RECRUITMENT OF SALESMAN: MEANING, DEFINITION AND PROCESS

All the activities involved in securing the applications for the sales positions are referred to as recruitment. Recruitment sets out the necessary stages to clarify what kind of person is required, where he/she might be found and how to make the right choice. The choice of he/she is also very significant.

According to Edwin B. Flippo,

 “Recruitment is the process of searching the candidates for employment and stimulating them to apply for jobs in the organization”.

According to Byars and Rue

“Recruitment involves seeking and attracting a pool of people from which qualified candidates for job vacancies can be chosen.”

PROCESS OF RECRUITMENT

1. Recruitment Planning:

The first step involved in the recruitment process is planning. Major activities in this stage is Performing Job Analysis in the form of job description and job specification

Job description is informative documentation of the scope, duties, tasks, responsibilities and working conditions related to the job. 

job specification defines the knowledge, skills and abilities that are required to perform a job in an organization. Job specification covers aspects like education, work experience, managerial experience etc. 

2. Strategy Development:

Once it is known how many with what qualifications of candidates are required, the next step involved in this regard is to devise a suitable strategy for recruiting the candidates in the organisation. The strategic considerations to be considered may include issues like whether to prepare the required candidates themselves or hire it from outside, what type of recruitment method to be used, what geographical area be considered for searching the candidates, which source of recruitment to be practiced, and what sequence of activities to be followed in recruiting candidates in the organisation.

3. Searching:

This step involves attracting job seekers to the organisation. There are broadly two sources used to attract candidates i.e. Internal and External.  the firm must judiciously select that media of communication that successfully conveys the employment information to the prospective candidates.

4. Screening:

The screening means to shortlist the applications of the candidates for the further selection process. Although, the screening is considered as the starting point of selection but is integral to the recruitment process. This is because the selection process begins only after the applications are scrutinized and shortlisted on the basis of job requirements. The purpose of recruitment here is to remove those applications at an early stage which clearly seems to be unqualified for the job.

5. Evaluation and Control:

Evaluation and control is the last stage in the recruitment process wherein the validity and effectiveness of the process and the methods used therein is assessed. This stage is crucial because the firm has to check the output in terms of the cost incurred. The recruitment is a costly process as it includes the salaries of recruiters, time spent by the management, cost of advertisement, cost of selection, a price paid for the overtime and outsourcing in case the vacancy remains unfilled. Thus, a firm is required to gather all this relevant information to evaluate the performance of a recruitment process effectively.