User talk:Rahman Siraj

Rahman Siraj (talk) 15:04, 19 March 2014 (UTC) Paper Title: Competencies for developing recruitment and selection professionals.

Author: Mr.Siraj Ur Rahman, Research Scholar, Dr. M.G.R. Educational & Research Institute, Chennai.

Contact Address: Mr.Siraj Ur Rahman 505, I Floor, 4th Cross R.T.Nagar, II Block Bangalroe-560032 Phone: 080-65617338 Mobile: +91 9845167231 E-mail: siraj@ihrd.in

Abstract: Recruitment function has undergone a sea change in the recent times. It has gained strategic significance as the war for talent is increasingly becoming competitive. In order to succeed in this war for right talent the recruitment and selection professionals must possess competencies to recruit and select right kind of people. This paper aims to develop a competency framework for training and developing recruitment and selection professionals.

Key words: 1. Competency 2. Competency Assessment 3. Competency Development

Profile of Author: Mr.Siraj Ur Rahman is the Founder Director, Institute of HRD. He is a Rank Holder in Engineering from Mysore University. He holds an M.B.A in Human Resources Management. He is a Research Scholar at Dr.M.G.R. Institute of Management & Research, Chennai. India. He was the Vice President-South of Indian Society for Training & Development, during 2001-2002. He has over 15 years experience in Training, Consulting, Marketing and Management Education. He has undergone a certification programme in Style View & Career View Online assessment systems of Decision Dynamics LLC, USA. He is also the Managing Director- Asia Pacific & Middle East of Assessments International. He is the Co-editor of Five books in Human Resources Management which include, Talent management, Competency Mapping and Training & Development, Strategic HRM & Performance Management.

He has designed and successfully conducted a wide range of training programmes for MNC’s Private and Public sector enterprises in India & Middle East. Mr.Siraj has personally conducted training programme for many organizations which include ITC Infotech, Larsen & Toubro Ltd., ABB Ltd., Sanofi Aventis, Balco, Ranbaxy Laboratories, C-dot, ACC Ltd, Avaya, BHEL, SPIC Group and many more.

Competencies for developing recruitment and selection professionals

“ T he fate of your business is held in the hands of the youngest recruit of the staff” said Akio Morita, the well known founder of Sony Corporation of Japan.

Recruitment function has undergone a transformation in the recent years. Recruiting right kind of people is becoming more complex and challenging. In the past year applicant volume has increased 75% while quality of hire has increased only by 0.1%. Hence we need to identify what can enable the recruitment professionals to enhance their own effectiveness and the quality of hire while recruiting people for their organizations.

“Most organizations have little insight into the recruiter skills that have the greatest impact on quality of hire and time to productivity. As a result, recruiter training is often unfocused and misaligned with the drivers of new hire quality” (Recruiting Roundtable, 2008 Corporate Executive Board)

Earlier people were employed in recruitment function only on the basis of their technical competencies. But today the same strategy may not deliver the best results as organizations today are facing several challenges in terms of attracting and retaining talent. They are realizing that recruitment function deserves much more seriousness and competent professionals to manage it. Towards this objective many organizations are focusing on training and education of the recruitment professionals to do their homework well before they bring talented people on board. Apart from their technical expertise they are provided training in how to do recruitment better; how to look for the characteristics which are critical for doing the job; overall personality and social skills; background and experience etc.

The recruitment process in many organizations involves assessing the competencies in candidates and matching them against the job competencies required for successful accomplishment of the job. It is surprising to know that many recruiters are unaware of the competencies required in successful recruiters, in order to measure and assess competencies in others. Slowly some organizations are providing basic training in interviewing skills with the help of certification programmes in order to build the capability in the recruitment professionals. In this context recruiter’s competency model gains prominence and becomes the need of the hour.

Currently there are several competency models available in the market which can be used for enhancing effectiveness of the HR function. These models have been developed by functional experts, academicians and consultants basically to educate people and help them develop these competencies. For example Ulrich Dave has come out with the HR competency model. National HRD Network had developed a HR competency model in association with Confederation of Indian Industries and XLRI Jamshedpur. These functional competency models are very generic and may not be very specific to each sub function of the human resources management such as Recruitment, Training, Career planning, Succession management, Compensation and benefits, Performance management etc. While a few generic competencies could be common, a set of specific competencies are not addressed in the generic models.

Recruiting function must focus on up skilling efforts on a handful of customer-facing capabilities that demonstrate real impact on new hire quality and time to productivity. These skills—hiring manager interaction skills, needs definition skills, and candidate conversion capability—have the potential to improve quality of hire by up to 20% and time to productivity by as much as 18%.(Recruiting Roundtable, 2008 Corporate Executive Board)

Facing a flood of unqualified applications, most recruiting executives work aggressively to streamline recruiting systems, structures, and processes. Yet, Roundtable data suggests that to increase quality and speed, improving recruiter capabilities is more than three times as effective as improving systems and structures.

