Manipulation

Search Firms – Yes or No?

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Recruiting agencies, talent search firms, executive recruiting companies, head hunters – all of these provide recruitment and staffing services for businesses who may not be able to or want to carry out a recruitment process internally. The decision to use an external search firm for recruitment purposes is usually based on the availability of common business variables such as time, money, and resources. It may be a more efficient approach to use an external recruiting firm if the internal resources are not available to complete the tasks. Having said that, not all recruitment campaigns benefit from the use of an external process or firm.

The opportunities for and challenges of outsourcing recruitment campaigns are reviewed in Canadian Business’ online magazine.

Click here to read the article.

As noted in the article, the issue of cultural fit is one of the concerns that must be addressed. It is critical that an external recruiter has more than the basic understanding of the technical qualification and skills requirements needed for the position to be filled. Effective recruiters must be able to ascertain or assess whether or not the potential candidate will ‘fit’ the organization’s cultural needs, before offering the candidate into the field for consideration.

The issue of cultural fit is a tricky one to navigate, especially for public sector organizations. An example of this may be provided through the recent recruitment scandal connected to the hiring campaign for the position of Commissioner with the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP). An executive search firm was hired on behalf of the provincial government to conduct the campaign at a cost of forty thousand taxpayer dollars. It is not unusual for public sector organizations to use executive search firms, given the constraints and obligations to ensure that taxpayer money is used in open and transparent process for all involved. Unfortunately, this particular campaign resulted in the controversial appointment of an allegedly unqualified individual with political and social connections to the current premier of the province. The appointee eventually withdrew from the process, but the impact of the scandal remains.

Click here to read about the search firm conducting the OPP recruitment campaign.

One could argue that the appointment was based on ‘cultural fit’ factors. These factors, however, have the taint of political manipulation which infected the entire process including the reputation of the search firm itself. This is most unfortunate given the fact that search firms do not make the final hiring decisions, the organization’s leaders do.

Using an external search firm does not provide for the abdication of decision making responsibility on the part of the employer. While the process itself may be outsourced, the hiring decisions remain internal with all of the leadership accountabilities and responsibilities linked to those decisions intact.

Discussion Questions:

  1. As you plan for your career in HR, what are the benefits of working exclusively for a recruiting agency?
  2. What are the cost-benefit considerations for an organization looking to hire talent through a recruiting agency?
  3. How should organizational leadership positions be filled? Through an internal (HR driven) process or through an external (executive search firm) process? Explain your rationale.

Honest References Required

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Is honesty the best policy when dealing with reference checks?

There should only be one answer to this question.

That answer is a resounding: ‘Yes!’

If only the reality of recruitment practices reflected this basic principle during the reference checking process. Unfortunately, there are numerous examples of the recruitment process failing at the very end, due to dishonest approaches by either the candidate or the potential employer in an effort to get the recruitment job done and to get the candidate into the job itself.

The most common example comes from the assessment of the candidate’s personal or behavioural attributes. Many employers fear the threat of a lawsuit if they provide a negative reference for a former employee. Rather than telling the ‘truth’, however, employers find themselves giving neutral information that says nothing at all about someone’s conduct or professional behaviour. Many organizations have a policy that restricts reference providers to giving fact based information only, such as confirmation of employment history with no performance or behaviour related commentary. While not dishonest, this approach may not provide the reference checker with a full picture of the candidate’s behavioural profile.

A recent decision by the Ontario Supreme Court has relieved this burden of neutrality on the part of the employer. This case establishes a precedent that an unfavourable, and yet honest, opinion of the former employee is acceptable.

Click here to read about the case

On the employer side, manipulation and dishonest practices have also left a stain on the integrity of recruitment practices. Sometimes recruiters themselves make fraudulent claims about a candidate in order to get that person into a position and collect the resulting monetary reward. The results from these types of actions are extremely costly and severely damaging. The need for ethical and honest practices on the recruitment side are explored in a recent article posted in HRM On-line magazine.

Click here to read the article  

What does good HR practice require us to do?

Allow for time to get integrity-based reference checking done right.

HR practitioners need to plan and prepare for this final stage of the recruitment process with the same amount of focus, integrity and due diligence that has gone into all of the previous recruitment and selection steps. There is no benefit from rushing and manipulating the reference checking process just to get through the final stage as quickly as possible.

The investment in making a sound hiring decision is just as important at the end as it was in the beginning. The constructive results from an honest and integrity-based process all the way through will always prove to be the right way to go.

Discussion Questions:

  1. Thinking of your own situation, who will you approach for professional and constructive references in your job search?
  2. As an HR practitioner, what steps can you put into place to ensure the integrity of the reference checking process?
  3. If you found out someone gave a bad reference for you, what actions would you take?
  4. How will you respond to someone who asks you for a reference that you would not be able to support?