Over the coming year this column will focus on the employment cycle and the stages that make up the employer/employee relationship. Recruitment is the first stage of the employment cycle.
Recruitment is where the employer seeks to ‘tell as many people as possible’ that it has a vacant position to fill. Imagine a person fishing at the side of the lake; they hope that the lake is well stocked with fish. An employer’s job is to design a job that attracts applications. To do that the employer needs to consider what can be done to make the job attractive to applicants.
You don’t want it to be the other way around! Employers have been caught out by designing jobs that someone wants to do, but that the organisation doesn’t need. This is a fast way to lead to wasted money, employer resentment, and redundant positions.
It’s been identified that different work attracts different people at different stages of their lives. Effective resourcing is the matching of the right person with the right job at the right time. In service-based organisations like day nurseries, we need people to deliver the services that enable children and families to benefit. Fundamentally we need people who want to make a positive difference to a child’s life.
Take the role of lunch-time supervisor. This will be a part-time role, in school hours; it will therefore attract someone who wants to work part-time during the day. This will limit the size of the pool. Great places to advertise this position will be where parents of school-age children will see it. This could be social media, outside a school, through posters in the day nursery, and through ‘word of mouth’.
We should make it easy for people to apply, and difficult to be selected. Have printed application forms for people to take and complete. Don’t give someone the task of updating or creating a CV. Provide information to applicants in a clear and unambiguous format. People will self-deselect. You don’t want to attract people who are unsuited to what you have on offer.
