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This paper seeks to examine the changes in the methods of graduate recruitment and selection that have been used by UK‐based organisations and to establish the reasons for the main changes and developments in the process of attracting and recruiting graduates.

Data were collected through the use of a structured questionnaire. Questionnaires were sent to 700 UK‐based employers selected from the Prospects Directory, the Graduate Employment and Training (GET) Directory and the Times Top 100 Graduate Recruiters. The response rate was just over 50 per cent and the data were analysed by using the statistical analysis software SPSS. The variables used were organisation size, recruitment methods, selection methods, cost, skills and reasons for the use of methods.

The analysis has shown that all employers, regardless of organisation size or activity type, tend to use more sophisticated, objective and cost‐effective methods of recruitment and selection than before. The process of graduate recruitment and selection in the UK has become more person‐related than job‐oriented because many employers are more interested in the attitudes, personality and transferable skills of applicants than the type or level of qualification acquired. Although some of the usual methods such as interviewing remain popular, there is a greater variety of ways by which graduates are attracted to and selected for their first jobs.

The findings of this study are expected to be useful for employers considering the introduction of new graduate recruitment programmes and for those wishing to improve their existing ones as well as for institutions of higher education to reconsider the type of knowledge and skills they provide in order to prepare their students for the real world of work.

The existing literature on the recruitment and selection process in Sub-Saharan African (SSA) context has not sufficiently revealed inherent challenges. The purpose of this paper is to examine managers’ perceptions of employee resourcing in Nigeria.

This paper uses qualitative data which were generated from the semi-structured interviews of 61 managers across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria.

The paper finds that in addition to the Federal Character Principle and the Quota System Policy, favouritism, ethnicity, age and gender discrimination, as well as corruption significantly inhibit the recruitment and selection process in Nigeria. Consequently, the ability to hire the best workers to improve competitiveness is also inadvertently hampered.

The paper shows that the institutional and cultural variations in SSA require a nuanced approach in the recruitment and selection process in order to enhance organisational competitiveness.

The institutional and cultural variations in SSA require a nuanced approach in the recruitment and selection process in order to enhanced organisational competitiveness.

Recruitment and selection in the construction industry is ad hoc – the search for workers to match immediate employment needs is unsystematic, usually conducted in a short‐termist manner, and often contributes to, rather than overcomes, persistent recruitment difficulties and skill shortages. The purpose of this paper is to explore the recruitment context and selection practice in the Scottish construction sector, and proposes a model of the selection decision process which may provide an explanation for this apparently unsystematic approach.

A survey based on a sample from the 1998 Scottish Chambers of Commerce Business Survey database was used to examine the pattern of recruitment, contextual influences on recruitment, the qualities sought by employers, and the extent of use of various recruitment and selection methods. Further qualitative data was gathered from a subset of construction and surveyors firms to explore the nature of selection processes.

The data highlighted the lack of rigour in recruitment and selection and the presence of formalised procedures only in the larger firms. Qualitative evidence shows an emphasis on the visual assessment of work, the importance of site managers in making decisions, and the presence of local industry networks.

The survey could provide only an indicative description of practice amongst Scottish firms and larger scale accounts of practice would be useful. Nevertheless, the contribution of the qualitative research was to explore the dynamics of selection for a rarely studied work context.

Construction firms are found to share many of the constraints in adopting formal HRM practices already identified in small firms in unpredictable environments.

The paper's aims are to ascertain whether there is evidence of Egyptian organisations using recruitment and selection practices which are context specific and whether different practices are used for different job types; whether responsibility for recruitment and selection is shared between HRM specialists and line management; and whether there is evidence of increasing devolution of this responsibility to line managers.

Data were collected between May and July 2007 and produced 108 usable questionnaires. The questionnaire was adapted from the Price Waterhouse Cranfield project on HRM in Europe.

There is some evidential support for the influence of the Egyptian national context upon the practices used, with different practices, including the number of techniques being used for the recruitment and selection of different job types. There is evidence of substantial sharing of this responsibility with line management through consultation and of an increased devolution of responsibility to line management.

Investigating recruitment and selection practices with the influence of ownership and by organisational size is needed to pursue whether there are significant associations between these variables.

