INTRODUCTION:

In today’s business environment, people are one of the most valuable company assets and recruitment serves the important function of bringing the necessary talent into the organization¹.The recruitment of high-quality employees remains a fundamental goal for organizations because there will always be hard-to-fill vacancies for which organizations must compete fiercely to attract potential applicants, also the most talented job seekers continue to have enough options to compare potential employers². Thus, organizations continue to participate in the “war for talent”¹. From Indian organizational perspectives, Sen and Saxena³ believe that the most striking feature of the Indian labor market is the apparent abundance of labor, yet the right type of labor is not too easy to find. The same finding has been attested by Tendon⁴.

Now more than ever, researchers and practitioners recognize the need to understand the manner in which prospective applicants are attracted to organizations and jobs⁵. Making decisions around “what” talent is available and “where” this talent can be found is one of the most difficult tasks faced by organizations⁶. According to the Aberdeen Group’s⁶ report, 62% of organizations identified sourcing as the greatest challenge faced in their talent acquisition efforts.

They claim that by accurately tracking their sources of hire and linking this with performance data, these organizations can make a dramatic impact on business success. A study by Birkwood⁷ measured quality of hire where they realized that in order to save the company money and increase productivity, they needed to measure quality of hire and sources of hire together. As per Aberdeen’s⁶ talent acquisition research, the top pressure that organizations face, is achieving the balance between building a talent pipeline and keeping a track to measure the effectiveness of their sourcing efforts on the business.

Shamis⁸found that there is a fair amount of trial and error when trying to attract candidates to a business. No one solution fits every situation. The question that most people struggle with is, “What is the best recruiting source/s?” Unfortunately there is not a simple answer. From a business perspective, much of the decision will depend on the employee recruiting strategy which dictates budget, timing and other variables.

Why are we addressing the sources for new hires: which sources show a trend for success and which ones don’t? According to Birkwood⁷, this is extremely important from a strategic standpoint. He concludes that by improving focus on sourcing, one can directly improve the bottom line and the overall financial health of the company.

Thus, the objective of this research was to study the effectiveness of the sources of recruitment that a company uses to hire its candidates on job performance. It also examines the relationship between sources of recruitment and employee attitude measured by job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment.

Literature Review

The process of recruiting has changed significantly over the last few decades. Sinha and Thaly³ observe that what started out as the scope of office managers to place job advertisements in newspapers, or "help wanted" signs has now grown up into a multibillion dollar industry. Sourcing is the use of one or more strategies to relate talent to organizational vacancies. Therefore recruiting, from Thielsch, Traumer and Pytlik’s⁹ point of view, is best described as the active process of advertising and reaching out to potential applicants, which is the first phase and hence a very important part of the hiring procedure.

Various channels could be categorized into modern and traditional sourcing with modern channels being social media like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. and traditional ones being advertisements, employee referrals, recruitment agencies, etc.⁹. A study done by Sinha and Thaly³ to understand the emergence of sourcing channels for effective hiring looked at the following sourcing channels for recruitment: 1. Employee Referral, 2. Campus Recruitment, 3. Advertising, 4. Recruitment Agencies/Consultants, 5. Job sites/portals, 6. Company Websites, 7. Social Media (LinkedIn, etc). Amongst the overall hiring for various organizations, their study found that job sites/portals, social media and campus recruitment constitute 28%, 23% and 22 % respectively. Other preferred channels were employee referral (11%), recruitment agencies/consultants (7%), advertising (4%), and company websites (5%)³.

More and more companies currently recruit online, partly because of cost savings and competitive pressure, and partly because it is the best way to reach their target group of applicants⁹. A 2009 survey conducted by careerbuilder.com found that 45% of over 2600 hiring managers reported searching social networking sites (SNSs) to learn about job candidates¹⁰.

Organizations have identified employee referral programs (rank 1), social media sites (rank 2), corporate career sites (rank 3), and internal job boards (rank 4) as the most effective sources to hire⁶. Corroborating with the above, another study found personal networking to rank first, followed by internet job hunting, headhunters, newspaper advertisements, and a variety of other techniques⁵.

