External vs. Internal Recruitment

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Aside from individual attributes, which factors would you consider most important in recruiting employees? How would these factors influence a recruitment strategy for an organization?

-- I would conduct an analysis of my organization, which would include making a list specifically of the candidates that I have hired, because it can be common, yet unrealized to the recruiter, to select candidates based on specific attributes, including race and/or gender, without consciously doing so. If my list reveals that there is a predominance of any attribute, I can conduct a more in-depth, critical analysis, which would allow me to determine if any underlying biases are getting in the way of my hiring practices. This is common in management when certain expectations for positions are a factor. For instance, if I am hiring someone for the position of coal miner, because the majority of coal miners are men, I may have developed an underlying bias that predominates all of our open coal miner positions with male candidates, and where I end up hiring very few, or no women because of the bias, even if I believe that consciously I am giving both the men and women an equal chance. This is why a staffing analysis, particularly the people that I have hired, is beneficial to an organization. If I found that the results indicated that I may have an underlying bias, I could immediately work on correcting the situation, by perhaps establishing criteria that would allow me to evaluate candidates differently, so that I would not include gender in my hiring decisions.

Another factor I would strongly examine is the candidate's academic background, and their professional experience, and would then further compare the candidates against each other, to determine which are most qualified for the open position. By doing so, it allows me to retain the most qualified personnel. I would give the candidates a brief assessment, which is quite common as a recruiting strategy, depending on the position being hired for. This is more common in positions of management. The recruiter tells the candidates a scenario, and it's usually a simple scenario, but one that would only be faced by management, and then each candidate writes down or tells the recruiter (in private interviews), their response to the scenario. Examples would ...