Human Resources Management Essay Examples

Google and Goldman Sachs are easily two of the largest and most successful companies in the world, whose success is in part due to their investments in the recruitment and development of human capital. Their recruitment criteria and processes have several key similarities. These include:
Role-related Knowledge or technical competence – Both Google and Goldman Sachs seek to attract and retain employees who have/exhibit passions and strengths, as against simply isolated skills. According to Google, Inc. (2014), the company wants to ensure that employees have the technical background and experience necessary to succeed. On the other hand, Goldman Sachs has created an organizational culture and strategy for recruitment that ensures that it attracts the hungriest and most qualified talents capable of surviving intense internal competition (Griffin, 2012; Google, Inc., 2014). Technical competence is indispensable in the selection process, in part because it ensures that the recruits can meet the basic performance expectations. A software engineer should be capable of coding competently and meet the expectations of the job that they have applied for, in the same way, that a storekeeper needs to possess inventory management skills and knowledge.
Leadership- Companies realize the importance of employees who are self-driven and capable mobilizing teams either by asserting leadership roles in the organization or by assisting teams to succeed. The company is interested in candidates who have people skills, with demonstrable leadership in multiple areas and thus capable of influencing or guiding others towards attaining set outcomes at all levels of the organization. Goldman Sachs requires its employees to be perfectionists, but may only get ahead by team playing. It requires employees to demonstrate individual brilliance as team players, effectively forcing employees to want to set themselves apart from teams, but without seeming to be lone rangers. Google is so particular at uses fellow employees to observe and provide feedbacks on the suitability of candidates. As a part of the recruitment process/criteria, leadership is critical because it ensures that the organization has people who can provide leadership at all levels of the organization, effectively averting voids in succession planning. Leadership helps leverage the organizational potential into reality, create a competent organizational culture, manage change and conflict others.
Organizational needs – These range from one organizational to the other and do include the candidates’ ability to fit into the organizational culture, team(s), and roles, etc. Google describes this as Googlyness, while Goldman Sachs describes it variously as being different, intellectually curious and competitive. According to Google, this helps it to choose candidates that can thrive at the company as against just those who are qualified. With the increasingly multicultural organizations and globalization, diversity has become a critical selection criteria for global organizations. This is important because it ensures that organizations are s important because it ensures that organizations can leverage their internal diversity to meet the markets’ equally diverse needs and expectations. According to Whitelaw (2010), diversity in sexual orientation, race, job groups, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, lifestyle, interests, and generations among other factors results in a culture that creates and rewards the very best. For instance, an organization may specifically want a sales manager who is competent in the Chinese culture and language, for its Beijing office, and thus the recruitment criteria would be tailored to specifically cater for this need.

External selection

External recruitment gives an organization access to a huge pool of talents, which makes it highly probable that it can find a qualified store manager with the experience, skills and expectations that are just right for this organization. There are many possibilities for an organization wanting to bring in new talents from outside. However, getting a person who fits the job description perfectly is relatively more costly in terms of finances and effort. It may be necessary to use the services of recruitment firms, advertize, interview tens of candidates (possibly more than once), negotiate terms of service, train and orientate the new employees. This also means that it is difficult to get an employee who can fill my position immediately, and thus I may have to hold both positions for the duration that the company will be looking to find a new store manager.

Internal Recruitment

Perhaps the best advantage of recruitment from within the organization is the fact that the existent employees and the management are familiar with one another. The organization has excellent knowledge of its employees’ strengths and limitations as possible store managers. On the other hand, the employees are already familiar with the organization’s culture, operations and teams, and thus the need for training and orientation is reduced. The disadvantage lies in the fact that the organization’s diversity will be limited. The existent employees have few new ideas, values and experiences that they can bring to the job. With the changing business environment, the company may benefit from an individual that has a different background and outlook.

References

Google, Inc. (2014, May 17). How We Hire. Retrieved Deb 14, 2015, from https://www.google.com/intl/en/about/careers/lifeatgoogle/hiringprocess/
Griffin, R. (2012). Management. New York: Cengage Learning,.
Northhouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and Practice. New York: SAGE.
Whitelaw, K. (2010, Jan 13). Defining Diversity: Beyond Race And Gender. Retrieved Feb 14, 2015, from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122327104