RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES
MANAGING/EFFECTING THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS By Margaret A. Richardson ABSTRACT Recruitment, as a human resource management function, is one of the activities that impact most critically on the performance of an organisation. While it is understood and accepted that poor recruitment decisions continue to affect organisational performance and limit goal achievement, it is taking a long time for public service agencies in many jurisdictions to identify and implement new, effective hiring strategies. In some areas, existing laws inhibit change; in others, the inhibiting factor is managerial inertia.

This paper discusses some of the strategies that organisations can and do employ to ensure the existence of the best possible pool of qualified applicants from which they can fill vacancies as and when required. It will identify the advantages of each of the strategies, highlight the drawbacks of its use and offer suggestions for ensuring its utility.

2 INTRODUCTION Acquiring and retaining high-quality talent is critical to an organisation’s success. As the job market becomes increasingly competitive and the available skills grow more diverse, recruiters need to be more selective in their choices, since poor recruiting decisions can produce long-term negative effects, among them high training and development costs to minimise the incidence of poor performance and high turnover which, in turn, impact staff morale, the production of high quality goods and services and the retention of organisational memory. At worst, the organisation can fail to achieve its objectives thereby losing its competitive edge and its share of the market.

Traditionally, Public Service organisations have had little need to worry about market share and increasing competition since they operate in a monopolistic environment. But in recent time, the emphasis on New Public