Which of the following is an internal source of recruitment for an organization?

The sources included under each category are depicted in the following figure 6.1.

Now each of these discussed one by one.

A. Internal Sources:

1. Present Employees:

Promotions and transfers from among the present employees can be a good source of recruitment. Promotion implies upgrading of an employee to a higher position carrying higher status, pay and responsibilities. Promotion from among the present employees is advanta­geous because the employees promoted are well acquainted with the organisational culture, they get motivated, and it is cheaper also.

Promotion from among present employees also reduces the require­ment for job training. However, the disadvantage lies in limiting the choice to a few people and denying hiring of outsiders who may be better qualified and skilled. Furthermore, promotion from among present employees also results in inbreeding which creates frustration among those not promoted.

Transfer refers to shifting an employee from one job to another without any change in the position/post, status and responsibilities. The need for transfer is felt to provide employees a broader and varied base which is considered necessary for promotions. Job rotation, involves transfer of employees from one job to another on the lateral basis.

2. Former Employees:

Former employees are another source of applicants for vacancies to be filled up in the organisation. Retired or retrenched employees may be interested to come back to the company to work on a part-time basis. Similarly, some former employees who left the organisation for any reason may again be interested to come back to work. This source has the advantage of hiring people whose performance is already known to the organisation.

3. Employee Referrals:

This is yet another internal source of recruitment. The existing employ­ees refer their family members, friends and relatives to the company as potential candidates for the vacancies to be filled up in the organisation.

This source serves as one of the most effective methods of recruiting people in the organisation because employees refer to those potential candidates who meet the company requirements known to them from their own experience. The referred individuals are expected to be similar in type in terms of race and sex, for example, to those who are already working in the organisation.

4. Previous Applicants:

This is considered as internal source in the sense that applications from the potential candidates are already lying with the organisation. Sometimes, the organisations contact through mail or messenger these applicants to fill up the vacancies particularly for unskilled or semi- skilled jobs.

Evaluation of Internal Source:

Let us try to evaluate the internal source of recruitment. Obviously, it can be done in terms of its advantages and disadvantages. The same are spelled out as follows:

Advantages:

The advantages of the internal source of recruitment include the following:

1. Familiarity with own employees:

The organisation has more knowledge and familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of its own employees than of strange and unknown outsiders.

2. Better use of the talent:

The policy of internal recruitment also provides an opportunity to the organisation to make a better use of the talents internally available and to develop them further and further.

3. Economical Recruitment:

In case of internal recruitment, the organisation does not need to spend much money, time and effort to locate and attract the potential candidates. Thus, internal recruitment proves to be economical, or say, inexpensive.

4. Improves Morale:

This method makes employees sure that they would be preferred over the outsiders as and when vacancies will be filled up in their organisation.

5. A Motivator:

The promotion through internal recruitment serves as a source of motivation for employees to improve their career and income. The employees feel that organisation is a place where they can build up their life-long career. Besides, internal recruitment also serves as a means of attract­ing and retaining competent employees in the organisation.

Disadvantages:

The main drawbacks associated with internal recruitment are as follows:

1. Limited Choice:

Internal recruitment limits its choice to the talent available within the organisation. Thus, it denies the tapping of talent available in the vast labour market outside the organisation. Moreover, internal recruitment serves as a means for “inbreeding”, which is never j healthy for the future of the organisation.

2. Discourages Competition:

In this system, the internal candidates are protected from compe­tition by not giving opportunity to otherwise competent candidates from outside the organisation. This, in turn, develops a tendency among the employees to take promotion without showing extra performance.

3. Stagnation of Skills:

With the feeling that internal candidates will surely get promoted, their skill in the long run may become stagnant or obsolete. If so, the productivity and efficiency of the organisation, in turn, decreases.

4. Creates Conflicts:

Conflicts and controversies surface among the internal candidates, whether or not they deserve promotion.

B. External Sources:

External sources of recruitment lie outside the organisation. These outnumber internal sources.

The main ones are listed as follows:

1. Employment Exchanges:

The National Commission on Labour (1969) observed in its report that in the pre-Independence era, the main source of labour was rural areas surrounding the industries. Immediately after Independence, National Employment Service was established to bring employers and job seekers together.

