Formal recruiting

Equal opportunity demands equal access. This can only be achieved through public and open recruitment.The likelihood of attracting 'suitable' applicants depends on the detail and specificity of the recruitment advertisement or literature. Key factors such as salary, job title, career and travel opportunities obviously influence response rates. But remember that employers do not want to be swamped with large numbers of applications from unsuitable people. This section of Human Resource Management in a Business Context goes into further detail such as: quality of agency recruiters, comparison of different media channels, cultural variation in recruitment practice.

Informal recruiting

Word-of-mouth applicants are likely to stay longer and may be more suitable than recruits obtained by advertising. But word-of-mouth is discriminatory, since it restricts applications to established communities and excludes recently arrived minority groups who have not had time to become part of informal networks. (...)
At senior levels the informal method known as 'headhunting' or executive search has become common. Specialist consultancies aim to find 'outstanding' people to fill higher-paying jobs. Whether they really are 'outstanding' is questionable.

Recruitment: marketing jobs

Potential candidates may come from an internal trawl of the organization, or from the external job market. The latter are reached through channels such as recruitment advertising, employment agencies, professional associations or word of mouth. The approach differs according to the organization's resourcing philosophy:

- Organizations with a strong culture are likely to seek malleable new employees at school-leaving or graduate levels. More senior jobs are filled from the internal job market.

- Companies looking for the 'right' (best fit for the job) person however may rule out internal applicants because they do not match the personnel specification prepared for the job.

Recruitment and Selection

Recruitment and selection refers to the chain and sequence of activities pertaining to recruitment and selection of employable candidates and job seekers for an organization. Every enterprise, business, start-up and entrepreneurial firm has some well-defined employment and recruitment policies and hiring procedures. The HR department of large organizations, businesses, government offices and multilateral organizations are generally vested with the responsibilities of employee recruitment and selection.