Customer center

We are a boutique essay service, not a mass production custom writing factory. Let us create a perfect paper for you today!

Example research essay topic: Recruitment And Selection Oxford Blackwell - 1,809 words

NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote

... e a woman, but the same argument gained credibility in employer-led Opportunity 2000 launched by Prime Minister John Major in the early 1990 s (Life, 1995). Line managers prefer informal sources of recruitment such as word-of-mouth recommendations or purchasing peoples names off the Professional and Executive Register and contacting them directly. This enables autonomy and unaccountability over the choice of successful applicant, and the stereotyped ideal recruit is white, male, aged 30 to 40, and married, i. e.

with wife, children and mortgage. This state of affairs is difficult to change, as line managers are patriarch ally elevated as the providers, the organizations breadwinners, thus mirroring the gendered domestic division of labour, while personnel managers and personnel advisers are equated to the unproductive female welfare and administrative role (Collinson, 1987). This downgrading and devaluation of the sex-typed female role (Legge, 1987) relegates personnel managers and advisers within the organizational culture to a peripheral position and little or no authority (Wood, 1986). The devolution of responsibility for human resources from personnel specialists to line managers seems a rather negative development, but even here it is possible to envisage favourable circumstances inasmuch, as if line managers take responsibility for human resources issues, then EO has a better chance of being treated more seriously (Life, 1995). This situation emerges against a macro-economic background in which the dominant trends point to an increasingly more intense competition in a global market-place. In the UK home labour market, the 1980 s period of easy recruitment due to high levels of unemployment has given place to recruitment difficulties with current skill shortages and forecasts of a significant drop in the number of young entrants and of at least a 50 % female workforce.

This situation looks bleak for those employers who fail to adopt non-traditional methods of recruitment (Curnow, 1989), for a more proactive recruitment strategy is required as a source of competitive advantage through a quality workforce (Torrington & Hall, 1991), with a move towards a focus on expected outcomes rather than procedures (Life, 1989). In other words, EO is not just a problem of implementation, but, in contrast, important parts of the process still need to be better understood, particularly at the organizational level (Aitkenhead, 1991: 26). However, not just at organizational level. What EO initiatives take place within organizations depends crucially upon how the concept is understood by its members, and when organizational policy is translated into operational procedures it has implications for a persons activities and hence for his or her cognitive world, and the relationship between organizational procedures and individual cognitive world is two-way (Ibid: 35 - 41).

With respect to conceptualization, a positive trend can be found in voices which value diversity (e. g. Copeland, 1982) and managing diversity (e. g. Green slade, 1991, Jackson, 1992) inasmuch as this stresses positive aspects of difference with respect to ethnicity or with respect to gender (Rosener, 1990), which suggests a favourable change of perspective in industrial relations (Life, 1995). In conclusion, the past few decades have seen the development of recommendations on recruitment and selection which challenge the traditional outlook of employment matters as a prerogative of management decision and the prospective employee as a relatively passive object of employers judgement.

Personnel textbooks, codes of practice and anti-discriminatory legislation have put the focus on EO for women, ethnic and other disadvantaged groups. Such prescriptions appear to be seen by the employer as a conflict of interests with his managerial strategy and a threat to his established position of authority and privilege. This has been the reaction of the white male manager. Some of the prescriptions themselves have been informed by the cognitive framework of the white male culture and thus, intentionally or unintentionally, rendered less efficient in their formulation.

Others have been, and continue to be, subverted in practice by false compliance. In either case EO principles are defeated, and a self-reproducing phenomenon persists of acceptability over suitability in the recruitment and selection process. This status quo poses a complex problem which affects, more immediately, both the recruiter and the candidate and, at a larger scale, the whole economic scene. Mainly preoccupied with repressing change, the employer appears to be reluctant to consider that this same change can be to his own advantage, inasmuch as it will promote a recruitment and selection approach which could contribute not only to a fairer but also to a more cost-effective decision making.