In response to it, the compulsory Notification of Vacancies Act of 1959 (commonly called Employment Exchange Act) was instituted which became operative in 1960. Under Section 4 of the Act, it is obligatory for all industrial establishments having 25 workers or more, to notify the nearest employment exchange of vacancies (with certain exceptions) in them, before they are filled.

The main functions of these employment exchanges with their branches in most cities are registration of job seekers and their placement in the notified vacancies. It is obligatory for the employer to inform the outcome of selection within 15 days to the employment exchange.

Employment exchanges are particularly useful in recruiting blue-collar, white-collar and technical workers. A study conducted by Gopalji on 31 organisations throughout the country also revealed that recruitment through employment exchanges was most preferred for clerical personnel i.e., white-collar jobs.

2. Employment Agencies:

In addition to the government agencies, there are a number of private employment agencies who register candidates for employment and furnish a list of suitable candi­dates from their data bank as and when sought by the prospective employers. ABC Consultants, Datamatics, Ferguson Associates, S B Billimoria, etc. are the popular private employment agencies in our country.

Generally, these agencies select personnel for supervisory and higher levels. The main function of these agencies is to invite applications and short list the suitable candidates for the organisation. Of course, the final decision on selection is taken by the representatives of the organisation. At best, the representatives of the employment agencies may also sit on the panel for final selection of the candidates.

The employer organisations derive several advantages through this source. For example, this method proves cheaper than the one organisations recruiting themselves. The time saved in this method can be better utilized elsewhere by the organisation.

As the organisational identity remains unknown to the job seekers, it, thus, avoids receiving letters and attempts to influence. However, there is always a risk of loosing out in screening process done by the agencies, some applicants whom the representatives of the organisation would have liked to meet and select.

3. Advertisement:

Advertisement is perhaps the most widely used method for generating many applications. This is because its reach is very high. This method of recruitment can be used for jobs like clerical, technical and managerial. The higher the position in the organisation, the more specialized the skills or the shorter the supply of that resource in the labour market, the more widely dispersed the advertisements is likely to be. For example, the search for a top executive might include advertise­ments in a national daily like ‘The Hindu’.

Some employers / companies advertise their posts by giving a post box number or the name of some recruiting agency This is done to particularly keep own identity secret to avoid unnecessary correspondence with the applicants. However, the disadvantage of this blind ad, i.e., post box number is that the potential job seekers are hesitant to apply without knowing the image of the organisation, on the one hand, and the bad image/reputation that blind ads have received because of organisations that place such advertisements without positions lying vacant just to know the supply of labour/workers in the labour market, on the other.

While preparing advertisement, lot of care has to be taken to make it clear and to the point. It must ensure that some self-selection among applicants takes place and only qualified applicants respond to the advertisement. For this, advertisement copy should be prepared by using a four-point guide called AIDA. The letters in the acronym denote that advertisement should attract Attention, gain Interest, arouse a Desire and result in Action.

However, not many organisations mention complete details about job positions in their advertise­ments. What happens is that ambiguously worded and broad-based advertisements may generate a lot of irrelevant applications which would, by necessity, increase the cost of processing them. Here, the find­ings of a study of 496 recruitment advertisements published in The Hindu during 1981 seem worth mentioning. It was found that 33.6% of public sector advertisements and 20.7% of private sector adver­tisements provided necessary information about job possibilities, tasks and reporting relationships.

As far as compensation was concerned, more of the public sector organisations provided information about pay packets rather than the private sector organisations (71.2% as against 29.4%). Another interesting feature showed that all public sector organisations provided information on minimum qualifications while only 18.3% of private sector organisations offered this information. Finally, only 5.6% of the public and 1.1% of the private organisations provided information on selection process.

4. Professional Associations:

Very often, recruitment for certain professional and technical positions is made through professional associations also called ‘ headhunters’. Institute of Engineers, Indian Medi­cal Association, All Indian Management Association, etc., provide placement services for their members. For this, the professional associations prepare either list of job seekers or publish or sponsor journals or magazines containing advertisements for their members.

The professional associations are particularly useful for attracting highly skilled and professional personnel. However, in India, this is not a very common practice and those few that provide such kind of service have not been able to generating a large number of applications.

5. Campus Recruitment:

This is another source of recruitment. Though campus recruitment is a common phenomenon particularly in the American organisations, it has made its mark rather recently Of late, some organisations such as HLL, HCL. L &T, Citi Bank, ANZ Grindlays, Motorola, Reliance etc., in India have started visiting educational and training institutes/campuses for recruitment purposes.

