In the world of work, insider recruitment is no longer a strange thing. In fact, we often find this phenomenon around us. This ‘insider’ path often makes HR confused in taking a stance.
This is because on the one hand HR must remain professional, but on the other hand, they cannot refuse, especially if it is a request from a superior or company official.
However, it turns out that this ordinary path does not always have a negative and detrimental impression, you know! So, if HR finds work practices through insiders, what should be done? Check out the following explanation to understand it.
Insider Work Practices
The pros and cons of insider recruitment are always interesting to discuss. This phenomenon is closely related to nepotism activities where recruitment tends to prioritize their family or close relatives.
Insider recruitment does not always have negative connotations and is always in the form of nepotism. There are also practices that are legal and are supported by the company, namely employee referrals.
The following is a clearer explanation of insider recruitment practices.
1. Nepotism
Nepotism in recruitment can be seen from the coercion to accept candidates into the company without considering the quality and qualifications of the candidates.
Usually, this practice is often carried out by employees in companies who have high and influential positions where they often become decision-makers.
This practice usually does not involve HR directly and without paying attention to recruitment SOPs. Here HR only needs to take care of all administrative files.
But, there is also nepotism involved in the recruitment process. Usually, the innate candidate will mention the name of their insider during the interview process.
Or it could be the other way around, where the insider mentions the candidate’s name to HR. As a result, the interview is merely a formality.
Employee Referral
If nepotism in recruitment is identical to illegal and bad paths, there are also insider paths that are legal and are encouraged by the company. This is what is called employee referral or employee recommendation.
This program actually helps companies find candidates who have the same quality as the employees who provide recommendations. In addition, the recruitment process can be faster because HR no longer needs to start the recruitment process from scratch.
Information about the referred candidates is also richer because HR can ask more in-depth questions to the employees who referred them.
This is often done to recruit tech talent, where quality talent tends to be limited. In fact, some companies do not hesitate to give rewards to employees who successfully recommend suitable candidates.
Advantages of Insider Recruitment
The insider route is not always the wrong thing, there are several positive impacts, such as the following.
1. Faster Recruitment Process
Recruiting employees through insiders will certainly speed up the recruitment process. This is because you no longer need to compile job desks, post job advertisements, or conduct screenings, and interviews.
As a result, a recruitment process that could take weeks can be completed in a matter of days.
2. More Efficient Cost Per Hire
Because the recruitment process is faster, of course, this will save the recruitment budget or cost per employee hire, making it more efficient.
3. Recruiting Suitable Candidates
The employee referral route is one of the insider routes that allows HR to recruit candidates who meet their needs.
This is because usually employees who provide references understand what the company’s needs are and are familiar with the potential of the candidates they bring.
4. Increase HR Productivity
The recruitment process is a long, tiring process that takes up a lot of HR time. However, with the presence of insider channels, HR certainly no longer needs to spend a lot of time on it.
You can also be more productive in carrying out other tasks, whether it is employee development or other strategic tasks.
Disadvantages of Insider Recruitment
Apart from bringing positive impacts, there are also several negative impacts that need to be seen and taken into consideration, including:
1. The Birth of Social Jealousy Among Employees
The involvement of insiders is often associated with the practice of nepotism, which results in the perception that employees are recruited not because of their skills, but because there are powerful people behind them.
As a result, this can cause social jealousy among employees and create a toxic work environment because it is filled with people gossiping, being sarcastic, and sneering that the company is not firm.
2. Worker wages are swelling
Often, candidates recruited through insiders do not match the manpower needs in the field, this of course causes an increase in employee salary costs that are not actually needed.
3. Less competent employees
In addition, the negative impact of recruitment through insiders is the possibility that the candidates accepted do not have the required competencies.
As a result, candidates are less able to contribute to the company and their performance tends to be less than optimal, ultimately leading to decreased productivity.
How HR Responds to Insider Recruitment
Dealing with insider power is not easy. It takes patience to solve it. But, patience alone is not enough. As HR you must have other ways to deal with it. Below are some tips for you.
1. Keep the Recruitment Process Running Professionally
The first tip is that HR must continue to run the recruitment process and regulations as they should. Run the principles of openness, freedom, objectivity, and fairness.
2. Check Candidate Documents
Try checking all the documents attached by the candidate, starting from the cover letter , CV, to the portfolio.
From these documents you can find out whether the candidate is qualified or not. If the candidate is recommended by an insider and you are asked to do an interview, there is no harm in doing so.
3. Discussion About Recruitment Process
During the interview process, you can discuss with the candidate about the recruitment process and explain a little about the position required.
You can also ask potential candidates about their relationship with the insider who recommended them.
4. Do a Psychological Test or Technical Test
To ensure that you accept candidates, you can conduct psychological tests or technical tests on candidates.
From here you can see and compare the results with other candidates to be used as a basis for decision making.
5. Stay Professional
If it turns out that the candidate recommended by someone meets the qualifications, then he or she is indeed worthy of being accepted.
However, if the opposite is true, and insiders force you to accept it, do it professionally, namely by processing the acceptance of new employees according to existing SOPs.
6. Tell Your Coworkers and Boss
Recruiting insiders is not just an HR issue. You can also inform your colleagues or superiors who make decisions.
They have the right to know about this so that if there is a problem later, they can accompany you and help solve the problem.
Basically, the insider route is not always wrong, as long as the candidate has the skills and experience that match the company’s needs.
However, of course, running the recruitment process by adhering to its principles is something that HR needs to hold on to. Indeed, recruitment often feels long and tiring, especially when having to struggle to determine suitable candidates in the screening process.
But, actually, this can be overcome by using recruitment software. With the help of advanced technology, recruiting candidates will be much faster and more precise.
