The Informal Part of the Recruitment Process

Feb 16 2013

What is the main issue for an employer in the process of recruitment?

What is the purpose of a chain of interviews, which familiarizes the employer with potential employees?

Why, when hiring new employees, do employers seems to always favor the person recommended by another of

their employees?

To "see a picture of the future" is is the main issue for an employer in the process of recruitment.

For the employer, the most important facet in the selection of employees is to "see a picture of the future," to imagine

the reality of a particular candidate in the company and in the position as accurately as possible, to predict this

situation and, on the basis of this forecast, decide whether a person is a suitable employee or not.

In mathematics, this process is called extrapolation, defined as predicting the value of a function in a new range

based on the behavior of this function in the region of known values.

What does the employer know about the candidate?

What is the basis for such a prediction, extrapolation, in the process of recruitment? Recommendations provide

an opportunity to learn how the person proved himself or herself in previous work. Professional examinations, too,

reveal potential employees’ knowledge, their ability to express thoughts, and their skill at solving problems in

a limited time.

But how can an employer determine whether a person seeks to climb the administrative ladder or improve in

the profession, solving ever more complex problems?

What will show whether an individual is creative and takes initiative at work, will deliver new thoughts and ideas

rather than be limited to the role of passive performer?

How flexible will he be in communications with employees?

Will he/she try to do her job as best as possible?

Will he work with passion, creating around him a friendly business environment, or will he complain and grumble,

unhappy with the conditions and the employer?

Will her working style fit in this company?

And will he adapt his work considering the other requirements necessary to succeed in this job?

To answer these questions means to predict the situation of the new person on the job. This is the main task

of the employer in the recruitment process.

The story of a candidate’s past work is one of the most important sources of information.

One of the most effective, and efficient sources of information is the story of a candidate’s past work in one or

more jobs, if the potential employee already has work experience.

Why is this important? In this story, one hears a person's attitude to different aspects of work.

What the applicant accentuates and the nuances of this story are also significant.

By listening carefully, the interviewer can understand whether the applicant finds important those things that

the employer considers to be priorities, or does not give them value. The interviewer can, without asking a direct

question, estimate whether the person develops new skills quickly.

It is also possible to assess the nature and scope of a person’s interests during an interview, which is very

important because, what people are interested in, they do far more successfully than what seems boring.

Priorities, focus, signs of interest in a particular topic, the degree of an individual’s ambition, the ability to

avoid or persevere through conflicts or to work in conditions of tension and against the clock—all this can be

discovered in an analysis of the story of a potential employee’s past work experience.

Projecting this story forward...

Projecting this story forward, all the while considering the working conditions in the company and the

requirements of the job,the employer will receive a valid prediction, which is key in making the right decision.