HR case study

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MBA PROGRAM

HRM 512

Human Resource Management

Case Study

Getting Better Applicants

If you were to ask Sara and Omar about what the main problem was in running their business?

the answer would be: “hiring good people”. They were astonished at how hard it was to attract

good candidates.

After much debates, they decided to post openings for seven positions: Two salespeople, a web

designer, two content management people, an officer manager, and a web surfer.

Their first approach was to design and place a large display ad in two local newspapers. The

display ad listed all the positions available. They assumed that placing a large ad with the name

of the company and a bold border around the ad, would draw the attention and generate

applicants. The ad cost them $ 1000 for two weekends, but produced a handful applicants. After

speaking with them by phone, Sara and Omar rejected three applicants; other two applicants

said they were not interested; and two applicants scheduled interviews but never showed up.

Therefore, Sara and Omar decided to change their approach and use different recruiting method

for each position. In a paper, they placed ads for the salespeople under “Sales”, and for the officer

manager under “Administrative”. For a web designer they placed an ad on monester.com, and

for the content managers and web surfer, they placed help wanted ads in the career placement

office of a technical college and a community college located about 10 minutes away from their

office.

The results were disappointing. Over the weekend, many experienced sales people appeared, as

well as many for office managers. The ad for the sales people generated about three calls, one of

whom Sara and Omar felt might be a good candidate, though he asked for much higher salary

than they planned to pay. For the office manager, only one candidate appeared.

Sara and Omar decided to replace the sales ad, but with changing its position in the newspaper.

The ad was run under “Salespersons Wanted” and placed under “Phone Sales” which is a

separate category (since the job involved entirely inside phone sales). Here, they faced a problem

of that a number of firms that place these ads (phone sales) are travelling sales operations. Many

of the calls they got were salespeople who were used to working in what is called “boiler-room”

operations; which means that they sit on the phone all day making some cold calls from lists

provided to them selling anything under high-pressure conditions.

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The web designer ad produced four possible applicants. They get no reply from the college job

posting and when they ask why; the answer was because the pay offered was $7 per hour which

perceived as too low. Sara and Omar replaced it with $ 10/hour and thought that they were

offering perfectly acceptable pay, so the lack of applicants surprised them. Sara said “Maybe a

lot of people just don’t want to work for dot-coms anymore since many people felt that they had

enough of the wired world.

In any case, Sara and Omar want you, as an HR consultant, to help them out by:

1) Tell them what they are doing wrong.

2) Provide them a detailed list of recommendations concerning how they should go about

increasing their pool of acceptable job applicants, so they don’t have to hire anyone who

walks-in the door.

Note: Your recommendations should include proper recruiting strategies.

Consider the following:

How do we hire the right people?

• Use effective recruitment strategy and effective selection process.

How do we ensure we are hiring the right people?

• Use Updated Job Descriptions – Competency based.

What is our Staffing Objective?

• To find the most effective way/s to do work by:

➢ Increased productivity

➢ Flexible workforce

➢ Multi-skilled workforce

➢ Multi-skilled job descriptions

“Good Staffing lead to better organizational effectiveness”

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Guide Lines

1. The answer should be written in two pages—1.5 space-- font Calibri/Time new roman.

2. Cover page with your name, course code, and the title of the case study.

3. Provide at least four references.

4. Your analysis must reflect your though understanding of the HRM process and

recruitment strategies.