Employee referrals typically contain mostly positive information, as the organization is recommended to others¹. It has been demonstrated that employee referrals have a positive effect on pre-hire recruitment outcomes such as the quantity and quality of the applicant pool and on post-hire outcomes such as job satisfaction, job performance and (inversely related) turnover¹. 77% of organizations invest in employee referral tools⁶.

According toSinha and Thaly³, the effectiveness of different recruitment sources for new employees has been the topic of research for over 60 years. The effectiveness has primarily been assessed by examining the rates of turnover (and "job survival"), as well as job performance, with referrals by current personnel, in-house job postings, and the re-hiring of former employees being considered the most effective sources³.

Literature has focused on recruiting sources as they relate to employee behaviors, such as tenure, absenteeism, and performance¹¹. These studies are conclusive in their findings, namely, that informal sources of recruitment (employee referrals, walk-ins) are the best sources of longer tenured and less absent employees, while formal methods of recruitment (newspaper ads, employment agencies) are among the worst sources. According to Latham and Leddy¹¹, the findings regarding performance, however, are mixed.

Why is it important to study the link between recruitment source and employee performance? If a consistent relationship between type of recruitment source and initial employee performance is established, this can help a manager identify new employees with a higher likelihood of being promoted based on their stronger initial performance.

METHODOLOGY:

For the purpose of this research, business organizations have been selected from the Indian Information Technology (IT) sector and not from the Information Technology Enabled Services (ITES) sector. The sample constituted of 102 employees, from 56 IT industries across India (Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon, Noida) belonging to various hierarchical positions, of which 87 were males and 15 were females. Average age of the respondent was 26.15 years. Average number of months in current organization was 23.12 months with minimum of 2 months and maximum of 66 months. Total work experience estimated on average was 38.74 months with maximum of 141 months and minimum of 5 months.

Table 1: Description of Scales

Variables	Authors	Sub Scales	No. of Items	Alpha Rel.
Job Satisfaction (JS)	Agho, Price and Mueller (1992)	_	6	0.842
Organizational Commitment (OC)	Allen and Meyer (1990)	3	18	0.80
Job Performance (JP)	G. Moorehead (1981)	_	5	0.687
Job Involvement (JI)	Agrawal (1981)		10	0.811

Table 2: ANOVA with Channels of recruitment

Commitment	Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
Between Groups	269.438	4	67.360	.848	.498
Within Groups	7705.238	97	79.435
Total	7974.676	101
Performance
Between Groups	56.709	4	14.177	1.247	.296
Within Groups	1102.703	97	11.368
Total	1159.412	101
Job Involvement
Between Groups	169.631	4	42.408	.984	.420
Within Groups	4178.888	97	43.081
Total	4348.520	101
Job Satisfaction
Between Groups	117.906	4	29.476	1.513	.204
Within Groups	1889.741	97	19.482
Total	2007.647	101

Table 3: Post-Hoc Test for Continuance Commitment

	(I) channels	(J) channels	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	95% Confidence Interval
						Lower Bound	Upper Bound
LSD	Campus Recruitment	Consultancies	2.71154^*	1.22218	.029	.2858	5.1372
		Walk In	2.66154^*	1.22218	.032	.2358	5.0872

Table 4: Post-Hoc Test for Job Performance

	(I) channels	(J) channels	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	95% Confidence Interval
						Lower Bound	Upper Bound
LSD	Job Portals	Walk In	2.20000^*	1.06621	.042	.0839	4.3161

Table 5: Post-Hoc Test for Job Satisfaction

	(I) channels	(J) channels	Mean Difference (I-J)	Std. Error	Sig.	95% Confidence Interval
						Lower Bound	Upper Bound
LSD	Consultancies	Walk In	3.20000^*	1.39577	.024	.4298	5.9702

Total 102 samples were collected of which 26 were recruited through campus recruitment, 20 from consultancies, 16 through employee referrals, 20 through job portals and 20 through walk in. The average age of the sample was 26 years and the minimum and maximum age was 21 years and 42 years respectively. The average number of months spent in the current job was 23.12 months (2 years approximately). The minimum number of months was 2 and the maximum was 66 months. The average of the total work experience was 38.74 months (3 years and 3months approximately). The minimum (total) work experience was 5 and the maximum was 141 months (11 years 9 months).

