The Interdependency of Recruitment and Ethics

The recruitment and selection process involves myriad perspectives as choosing the right people and positioning them in the right place requires an acumen that aims at long term success. In today’s reckless pace of innovation and strife, organizations need to hire individuals who make ethical and wise decisions. Human element is the most vulnerable element in an organization and as the saying goes, “the strength of a chain is equal to the strength of its weakest link”, empires and legacies have fallen prey to this.

The Human Resource Planning stem of an organization which frames the recruitment process commonly includes aptitude ability tests and structured interviews to recruit individuals. The ethical/unethical nature of an individual can only be surmised when he/she is subjected to scenarios that involve difference of opinions and conflicts.

In general, the purpose of recruitment is to gather a pool of potentially qualified job candidates. Also, it is the moral responsibility of an interviewer to treat all job seekers equally and not to discriminate them on the basis of race, origin, gender, age or sexual orientation. When making hiring decisions, a recruiter should solely rely on relevant and job related information. It is important to realize that commitments are made from both sides, the interviewer and the interviewee. Candidates appearing for the interview must grapple with ethical issues, being honest throughout the recruitment process, from interviewing, to selection, to accepting an offer. Misinforming a recruiter to cinch the job can lead to dire consequences. Both parties have a responsibility to maintain ethical standards.

Thorough attention and best practice guidelines are required to ensure that risks of unfair practices and unethical conduct are avoided. Fortunately, recruitment and selection decision makers have a wide variety of material to guide their decision making. Candidates appearing for an interview can be judged using various topics and case studies that would subject them to use their intellect to make ethical decisions in case of crisis and conflicts. It is not only important that managers select candidates based on how well they fit with the culture of the organization, their technical skills and competencies but also understand their emotional intelligence and how they react to disputes. An ideal choice would be to select a candidate who could generate a win-win situation in every possible case.

A few key values that are involved during recruitment and selection are impartiality, accountability, openness and integrity. Now a days, Human Resource Managers use a variety of measures to select applicants who are the best fit for a position. When making a hiring choice, it is critical to understand the applicant’s personality style, values, motivations, and attitudes. Technical expertise can be gained by new employees, but personality is not easy to change. However, identifying and measuring ethical values during a recruitment and selection is a process that requires constant reinvention and improvisation.

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