Job Description vs. Job Specification

Recruitment is considered to be one of the most crucial and success-critical aspects of human resource management (Kurtz and William, 2017). The task of recruitment and the process involved therein consists of consideration of several facts that are may be viewed to be both external and internal to the business and its operations (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). The instant report deals with the various aspects of the recruitment process in the organizational context.

At the very beginning of the study, the report provides a brief overview of the job description and job specification followed by the different methods of recruitment. While doing so, the researcher provides the examples for the scenario. In the subsequent part of the study, the report shows some example questions (both general and specific) that may be asked in an interview. In this context, three specific scenarios have been assumed and specific technical, questions have been developed accordingly. In the next part of the report, the researcher talks about the different training methods post recruitment. In addition, the report also delves into the types of performance apprise methods and finally wraps up the discussion by way of ending note.

Job Description (JD) refers to the document that specifies the essential requirements of a job whereas Job Specification (JS) defines the least qualification required for a job (Kurtz and William, 2017). JD lists down job title, roles, responsibilities, duties, tasks (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). On the other hand, JS specifies the prospective employees’ educational qualification, experience, skills, and abilities. Preparation of JS is based on JD. Sometimes, JD is considered to be a description of the jobs, whereas, the JS may be conceived to be the description of job holders (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017).

Example: JD for the post of Accounts Manager will consist of the roles and responsibilities of the person in the company. The person should be responsible for the maintenance of books of accounts and finalize the same. The person will also do the bank reconciliation. The person will coordinate with external auditor during the audit. On the other hand, JS for the post will contain that the person should at least be a Chartered Accountant having 5 years post qualification experience. Also, working knowledge of SAP is desirable.

There are two primary types of recruitment methods. One is internal and one is external. Internal sources mean that the recruitment of the candidate will be performed from the existing employee only. In other words, any vacancy may be fulfilled by recruiting people from the existing employee base of the company (Heaslip, et al,. 2016). In various ways, internal recruiting may happen. Promotion is a process in which the vacancy of a post is fulfilled from within the organization. Also, the inter-departmental transfer is a method by which one department’s vacancy may be fulfilled by taking employees from another department (Brewster and Hegewisch, 2017). There are certain benefits of such method. The employees are already associated with organizational and hence, there is no separate need for training on organizational culture. Also, the efficiency of the communication also increases. However, it has also to be noted that if the promoted employee is not innovative, the basic purpose of promoting the person will be deviated. In short, internal sourcing adversely affects the innovation within the workplace.  

Recruitment Methods

On the other hand, external recruiting means formal recruitment in which the candidates are taken from outside the business. Walk in interview, campus recruitment, job advertisement are some of the examples of external recruitment (Cristia and Aracena, 2017). In his context, it may be noted that external recruitment is the primary and most commonly used way of recruitment. Bulk recruitment generally happens by taking candidates from outside. In terms of numbers and volumes, external recruitment occupies a higher place than internal recruitment in recruitment hierarchy. Moreover, it may also be noted that external recruitment is costly and time taking affair (Kurtz and William, 2017). However, the primary advantage of external recruitment is that the process helps the business to collect number of prospective employees for interview and select and sort them in order to assess their respective quality and potential.

A position of accounts manager may be fulfilled by way of internal recruitment. The reason is the post is of responsibilities and the HR team will need a candidate who is already aware of the company’s culture and internal control system. In addition, the understanding of the business is needed for the post and internally recruited candidate will be best fitted for the same (Bodin, Schmidt, Lemle, Roper, Goldberg, Hill, Perry-Parrish, Williams, Kuemmel, and Siegel, 2017). On the other hand, a technical staff may be recruited from external sources as the position does not demand any specific requirement of understanding of organizational culture and any external candidate may be trained for the given purpose after recruiting (Kurtz and William, 2017).

Development of interview question is critical activity in human resource management and the questions are designed in such a way that the same help the HR manager to evaluate the competence of the probable candidates (Su and Yang, 2015). Here are some of the general and specific questions that may be asked to the following candidates.

• Tell me something about yourself?
• Why do you want to join our company?
• Why should we recruit you?
• What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses?
• Why did you leave your previous job?