The instruments used to measure variables incorporated in the study are drawn from various sources. Descriptions of the scales incorporated in the schedule are summarized in Table 1.

RESULTS:

The data collected was subjected to statistical analysis using SPSS (Version 17.0). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was conducted in order to understand if there is overall group difference among various sources/channels of recruitment. Post-hoc test was administered to see the group difference between each pair of recruitment sources/channels. Out of several post-hoc tests available, Fisher’s Least Significant Difference (LSD) test was used. Fisher LSD test is considered to be one of the least conservative post-hoc tests.

Table 2 shows that there was no significant difference in means among any recruitment channels in terms of the overall organizational commitment scale, performance, job involvement and job satisfaction.

Overall there’s no significant difference in means among recruitment channels on commitment. However, a break up analysis of normative, affective and continuance commitment showed a significant difference in the means between campus recruitment and consultancy and campus recruitment and walk in, only on continuance commitment (see Table 3). Post-hoc test shows that the mean of campus recruitment is greater than mean of consultancy and walk-in.

There was no significant difference in means among any recruitment sources/channels in terms of job performance as shown in Table 2. However, there’s significant difference in the means between job portals and walk-in in job performance scale (as shown in table 4). Mean of job portals is greater than mean of walk-in.

There was only significant difference in the means between consultancies and walk in, in job satisfaction as shown in Table 5. Mean of consultancies was greater than mean of walk-in.

DISCUSSION:

As is evident from the results there was no significant difference in means among recruitment channels/sources on organizational commitment, job involvement, job satisfaction and job performance. Several possible explanations stand out as plausible obstacles to drawing firm conclusions concerning the impact of recruiting source on the above four variables. Perhaps the most prominent is the argument by Vecchio¹² who argues that the results of each study are partially valid as an indication of what is the relative superiority of recruitment sources for a given job-domain, organization, or industry. This argument necessarily implies that it is difficult to make a general, descriptively valid statement concerning the relative effectiveness of recruitment sources unless an across jobs-organization-industry analysis is performed.

There are other studies which corroborate with results of this study. The results of a study by Vecchio¹² indicated that recruitment source is not associated with attitudinal dimensions (here job satisfaction, loyalty, pride in organization, anti-union stance, and propensity to quit) even after adjustment for differences in job quality and demographic attributes. Kirnan, Fairley and Geisinger¹³, Swaroff, Barclay and Bass¹⁴ and Taylor and Schmidt¹⁵ did not find any significant differences between recruitment sources on their performance measures. In a study of nearly 900 British trade workers, Reid¹⁶ concluded that individuals who used informal job-search techniques (such as asking friends and relatives about job opportunities) remained in jobs to the same extent as employees who utilized more formal methods (e.g., ads, employment services, casual application). Bissonnette¹⁷ found that expectations, perceived fairness and affective commitment explained a significant amount of variance in turnover intensions and job satisfaction; however, recruitment sources themselves did not significantly contribute to the outcomes nor did job information.

Anecdotal accounts from Human Resource Managers supported that there is no relationship between job performance and sources/channels of recruitment. They said that it is unfair to compare one source of recruitment with another because if management trainees (freshers) are hired through campus recruitment, experienced people are hired through employee referrals. It would be unfair if performance of a fresher and an experienced person is compared. Therefore, the two channels through which these two categories of employee were hired also are not comparable.