As far as the employer is concerned, the felt problem appears to be the outside pressure put on him to change, while the real problem appears to be his difficulty in evolving cognitively. Managerial refusal in a more effective staffing will have far-reaching consequences as it will render organizations inadequate to compete in an increasingly global market, a problem of major repercussions, if a proactive response is not given to the need for a quality workforce that will guarantee competitiveness through quality goods and services. On the supply side of the labour market the problem of discrimination has been felt so acutely as to prompt the overall awareness that led to the recommendations in question. A foreseeable demographic change seems to favour the previously excluded groups so far as it may result in more of a sellers market for labour which should, in turn, encourage the labour buyer to concentrate on outcomes rather than on procedure; and this shift away from the focus on procedure may help reduce antagonism and elusive compliance. Another opening can be seen in the fact that literature has become possible on diversity as a positive asset to be profitably managed, a development which remains, however, problematic so far as it may also be perceived and resisted as a social issue. It is nevertheless a landmark in industrial relations evolution in what it represents of a two-way interaction between the cognitive world of both assessors and assessed, on one side, and, on the other, textbook recommendations and related formal directives.

However, ambiguity and ambivalence persist at each stage of evolution and progress towards a more just and effective management of human resources, and evidence presented above - as in the case of Opportunity 2000 - suggests that, paradoxically and dangerously, the promotion of objective recruitment and selection on merit is resorting, for credibility, to being implemented within the traditional recruiters framework of conceptualization Bibliography: REFERENCES ACAS 1981: Recruitment and Selection. Advisory Booklet n 6. London: Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service. Aitkenhead, M. & Life, S. (1991): The Effectiveness of Equal Opportunity Policies. In Firth-Cozens, J. & West, M A. (eds): Women at Work, Psychological and Organizational Perspectives. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

BM 1994, The Glass Ceiling. Business Matters video Series. In Equality & Diversity course 1994 - 5, Week 6. University of Warwick. Brotherton, C. (1980): Paradigms of Selection Validation. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 53, March, 73 - 9.

Clark, T. (1991): A survey and critique of selection methods used by executive recruitment consultancies in management recruitment. Paper presented to the 1992 Occupational Psychology Conference of the British Psychological Society. Collinson, D. (1987): The Safe-between Candidate, Personnel Management, May Collinson D. , Knights, D. & Collinson, M (1990): Managing to Discriminate. London: Routledge. Copeland, L. (1988): Making the Most of Cultural Differences at the Workplace. Personnel, June, 52 - 60.

Court, J. (1985): The IPM Guide to Cost-effective Recruitment, 2 nd ed. London: Institute of Personnel Management. Curnow, B. (1989): Recruit, retrain, retain; personnel management and the three Rs, Personnel Management, Nov. 40 - 7. Curran, M. (1988): Gender and Recruitment: People and Places in the Labour Market.

Work, Employment & Society, vol 2, n 3. Dux field, P. (1983): Sales Staff. In Ungerson, B. (ed. ) Recruitment Handbook, 3 rd edn. 6. Aldershot: Gower, 239 - 47. Edwards, B.

J. (1983): Application Forms. In Ungerson, B. (ed. ) Recruitment Handbook, 3 rd edn. Aldershot: Gower, 64 - 82. EOC 1986: Fair and Efficient Selection: guidance of EO policies in recruitment and selection procedures.

Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission. Fordham, K. G. (1983): Job Advertising. In Ungerson, B. (ed. ) Recruitment Handbook, 3 rd edn. Aldershot: Gower, 46 - 63. Fraser, J.

M. (1971): Introduction to Personnel Management. London: Nelson. Honey, J. (1984): Accents at Work. Personnel Management, January, 16, 1, 18 - 21. Jenkins, R. (1982): Mangers, Recruitment Procedures and Black Workers. Working Papers on Ethnic Relations, n 18.

SSRC Research Unit on Ethnic Relations. Jason, N. & Mason, D. (1986): Modes of Discrimination in the Recruitment Process: Formalisation, Fairness ans Efficiency. Sociology, vol. 20 n 1. Keenan, T. (1980): Recruitment on the campus: a closer look at tools of the trade. Personnel Management, March Kline, P. (1993): The Handbook of Psychological Testing.

London: Routledge. Knollys, J. G. (1983): Clerical Staff. In Ungerson, B. (ed. ) Recruitment Handbook, 3 rd edn.

