Inward
or internal recruitment is the latest import from the US, where a range a well
known companies have been using it for some time as an alternative to external
agencies. Nic Paton gives a step-by-step account of a typical IR exercise
An
IT services company employing 5,000 staff across the UK and Europe needs to
hire between 300 and 500 new permanent staff each year for the next three years
in order to satisfy human capital growth plans and balance out attrition. The
organisation already has a preferred suppliers list of eight agencies but has
no proactive internal recruitment function.
Five
internal recruiters are hired, reporting to the HR director, with the remit of
achieving hiring targets, cutting cost per hire, raising recruitment efficiency
and freeing line managers from much of the responsibility of hiring.
Each
recruiter takes responsibility for specific disciplines in the organisation,
for example sales, IT, marketing, finance and consulting, and meets with hiring
line managers to formalise recruitment requirements for each quarter; discuss
budgetary plans, organisational structure and to agree timescales for hiring.
They
then create competency interview frameworks and assessment centres, as
appropriate, in order to maximise recruitment efficiency and accuracy. The
strategy is then put in place to achieve the agreed targets, the emphasis being
placed on self-sourcing – using e-recruitment (Internet advertising and virtual
recruitment fairs), recruitment fairs, internal referral schemes, headhunting
(if appropriate), media advertising and staff retention.
The
preferred suppliers list will be used for difficult-to-find skills, or when
volume recruitment is needed over short timespans. But the agencies will work
to standard terms of business and agreed levels of quality, or service level
agreements.
Having
sourced suitable candidates, the recruiters will vet CVs, perform first-line
competency interviews and run assessment centres. Based on their intimate
knowledge of the company environment and hiring managers’ hiring needs, they
then make recommendations for line managers to interview at second stage.
From
here, the recruiters can undertake psychometric testing if required. Should an
offer be made, the recruiter can complete the cycle by controlling the offer
stage, thereby reducing the possibility that a candidate might join a
competitor.
The
success of the project is gauged by:
–
Delivery of headcount within timeframes and budget
–
Reduction of time spent by line managers having to recruit
–
Overall reduction in cost per hire
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–
The quality of candidates being sourced and hired via the recruitment team
–
A greater element of control being achieved by the organisation over its own
recruitment.