The best organizations are focused on understanding the performance profiles of the very best recruiters—and replicating that profile across the recruiting team .With higher-performing teams, these organizations see improved quality and a reduction in applicant volume, improving results and saving money.

Hence there is a need to identify and develop a set of competencies which recruitment and selection professionals need to be successful in fulfilling their roles and responsibilities at work and bring on board talented people to their respective organizations.

In this connection a survey was conducted by Institute of HRD, Bangalore in the year 2006 among the recruitment and selection professionals in Bangalore, Chennai & Mumbai cities to collect data about competencies that are critical and important for successful handling of the recruitment responsibilities. During the survey the respondents were administered a questionnaire; some members were even inerviewed to collect data. The data analysis and iterpretation led to the identification of a set of competencies for recruiters, which is called as the Recruiter’s Competency Model.

The competencies which are required for successful recruitment are:

1.	Communication 2.	Relatshioship building. 3.	Empathy. 4.	Influence & persuasive ability. 5.	Flexibility. 6.	Networking ability 7.	Result orientation 8.	Planning & organizing. 9.	Ability to use Hiring tools 10.	Assessment ability. 11.	Knowledge of HR sub systems. 12.	Strategic Orientation. 13.	Knowledge of Business. 14.	Market intelligence. 15.	Personal Credibility.

During the survey 70% of the respondents in Bangalore, 87.5% of the respondents in Chennai and 75% of the respondents in Mumbai had rated Communication Ability as the most critical competency for the recruiters.

Among the core competencies 80% of the respondents in Bangalore, 88% of the respondents in Chennai & 75% of the respondents in Mumbai rated Communication ability of the recruitment professionals as the most important competency in today’s business environment.

Among the role specific competencies 70% of the respondents in Bangalore rated assessment ability as the most critical competency for recruiters, whereas 75% of the respondents in Chennai agreed that networking ability is the most important competency and 87.5% of their respondents in Mumbai felt that assessment ability is the most important competency for the recruiters.

In the business related competencies category 70% of the respondents in Bangalore and 75% of their respondents in Mumbai agreed that Knowledge of business in the most important competency, whereas 87.5% of the respondents in Chennai felt that Market intelligence is the most important competency for the recruiter to be successful in their efforts to bring talented people on board.

These competencies which are depicted in this competency model if assessed in the recruitment professionals and developed fully before they are deployed for the recruitment function can go a long way in developing the recruiter’s capability to attract and hire right kind of people who can make a difference to the organization in addition to accomplishing the business objective.

Recruitment today is a strategic function especially in the knowledge industries where a significant cost of operations goes towards manpower cost. Hence every effort must be made to develop recruiter’s competencies in all the recruitment professionals.

Assessment of Competencies.

The above competencies of recruiters can be assessed by using the following tools.

1.	Interviews. 2.	Role-plays 3.	Psychometric Tools. 4.	Case study. 5.	Games. 6.	Behavior based interviewing. 7.	Assessment Centre 8.	Self Assessment.

However care must be taken to ensure that the assessors are fully trained and certified before deploying them for the actual work. This will contribute towards the objectivity and accuracy of the assessment.

Development of competencies:

Developing competence of recruiters is an important step in enhancing the recruiter’s effectiveness. A number of methods are available for this purpose.

1.	Training. 2.	Coaching. 3.	Feedback. 4.	On the Job Training. 5.	Job Rotation.

These competencies if developed in recruitment and selection professionals can definitely enhance their ability to recruit the right kind of people for their organizations and immensely help in building a sustainable competitive advantage.

Siraj Ur Rahman Mr. Siraj Ur Rahman is a Research Scholar at Dr. M. G. R. Educational & Research Institute, Chennai. He can be contact on siraj@ihrd.in

References Ganesh Shermon(2004), Competency based HRM, Tata McGraw- Hill Publishing Co.Ltd., New Delhi Lou Adler(2007) Hire with your head, John Wiley & Sons, New Jersey Lyle M Spencer(1993),Competence at work, Wiley India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi. Martin Yate(2009) Hiring the best, Viva Books Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi. Pandu Naik & Siraj Ur Rahman (2005) Competency Mapping Assessment & Development, Institute of HRD, Bangalore Pandu Naik(2010), Competency Mapping, IIHRM, Bangalore. Richard Boyatzis(1982) The Competent Manager, John Wiley & Sons Inc, Canada Seema Sanghi(2007) The Handbook of Competency Mapping, Response Books, New