Organisations moving into Egypt would not appear to be confronted with substantial resistance to the adoption of new methods and techniques for recruiting and selecting staff or the adoption of different methods for different job types, neither with resistance if they wish to involve line management in the decision‐making process.

The influence of the Egyptian national context upon the recruitment and selection practices used is an important issue for organisations to know the best recruitment and selection methods.

This paper seeks to provide an insight into the recruitment and selection of volunteers in the heritage sector, drawing comparisons between paid and unpaid workers to assess the implications of the findings for volunteer management.

A multi‐method research design was adopted involving qualitative interviews with managers and volunteers, in conjunction with a postal survey of volunteers across 12 study sites, which were all visitor attractions in the heritage sector.

The findings show that the effectiveness of the recruitment and selection process can be undermined by a lack of formality and supporting resources. This raises questions about the effectiveness of human resource management for volunteers, both specifically in the heritage sector and in the wider context of volunteer management.

The research was of an exploratory nature and so further investigation is needed to consider the impact of these findings on the effectiveness of volunteer recruitment and selection across a range of sectors.

The research highlights the existing practices in place for volunteer management in the heritage sector so raising issues for managers regarding the challenge of achieving a balance between formality and informality of human resource management practices.

The research takes a micro‐level approach to examining the recruitment and selection of volunteer workers. It provides a link in the literature between the management of volunteers and human resource management practices.

Reviews contemporary thinking on recruitment and selection in organisations. Draws upon data from a 1992 and a 1995 survey to explore the nature of current recruitment and selection practices in Ireland with particular reference to managerial jobs. Policy decisions on recruitment are examined, recruitment methods are reviewed, and the influence of ownership, size, unionisation and sector on the methods chosen is presented. Selection techniques employed are identified and the situations in which they are most likely to be utilised are highlighted.

This article reports and evaluates how a traditional approach to recruitment and selection in the Social Services Department of West Sussex County Council was superseded by a competency‐based approach. The authors discuss the impacts of external and internal changes on the local authority and the need to develop less subjective and more effective methods of recruitment and selection, at all levels. After describing and reviewing existing practices, they outline the results of an internal research investigation involving managers and personnel and training specialists. The research participants acknowledged the limitations of the existing recruitment and selection practices and recognised the need for a more competence‐based approach. This was clearly an important stage in the change process which the authors proceed to describe. Here, they highlight the key role of training and relationship‐building between line managers and personnel specialists. Examples are provided of traditional and competence‐based job descriptions, person specifications and forms of assessment. The authors conclude that the new system fits well into the department’s overall human resources strategy for improving workplace performance and reducing workplace conflict.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the knowledge on the opportunities and risks in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in recruitment and selection by exploring the perspectives of recruitment professionals in a multicultural multinational organisation.

A qualitative approach was used in this exploratory study. Face-to-face, semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with ten professional recruiters who worked for a multinational corporation.

The findings revealed that AI facilitates the effective performance of routine tasks through automation. However, the adoption of AI technology in recruitment and selection is also fraught with risks that engender fear and distrust among recruiters. The effective adoption of AI can improve recruitment strategies. However, cynicism exists because of the fears of job losses to automation, even though the participants thought that their jobs would continue to exist because recruiters should always be humans.

This paper provides a unique exploration of the opportunities and risks in the adoption of AI for the recruitment and selection function in human resource management. The benefits are the delegation of routine tasks to AI and the confirmation of the crucial role of professional recruiters.

Recruitment and selection experiences are part of a process of pre‐entry organisational socialisation, also known as anticipatory socialisation. Graduates are susceptible to such effects as their socialisation through exposure to professional employers begins during training. Employers’ practices are thought to contribute to the formation of realistic career expectations and the initial psychological contract between graduates and employers. The present study found that students in traditional professions reported greater exposure to employers than students in an emerging profession through work activities, more proactive engagement in recruitment events, and more extensive experience of selection processes at similar stages of study. Greater activity, in turn, was related to career expectations, including varying levels of commitment to and interest in the profession and career clarity.

I approach this work in the knowledge that the recruitment and selection of staff is one of the most neglected areas of library management. I have been unable to trace any monograph devoted to the subject published during the past 10 years and few general books on library management spare more than a cursory glance in its direction.