Paper Example on Public Human Resource Management

Introduction

One of the key paradoxes of recruitment according to Berman, Bowman, West, and Wart (2010) is "the seeming abundance of employment opportunities but a scarcity of desirable positions" (p. 81). This paradox mainly applies to job seekers and is caused by the tendency in the public service to reduce the number of specialists with the required ranks in management and the propensity to do away with middle management layers. The other paradox is the mixed messages which perplex job applicants, such as the question of whether recruitment in public service organizations is - as it purports to be - a skill-based and politically neutral process or a personalistic one in which hiring is based on patronage (Berman et al., 2010). There are also recruitment paradoxes of whether those aspiring to be managers in public service agencies should be generalists or specialists, whether the focus of recruitment should be on future potential or current skills, and how to balance competing values in recruitment. Paradoxes also exist in the fact that even though recruitment is considered by many to be an important human resource function in organizations, it is actually the weakest (Berman et al., 2010).

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Pool hiring refers to a recruitment strategy whereby organizations nurture and maintain a pool of talented individuals based on job applications to be used as and when the need for fresh talent arises. That is, instead of randomly picking employees from those who apply for various positions, an organization simply selects qualified and well-trained personnel from its pool of qualified and talented individuals. One of the advantages of pool hiring is that it helps in reducing the cost of recruitment. By maintaining a wide talent pool from which to source employees, an organization saves the amount of money it would have spent in advertising and filling vacant positions since all it has to do is to pick a potential job candidate from the already available pool. Besides saving on costs, pool hiring is also beneficial to an organization in that it reduces the amount of time spent on hiring. Since the prequalification and screening of likely candidates has already been done, an organization can easily fill up vacant positions without spending a lot of time searching for the right candidates. It also helps with talent engagement and identification of future qualified candidates for various job positions.

An electronic job posting is a recruitment strategy in which available jobs or vacancies in an organization are listed j on job boards or websites dedicated exclusively to applicants and on agency websites (Berman et al., 2010). One of the pros of this method of informing or contacting potential job applicants is that it is fast and hence less time consuming since with the click of a button, an applicant can apply for a job and an organization can post available jobs. Moreover, electronic job postings enable an organization to track applicants and collect more information about them. Also, the online job postings are more likely to be seen and acted upon by many applicants than other recruitment methods and hence resulting in a pool of applicants with diverse skills, knowledge, and experiences from which to choose. However, this strategy is disadvantageous in that an organization may be inundated by a high volume of responses and applications even from those candidates who are not qualified, hence making the selection process difficult. Further, these electronic job postings lack that personal appeal as they are too impersonal in that unless an organization conducts in-person interviews with applicants, it may not immediately determine the most qualified one. It may also be quite costly to maintain the websites hosting the e-job postings.

According to Berman et al. (2010), a major recruiting strength for many not-for-profit organizations is their ability to attract a wide pool of interested job applicants or candidates. Most organizations in the public service are appealing to job seekers and hence they do not need to spend a lot of money and time looking for qualified candidates. Furthermore, most of these organizations have better terms of employment which make them attractive to job seekers. Some of the typical areas of involvement for these organizations include the selection of candidates, preparation of position announcement, planning and approval of job positions, and employee development.

Talent management in HRM refers to the process and practice of planning the acquisition, growth, retention, and development of talented human capital to ensure optimum organizational performance. Most organizations use this strategy to attract highly skilled individuals into their talent pool, integrate new applicants into their pools, develop, and retain employees so that they can contribute towards meeting their objectives. In a way, talent management is a competitive tool used by organizations to stay on top in terms of skill base management.

The spoils system is a selection criterion introduced by President Andrew Jackson in which individuals are appointed to various positions to reward them for their active participation in victorious political campaigns (Berman et al., 2010). Hence, under this method of selection, public employees are chosen not on the basis of their merit or education level but rather based on who they supported during elections.

The screening criteria that are considered as the most important information sources for predicting performance "to a great extent " include the content validity criterion, the construct validity criterion, and the criterion validity predictor. The construct validity criterion entails the documentation of the job performance characteristics and abstract personal traits while the criterion validity is where high test scores are correlated with good job performance. According to Berman et al. (2010), the content validity criterion requires that a direct relationship between job duties or responsibilities and the test be demonstrated.

Conclusion

Some of the unacceptable questions to ask applications during interviews are questions about an applicant's age, family or personal life, racial or ethnic background, criminal record or behavior, disabilities, financial status, military service or discharge status, religion, marriage status, and affiliation to a union (Wilson, 2018). According to Wilson (2018), examples of unacceptable questions to ask in a job selection or recruitment interview include "what is your ethnic and racial background?", "what is the nature and severity of any disabilities that you have?", and "what is your religious practice or preference?" (p. 8).

References

Berman, E.M., Bowman, J.S., West, J.P., & Wart, M.R.V. (2010). Public service: Paradoxes, processes, and problems. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Wilson, L. (2018). Recruitment 101: The basics. New York: Lulu.com