The basics for most recruitment campaigns begin with the premise that an organization is looking for the right person to fit the right job.
To achieve the right result, the Human Resources practitioner must design and implement a series of recruitment tools that value and measure the “fit” relationship between what a job-seeking candidate offers and what the job itself provides. There is a heavy emphasis on how these types of tools are developed so that, when implemented, they can validate the closeness of that fit to produce a reliable result. The bigger the gap between what is measured as required for the candidate and the job, the less likely it is that the outcome is a reliable, or good, fit for the organization.
This candidate-to-job fit approach seems to work best within a traditional recruitment planning process. There is an increasing trend, however, to move away from this narrow approach and use a broader strategy that seeks to recruit candidates based on the fit between potential candidate and company ethics and/or social values.
This approach is identified in a recent online recruitment campaign implemented by SodaStream International Ltd., an innovator in home-based water carbonation.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZoPBThVwk8[/embedyt]
The messages that are provided through this online recruitment campaign are clearly linked to SodaStream’s corporate and ethical values. It is an innovative and broad-reaching approach given the international growth for this particular company.
How do these values translate into tools that can be used to assess the necessary fit relationship between people and jobs? At the end of any recruitment process, no matter how creative it may be, a hiring decision needs to be made that serves the best interests of the organization. This decision may not necessarily be the one that serves the best interests of the candidate. In this case, traditional tools that measure and provide reliable results may still need to be in place in order to support the organizational decision that is made when the recruitment outcome does not support a good fit between the two.
Discussion Questions:
- As the Human Resources advisor for SodaStream’s recruitment campaign, design a recruitment measurement tool that is valid and reliable, based on the values identified by the CEO.
- What are potential challenges that SodaStream might face when deciding to exclude candidates from moving forward in the recruitment process?
- What types of branding/corporate messages does the SodaStream recruitment video promote?
- In your opinion, who is the target audience for the SodaStream recruitment campaign and is it effective? Explain your rationale.