Only 60% of line managers have the final say when recruiting senior level staff, the latest Recruitment Confidence Index (RCI) by Cranfield School of Management – produced in association with Personnel Today – has revealed.
More than a third of HR professionals take primary responsibility for the ultimate hiring decision when selecting new managers and professional employees, according to the survey of 841 HR practitioners.
The responsibility for shortlisting candidates, however, is equally split between line managers and HR at 48% and 46% respectively.
Recruitment agencies accounted for about 16% of the shortlisting process and for the final decision in 3% of cases, according to the RCI.
The final decision rested with other senior managers in 5% of cases, although only 2% were involved in shortlisting candidates for positions.
…but online fails to lure employers from paper mountain
Only a third of organisations use online submissions of CVs as part of their selection process for senior roles, and less than a third said they used online application forms, the RCI showed.
Less than 10% of organisations used online screening for application forms, and only one in 10 relied on online tests, suggesting that most companies are spending more time on paperwork.
The use of automatic responses to applicants was also surprisingly low at 14%.
Shaun Tyson, director of the HR research centre at Cranfield School of Management, said the results showed that HR was not making the best use of the online function.
“Many companies seem to be using online recruitment in the same way that they would use any other recruitment tool,” he said.
Most organisations (86%), however, said they provided feedback to unsuccessful shortlisted applicants.
…and psychometrics fall by the wayside
Most organisations provide training for interviewers or assessors as part of the selection process, according to the RCI, apparently cutting the use of psychometric tests.
Almost 60% of businesses use detailed competency frameworks when selecting new staff, and seven out of 10 use a structured scoring framework system to benchmark competencies.
A third of HR professionals also said they used a mathematics-based competency system to assess candidates.
On selection methods for managerial and professional staff, only 10% of organisations always used psychometric tests and just 8% always used assessment centres.
About 3% of organisations outsourced their entire recruitment process.
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