Factors That Influence the HR Selection Method

Factors such as departmental budget and staff expertise can determine how many steps are in your hiring process or the sources from which your company recruits applicants. Running a small business could mean that you have more options than do large organizations that employ hundreds or thousands of employees. With a manageable number of staffers, the selection method can be easily modified to suit your business needs, budget and expertise.

Human resources isn't a revenue-producing business function, which can make it difficult to allocate substantial sums of money for recruiting activities. Money is a factor in the HR selection method because it determines how your company advertises job openings or whether you can travel to college campuses to recruit new graduates. Budgets for recruiting also may determine whether to use an applicant-tracking system for managing the recruitment and selection process or rely on traditional paper employment applications. Small businesses with limited capital and resources may rely on the simplest methods for recruiting and hiring staff.

Even if your company has a dedicated HR department, staff expertise could influence your HR selection methods. Experienced recruiters typically understand the full life-cycle process, which starts with sourcing candidates and ends with new-employee onboarding or orientation. If you don't have an HR department and prefer to outsource the recruitment functions, the staffing agency you choose can influence your selection method. In temp-to-hire arrangements, you shift responsibility for selecting suitable candidates to the staffing firm. Direct hire solutions give you more input during the selection process.

National recruiting efforts influence everything from the way you conduct interviews to the compensation and benefits package that you negotiate for relocating employees. Preliminary interviews can be conducted via phone like many already are; however, a face-to-face interview may be conducted via videoconference to save the expense of flying candidates in for second-round interviews. The recruiting distance also may affect the time it takes to make hiring decisions because it's likely that small businesses, in particular, may want to exhaust their options for finding a local candidate before embarking upon a national search.

When front-line supervisors are involved in the selection process as hiring managers, they usually meet first with recruiters to explain their departmental staffing needs. Recruiters send the hiring managers their picks from candidates who successfully passed the preliminary interview. Hiring managers then conduct face-to-face interviews and make their decisions, which they communicate to the recruiters. When line managers aren't involved in the hiring process, recruiters may be responsible for the entire process. Also, the hiring process may be shorter when there are fewer people who conduct interviews.