Ex­amples of such campuses are the Indian Institutes of Management, Indian Institutes of Technology and the University Departments of Business Management. For this purpose, many institutes have regular placement cells/offices to serve as liaison between the employers and the students. Tezpur Central University has, for example, one Deputy Director (Training and Placement) for the purposes of campus recruitment and placement.

The method of campus recruitment offers certain advantages to the employer organisations. First, the most of the candidates are available at one place; Second, the interviews are arranged at short notice; third, the teaching faculty is also met; and Fourth, it gives them opportunity to sell the organisation to a large student body who would be graduating subsequently. However, the disadvantages of this type of recruitment are that organisations have to limit their selection to only “entry” positions and they interview the candidates who have similar education and experience, if at all.

6. Deputation:

Another source of recruitment is deputation, i.e., sending an employee to another organisation for a short duration of two to three years. This method of recruitment is practiced, in a pretty manner, in the Government Departments and public sector organisations. Deputation is useful because it provides ready expertise and the organisation does not have to incur the initial cost of induction and training.

However, the disadvantage associated with deputation is that the deputa­tion period of two/three years is not long enough for the deputed employee to prove his/her mettle, on the one hand, and develop commitment with the organisation to become part of it, on the other.

7. Word-of-Mouth:

Some organisations in India also practice the ‘word-of-mouth’ method of recruitment. In this method, the word is passed around the possible vacancies or openings in the organisation. Another form of word-of-mouth method of recruitment is “employee-pinching” i.e., the employees working in another organisation are offered an attractive offer by the rival organisations. This method is economic, both in terms of time and money.

Some organisations maintain a file of the applications and bio-data sent by job-seekers. These files serve as very handy as and when there is vacancy in the organisation. The advantage of this method is no cost involved in recruitment. However, the drawbacks of this method of recruitment are non-availability of the candidate when needed and the choice of candidates is restricted to a too small number.

8. Raiding or Poaching:

Raiding or poaching is another method of recruitment whereby the rival firms by offering better terms and conditions, try to attract qualified employees to join them. This raiding is a common feature in the Indian organisations.

For example, several executives of HMT left to join Titan Watch Company, so also exodus of pilots from the Indian Airlines to join private air taxi operators. Whatever may be the means used to raid rival firms for potential candidates, it is often seen as an unethical practice and not openly talked about. In fact, raiding has become a challenge for the human resource manager. Besides these, walk-ins, contractors, radio and television, acquisitions and mergers, etc., are some other sources of recruitment used by organisations.

Evaluation of External Sources:

Like internal sources of recruitment, external sources are mixed of advantages and disadvan­tages.

The following are the main advantages:

1. Open Process:

Being a more open process, it is likely to attract large number of applicants/ applications. This, in turn, widens its options of selection.

2. Availability of Talented Candidates:

With large pool of applicants, it becomes possible for the organisation to have talented candidates from outside. Thus, it introduces new blood in the organisation.

3. Opportunity to select the best candidates:

With large pool of applicants, the selection process becomes more competitive. This increases prospects for selecting the best candidates.

4. Provides healthy competition:

As the external members are supposed to be more trained and efficient. With such a background, they work with positive attitude and greater vigour. This helps create healthy competition and conducive work environment in the organisation.

However, the external sources of recruitment suffer from certain disadvantages too:

These are:

1. Expensive and Time Consuming:

This method of recruitment is both expensive and time consuming. There is no guarantee that organisation wall get good and suitable candidates.

2. Unfamiliarity with the Organisation:

As candidates come from outside the organisation, they are not familiar with the tasks, job nature and the internal scenario of the organisation.

3. Discourages the Existing Employees:

Existing employees are not sure to get promotion. This discourages them to work hard. This, in turn, boils down to decreasing productivity of the organisation.

Now the question arises is: Where from can an organisation recruit potential job seekers? Table 6.1 offers some guidance. The source that is used should reflect the local labour market, the type or level of position, and the size of the organisation.

Table 6.1: Major Sources of Potential Job Candidates

According to Flippo, the present tendency among most business firms is to “home grow” their executive leaders”. Similarly, Koontz and O’Donnel rightly observe that the policy should be to “raise” talent rather than “raid” for it”.