SPA Receptionist:

• How will you welcome the customers?
• If there is any complain call, how will you deal with it?
• How will you handle the misbehavior of a customer?
• If there is a sign of security breach with someone trying to forcefully enter into the SPA room, what will you do?
• How will you handle the record-keeping maintain the books of accounts to ensure that the routine operations are documented appropriately?  

• What do you know about Thai SPA?
• How will you differentiate between a sandwich SPA and whole body SPA?
• If the customer complains about your previous service, how will you react?
• If there is any disagreement between you and customer regarding the service provision, what will you do?
• How will you define the medication need in SPA therapy?

• How do you perceive the growth of SPA industry in the country?
• What do think as the biggest challenge of the SPA industry today?
• How will you deal with delinquent customers?
• If there is any complaint about your staff by the customers, how will you deal with the same?
• How will you measure the success of the SPA in your reporting framework?

From the questions above, it may be noted that such interview questions help the candidates to bring out the best potential within them. Since the questions are open ended and explanatory, the candidates get sufficient time and scope for thinking and developing own ideas. Based on the same, he or she may present own self to the interviewer and market own capabilities (Babu and Reddy, 2018).

Orientation training may be defined as the process of getting the newly recruited candidates acclimatized with the organizational culture and operational aspects. A successful orientation programme involves a systematic introduction to the job the employees are hired for with an overview of the organization. It may be stated that the orientation training, entails primarily few types of information.  Firstly, the objective of the programme is to provide the business overview in terms of operations, scope, history and corporate goals and objectives. In addition, the programme also presents the routine work culture of the firm and detailed presentation of the job which the new joiners will be required to perform. Orientation is critical for both the business as well as the new employees. Employees get motivation and feel involved and assimilated with organizational culture. On the other hand, the management may find it easier to get the job done by those newly joined motivated employees. Attrition rate lowers down and chance of overcoming reality shock reduces substantially.

Interview Questions

There are various types of orientation training like formal and informal; individual and collective; serial or disjunctive. Informal and disjunctive programme helps the business to develop innovative and inventive employees. On the other hand, the formal and serially conducted orientation training directs the employees to follow the customs and traditions of the business and its organizational culture.   

The process of orientation has is multi faceted and may include the formal classroom training, on the job (OJT) training and also the guidance program. Orientation programs help the new candidates to know about the work force and workplace in more details by way of socializing with the existing team. A structured orientation training should include the focus on the brief history of the business and its corporate goals and objectives (Babu and Rao, 2018). In addition, the operational layout of the entire work should be made visible to them in terms of location of the canteen, washroom, office supplies, server room, kitchen etc. The training will also involve the introduction to all the corporate policies including the HR policies (dress code policy; leave policy, safety issues etc.). The training should also include the review of pay structure and appraisal process. If the organization is technical secured by way of ID, password, login details etc, then the same must be set up for the new joiners.  

The orientation training for an accounts manager who is recruited through walk in interview, for example, will require a general introduction to the business comprising of the points discussed above. In addition, the accounts manager will be required to go through the accounting module of SAP which is being run and used by the organization. Also, the financial statements and annual report of the past few years may be given to the candidate for quick perusal and overview. On the other hand, a technical staff at information technology department may not be same as that of the accounts manager. Rather, the overview of IT security systems and controls are something which the candidate should be interested about. The server rooms and its security policies, security checkpoints, system configuration, computers’ and laptops’ servicing policies will be introduced to the new joiners (Mishra and Shekhar, 2018).

Post joining training is one of the key responsibilities of an HR manager. Such training is important for both candidates and the organizations as the candidates get an operational overview of the business (Pillai and Abraham, 2016). It has been noted that induction training provides the newly recruited candidates a motivation to work for the business. It acts as a morale boost for them. It is very important to get the candidates acquainted bout the organizational culture in which they are going o work and hence the training is regarded to be a crucial step on recruitment process (OCA, 2018).