However the debate continues because some studies attest to the contrary. Literature suggests that there are two mediation variables (individual differences and realistic job information) that may explain why certain kinds of recruitment sources lead to higher job performance¹⁴. Based upon the individual differences explanation^18,15 the possibility that individuals recruited from different sources vary on motivation to apply and ability levels connected to subsequent performance¹⁹. Certain recruitment sources such as referrals give more realistic job expectations to applicants than other sources such as newspaper ads or self-initiated applications¹⁹. However, realistic job expectations may be more useful for reducing subsequent employee turnover than enhancing initial employee performance²⁰.

Although the realistic information hypothesis indicates that certain recruitment sources will provide better information about a job, and specifically that informal sources are the ones which provide the most and best information, the mechanisms through which this occurs have not been well defined in the literature¹⁷. Ullman²¹ attests to the above view that recruitment sources can vary in their usefulness for providing superior employees. For example, it has been suggested in Vecchio’s¹² study that informal recruitment sources (e.g., current employees) may generate applicants who will have higher job satisfaction, greater commitment, and higher levels of job performance than more formal recruitment sources (e.g., newspaper ads, employment agencies, walk-ins). Satisfaction with supervision was lowest for the college placement office source, while general job satisfaction did not differ significantly across the four available sources²².

We would like to argue with Sinha and Thaly³ that which recruiting channels should be used depends on the job position, on the company’s employer brand, on the resources the company has on its recruiting team, on how much recruiting budget the company has, etc. One can use them all and find out which suits the best. Every recruiting channel offers different benefits and limitations and works better for certain situations and companies. The key is collecting real-time recruitment metrics on these recruiting channels to figure out what works best for the company in different situations³.

Implications for practice

Though the present study shows that there was no significant difference among recruitment channels/sources on organizational commitment, job involvement, job satisfaction and job performance, however, it is an important practice to be inculcated. According to a report published by the Abardeen Group⁶, currently only 22% of organizations are able to tie the source of a hire with his or her performance as an employee. 53% of the organizations were unable to integrate candidate data and post-hire employee data. 51% had limited resources to do meaningful analysis of the information; 31% were unable to align employee performance measures with their hiring criteria; 24% could not track candidate source data. Additionally, organizations find it challenging to track the source of hire when candidates are applying for the same position through multiple channels, such as job boards, applicant tracking systems, and career sites. In fact, nearly 50% of organizations use more than three sourcing tools making it difficult to pinpoint where candidates are identified⁶. Irrespective of such practical difficulties it is imperative to put efforts in linking sources with attitudinal measures. As Birkwood⁷ realized that it does not matter whether the employee was a poor performer, an excellent worker who was disillusioned, or a job-hopper; ultimately, the business is negatively impacted if it loses talent in the first year, or is dealing with a poor employee. And speaking of investment, it is a good idea to track the money and time spent and the results of various employee recruiting activities⁸.

Limitations

Methodologically, it is important to point out that the performance measures were subjective view of performance rather than any official performance appraisal reports. Due to its self-perceptive nature it has its own limitations.

CONCLUSION:

From a practical perspective, the present "null results" suggest that recruitment sources may have minimal impact on organizational commitment, satisfaction, involvement and performance. That is to say, human resource managers need not be especially concerned about the influence of recruitment source on these dimensions because their impact might be quite transitory (i.e., of only potentially modest importance and limited to very early job experiences). However, the present results also suggest that employers should be aware that potential candidates do not have similar access and propensity to use recruitment sources. Sinha and Thaly³ also put forth that no single channel alone will reach all the candidates and that a multi-channel approach is essential to cover up the market. Recruiters must consider both market flow and share of applications when deciding which channels to use and to what extent. Sinha and Thaly³ conclude that when organizations try to understand the percentage of candidates that they are trying to reach via each channel, they should also have some cognizance of the percentage of candidates that they are failing to reach and the need to shift their source of recruitment. Therefore, if an organization relies on a particular source of recruitment and excludes others it might lose out upon a potential pool of employees. From an organizational perspective, there may, therefore, be an "optimal mix" of recruitment sources, which needs to be determined by job category and job level.

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Received on 14.01.2015 Modified on 27.01.2015

Asian J. Management 6(1): January–March, 2015 page 67-71

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2015.00011.6