10/ 01/ 2002
by John McConnell
You have identified a job that you need to fill and have pinpointed its responsibilities, qualifications and standards of performance. Now you're ready to obtain candidates.
Internal sources include promotions and transfers of current employees, and use of techniques such as job posting, employee referrals, succession plans, job families and existing files of information.
Job posting and employee-referral programs can identify candidates you might otherwise have overlooked. Interviewing all of the qualified candidates will be good for morale because employees will see that as fair.
If your company has a workforce plan or a succession plan, you may have already identified internal candidates for jobs. Or you may have identified job families, that is, a hierarchy of positions through which a typical employee can grow. Identifying a job family appeals to candidates and employees, because it provides a road-map for their careers with your company.
Finally, candidate files (with unsolicited resumes, applications and employment inquiry letters) can be a good source because they represent people already interested in your company, if not the specific job.
Here's a good checklist to follow for internal sources of candidates.
Have you:
- Considered current employees for promotion or transfer?
- Established a procedure, such as job posting, to identify employees who may be interested in and qualified for open positions?
- Established a procedure that encourages your employees to recommend people they know for jobs with your company?
- Identified logical progressions for promotion or transfer within job families (if you have a variety of positions in your company)?
- Identified any key jobs for which internal backup does not exist (succession planning)?
- Used your succession plans when filling jobs?
- Dated, time-stamped and recorded the receipt of all applications and resumes, solicited or not?
- Kept all applications and resumes for a specific period of time?
- Referred to application and resume files before seeking external candidates?
- Responded to all employment inquiries?
- Treated people seeking employment in a professional and considerate manner?
- Trained your employees to recognize the public relations benefits of dealing well with applicants and candidates?
- Discovered what legal requirements may apply to your files of resumes and applications?
John McConnell is president of McConnell, Simmons & Co., a New Jersey firm that specializes in consulting services and products for human-resources professionals. He holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in educational psychology and is the author of several books in the human resources field.