With reference to the given case, it may be stated that the induction training may vary widely and at the organizational level. Since different organizations have different cultures, accordingly the training may lead to different forms and shapes. However, the training may vary at resource level also. For example, an externally recruited accounts manager may be provided with training in the given format:

Day	Training
Day 1	Organizational overview: basic area of operations, corporate goals objectives, vision and mission statement
Day 2	Office introduction: floor layout, the location of the kitchen, washroom, canteen, server room, office supplies, stores, entry, exit points including fire exit
Day 3	Staff introduction: departments, branches, staffs, colleagues, management hierarchy, reporting structure
Day 4	Policies reviews: working hours, lunch break, other breaks, dress code, safety measures, security measures, behavioral expectations
Day 5	Appraisal and Pay Structure: Appraisal cycle, performance measurement, bonus, overtime, reimbursable benefits, fringe benefits, facilities
Day 6	Technology and Equipment: login set up, User ID, password set up, get a pass, security pass, access card
Day 7	Technical Training: Financial reporting, annual report, financial statements, audit and auditor, SAP modules, accounting issues, and complexities

Training Methods

From the training schedule, it is identified that the training is generic except for the Day 7 where the specific training is imparted to the accounts manager. However, for a technical staff involved in the IT department, may also need to go through the entire training except for the last day. Therefore, for him, the training schedule remains almost the same as before except for Day 7 which may be reproduced herein.

Day	Training
Day 7	Technical Training: Introduction to IT system of the organization, security, and safety issues related to technology, server room,  database security, PC set ups, login features etc.

Performance appraisal may be considered to be a success-critical factor for an organization. Performance appraisal helps the employees to assess their capabilities with respect to the organizational requirement and may undertake the measures accordingly (Pillai and Abraham, 2016). The pay structure and performance linked incentives should be such that the same motivates the employees. In addition, the appraisal methods should also be transparent and fair so that the same does not dissatisfy the employees as far as intent is concerned (Manjula, Thilagavathy and Kannan, 2016). There have been instances where the irrational pay structure has created immense dissatisfaction among the employees an accordingly he performance has been severely affected (Roychoudhuri, 2018).

There are various appraisal methods available for an organization. Based on the organizational policies, goals, and objectives, an appropriate one is chosen. For example, a ranking method is one of the most traditional methods in which the candidates’ performance is being ranked in different pre-set parameters and rating scale and based on the individual scores, the overall rating is fixed. 360 degree feedback is another method in which the feedback is being provided in both ways. The seniors provide feedback about their juniors and persons directly reporting to him or her only. On the other hand, those junior persons also provide feedback about their seniors (Manjula, Thilagavathy and Kannan, 2016).  Checklist method is another way of measuring the candidate’s performance based on the checklist with pre-defined questions. Also, there is essay method in which the rater writes an illustrative and explanatory and detailed essay about the performance of the employees including his or her strengths, weakness, and behavioral traits (SHARMA and Gursoy, 2018).  

Taking reference from the previous example, the accounts managers’ performance and the technical staffs’ performance should not be judged in two different methods if they are employed in the same organization (Pillai and Abraham, 2016). This is because the performance appraisal system as an organizational policy and hence does not change at the resource level. However, if they are recruited in to different originations, 360 feedbacks may be advised in such respect. Though all the methods mentioned herein suffer from certain inherent limitations including the 360 degree methods also. There have been instances where the senior is junior employees enter into a “give and take” policy and provide a good rating to each other (SHARMA and Gursoy, 2018). Also, the personal biases may creep up and the junior may give an adverse rating to the senior on the behavioral level. However, this method is still being recommended as the method attempts to accumulate feedback from both ways and hence tries to be unbiased and honest in its approach. Moreover, the organization may get both way feedback to assess the performance and may undertake necessary decisions accordingly (Chand, 2018).

Methods of Evaluation (Performance Appraisal)

Conclusion

Based on the discussion and analysis performed in the preceding sections of the report, it may be noted that the recruitment process is multi faceted and involves consideration of several factors. In this context, it may be noted that an effective recruitment process is one of the key performance indicators (KPIs) for an HR manager. This is because the recruitment process is not conducted properly, the business may end up recruiting the wrong people in the wrong place. Placement of inefficient and ineffective resources in a position doesn’t render value to the organization (Poór, Wood, Karoliny, Kovács, Gross, Szlávicz, Berber and Szabó, 2018). Also, it must be noted that the entire process of recruitment, selection, training, and induction is very organization specific and hence the management should also be conscious of the HR policies of the organization. Therefore, it may be concluded that a well-designed and efficient HR policy along with the competitive recruitment process will significantly contribute towards the corporate goals and objectives of attainment of sustainability in the long-run in a most resourceful manner (Nayak and Mohanty, 2017).

References

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