Week 1 – The Case for Recruitment and Selection.
April 2nd, 2024Why might organizations decide to allocate more resources toward marketing or product design rather than using those same resources to do a really good job in employee recruitment and selection?
An organization could allocate these resources toward marketing or product design to create a better brand and product recognition in the industry to look more attractive to the workforce. As an applicant myself, looking for a job in the fire service, I take into account many factors when searching for a department to apply for. Some of which include quality of equipment, updated vehicles, even the color of the turnouts can be a factor. Due to the hazards of the job, I am very invested in up-to-date resources to protect my community, my team, and myself. If I’m going to spend the next 25 years of my life in a specific fire department, it would be nice if it was a top-of-the-line facility! Organizations in other industries I am sure have similar affects and could increase the volume of applicants by pushing resources towards brand and product. By having a heavier flow of potential new hires there is a natural, more extensive filtering process. Making these updates and investments sooner will have a compounding affect by drawing from the workforce and building up a quality team over time.
What are the potential strengths and weaknesses of an organization’s decision to not prioritize recruitment and selection in favor of a focus on other aspects of the business?
One strength would be to focus on quality training and team development over spending extensive and valuable resources finding the “right people”. It is becoming increasingly more prevalent in larger city fire departments to hire employees with less experience and certifications. They are focused more on attitude and character and prefer to rest upon their trusted training programs and specific department methods to cultivate the employees they desire to have. This helps eliminate the chance of applicants having “bad habits” from other departments, and helps the department groom the applicant into the perfect employee for their organization.
On the other hand, while focusing on brand and product over recruitment to draw more deeply from the workforce, there would be an inability to select higher quality applicants from this larger pool. This would likely result in lower quality hires who would cost the company from higher turnover, correcting mistakes, and worst of all the lowering of the team moral.