Aldershot: Gower, 230 - 8. Legge, K. (1987): Women in personnel management: uphill climb or downhill slide? . In Spencer, A. & Palmone, D. (eds), In a Mans World, London: Tavistock Lewis, C. (1985): Employee Selection. London: Jutchinson. Life, S. (1989): Assessing Equal Opportunities Policies. Personnel Review, 18, 1, 27 - 34.

Life, S. (1995 (to appear) ): Continuing Patterns of Discrimination in a Context of Formal Equality. In Edwards, P K (ed): Industrial Relations: Theory and Practice in Britain. Oxford: Blackwell. Mackay, L. & Torrington, D. (1986): The Changing Nature of Personnel Management.

London: Institute of Personnel Management. McIntosh, N. & Smith, D. (1974): The Extent of Racial Discrimination. PEP Broadsheet, 547. London: Political and Economic Planning.

Murgatroyd, L. (1982): Gender and Occupational Stratification. Sociological Review, 30. Parkinson, E. N. (1986): Parkinsons Law.

London: Sidgewick & Jackson. PM (1985): Graphology. Personnel Management, March. Pocock, P. (1989): Is business ethics a contradiction in terms? , Personnel Management, November Ray, M. (1980): Recruitment Advertising. London: Institute of Personnel Management. Roger, A. (1970): The Seven Point Plan, 3 rd edn.

London: National Foundation for Education Research. Roger, A. (1971): Recent Trends in Personnel Selection. NIIP Bulletin, Spring, 3. Roger, A. (1983): Using Interviews in Personnel Selection. In Ungerson, B. (ed. ) Recruitment Handbook, 3 rd edn.

Aldershot: Gower, 161 - 77. Saville and Holdsworth Ltd 1987: Consultants Publicity Booklet. London: Saville and Holdsworth. Scholars, D.

M. , Johnson, C. D. & Zeisner, J. (1993): Maximising the efficiency of personnel assignment. Paper presented to the annual Occupational Psychology conference of the British Psychological Society. Brighton.

Sisson, K. (1994): Personnel Management. Oxford: Blackwell Business. Torrington, D. & Chapman, J. (1983): Personnel Management, 2 nd edn. London: 7. Prentice Hall. Torrington, D. & Hall, L (1991): Personnel Management - A New Approach.

London: Prentice Hall. Wants, J. P. (1980): Organizational Entry. Reading; MA: Addison-Wesley.

Webb, J, & Life, S. (1988): Play the White Man: The social construction of fairness and competition in equal opportunity Policies, The Sociological Review, 3, 3. Wood, S. (1986): Personnel Management and Recruitment, Public Relations, 15, 2.


Free research essays on topics related to: prentice hall, oxford blackwell, recruitment and selection, personnel management, personnel managers

Research essay sample on Recruitment And Selection Oxford Blackwell

Writing service prices per page

  • $18.85 - in 14 days
  • $19.95 - in 3 days
  • $23.95 - within 48 hours
  • $26.95 - within 24 hours
  • $29.95 - within 12 hours
  • $34.95 - within 6 hours
  • $39.95 - within 3 hours
  • Calculate total price

Our guarantee

  • 100% money back guarantee
  • plagiarism-free authentic works
  • completely confidential service
  • timely revisions until completely satisfied
  • 24/7 customer support
  • payments protected by PayPal

Secure payment

With EssayChief you get

  • Strict plagiarism detection regulations
  • 300+ words per page
  • Times New Roman font 12 pts, double-spaced
  • FREE abstract, outline, bibliography
  • Money back guarantee for missed deadline
  • Round-the-clock customer support
  • Complete anonymity of all our clients
  • Custom essays
  • Writing service

EssayChief can handle your

  • essays, term papers
  • book and movie reports
  • Power Point presentations
  • annotated bibliographies
  • theses, dissertations
  • exam preparations
  • editing and proofreading of your texts
  • academic ghostwriting of any kind

Free essay samples

Browse essays by topic:

Stay with EssayChief! We offer 10% discount to all our return customers. Once you place your order you will receive an email with the password. You can use this password for unlimited period and you can share it with your friends!

Academic ghostwriting

About us

© 2002-2024 EssayChief.com