of situations may be considered in respect to gaining available information from the candidates during interpersonal communication. There are several types of characteristics of an interviewing process: (1) the candidates can be better appraised after a round of well-structured interview questions.
(2) Sometimes, excessive weightage can be rendered to the different types of unfavourable situations. (3). Sometimes the stereotypic nature of the interviewer may influence decisions. (4) In some cases, it is noticed that the interviewer finishes the formal interview at a much early stage of the interview and the rest of the time is utilized to find more relevant information in respect to the concerned candidature.(5) In some interviews, the favorable information may get clouded by the presence of a large amount of unfavorable information. (6) It has been observed that with a greater number of job vacancies, the efficiency of such types of interviews is relatively high.

E-Interviews
The COVID-19 Pandemic has also made the electronic interviews a common practice, and companies actively use it to select individuals. With social distancing measures in place, businesses could not invite candidates for face-to-face interviews. The survey report on the remote interviews conducted during the COVID-19 Pandemic crisis highlighted the important use of the process (Temsah et al., 2021). The online interviews were actively applied even in the healthcare sector, which is generally seen as a sensitive sector and requires careful and close examination to hire the best candidates (AL-Abrrow et al., 2021).

Line Manager Approval
It has been observed that generally, after the carrying out of the different types of interview steps, the candidate should have been considered to be selected for the said process, but in some organisations it has been observed that the last and the final round of interview is conducted by the supervisor of the different types of organisations (Broyles et al., 2011). It has been generally observed that in most cases, supervisors are the people who have knowledge and access to the different types of jobs and are aware of the competencies needed. Thus, such inter-personal sessions help make a better judgment and examine all the theoretical and practical aspects related to the job.

Reference Checks
The purpose of the reference check in any organisation is to cross verify the different types of information that a candidate has provided in the information sheet and also to have knowledge about his past behaviour in the different types of organisations that the said person has been working for (Hedricks et al., 2019). According to a study by Fall and Chulkov (2013), in the case of most of the public sector enterprises, the reference check is done before the short-listed candidates are called for an interview. However, it is mainly done in the case of private enterprise after the provincial appointment letter has been given to the candidates for the said organisation. www.acdmhr.theiaer.org

Physical Checks
The physical examination can be considered to be a comprehensive type of test that has now been made a compulsion in many organisations. The nature of such type of information can vary from a simple type of physical examination to a very evaluative type in testing the different types of the physical attributes of a candidate in doing a particular type of job. The main purpose of such a physical examination is to test the different types of physical abilities of the candidates and save the companies from the unethical and unreasonable claims in the domain of health by the employers. The above evidence thus enables us to understand that in the process of selection and recruitment the presence of different types of physical examinations has a vital role in finalizing candidates. Proper type of physical examination gives a clear picture of the different types of physical and mental situations.

Conclusion
The review hence concludes that different recruitment and selection approaches are still actively used and a significant rise can be seen in the use of electronic mediums for staffing procedures. Organisations are actively using a variety of different approaches which not only serve to facilitate the process of recruitment and effective employment but also to keep the operating expenses to the minimum. The review also outlined.