Reference no: EM133160291

Case Study: Recruitment and Staffing Strategy for Amazon Inc.

 
One of the most challenging activity for any company is hiring and retaining competent staff. Usually, an organization must rigorously examine all candidates to identify their technical skills and personal traits and select only those who are competent.

Recruitment Plan

Recruitment is the process of identifying and hiring qualified individuals for a job opening. These candidates can be from within or outside the organization. This process entails an examination of the applicant's skills, experience, and character, which is followed by hiring and integrating the new employee to the company (Mathis & Jackson, 2010). In the warehouse supervisor position, Amazon will be interested in identifying if the candidates are skillful in inventory management and if they have experience from working in a similar post in the past. Additionally, the company will be concerned about the applicant's physical ability to make trips across the warehouse and whether they can be trusted with the firm's inventories. Therefore, a recruitment process is critical in enabling an organization to employ the right individual for the available job opening.

Tools Needed to Find Candidates

The human resource selection tools refer to a series of steps that are followed when hiring an individual. Typically, these steps start with the preliminary process of screening an applicant to the final vetting stage. The followings steps will be undertaken when recruiting an applicant:

1. Screening
2. Telephone interview
3. Interview with the human resource manager
4. Background check
5. Drug testing
6. Skill assessment

Screening. This step entails a preliminary review of the applicants resume to find if he/she meets the requisite qualifications for the job (Mondy, 2013). Those candidates who do not meet the minimum requirements will be automatically discontinued. Importantly, this step will enable the hiring manager to eliminate incompetent candidates.
Telephone interview. In this step, the hiring manager will inquire if the applicant is still interested in the job. The candidates who are not interested will be eliminated; however, those who still want to continue with the process will be asked basic questions concerning their experience and work history. Depending on their responses, they will be moved to the next step.
Interview with human resource manager. In this step, there is a face-to-face meeting between the candidate and the human resource manager. Therefore, the latter will assess if the applicant has appropriate knowledge, experience, and qualifications to work as a warehouse supervisor. Furthermore, the recruiter has the opportunity of assessing the suitability of the candidate in fitting into the organization's workplace culture.
Background check. A background check is an in-depth analysis of the job applicant. It entails a thorough investigation of the candidate's technical and non-technical skills, character, and interpersonal relationships. Usually, the evaluation probes the individual's history with the aim of identifying his/her character (Rue, Byars, & Ibrahim, 2015). In the warehouse supervisor position, Amazon will only accept persons who do not have any previous criminal records. This requirement will be necessary for ensuring the newly employed warehouse supervisors can oversee all the valuable company's products without being tempted to steal.
Drug testing. Screening applicants for illegal drugs ensures they will not have problems with substance abuse or workplace safety (Mondy, 2013). Most warehouse supervisors operate sensitive and risky machines, such as cranes; therefore, they must be sober to use these devices safely. Supervisors should also not be involved in drugs since they should be role models to their juniors.
Skills assessment. The analysis of a candidates' skills is essential for jobs that require specific technical expertise. A warehouse supervisor should have analytical skills to make decisions on how inventories will be transported to and from the warehouse. He/she should also have proper arithmetic skills to calculate the stocks in the warehouse. Finally, the individual should have appropriate leadership skills to influence his/her juniors. In this regard, this tool will be used to verify the competence of all applicants before they are finally accepted.

Interview Techniques

There are various types of interview techniques that different organizations use in employees' recruitment process. In the assessment of the applicants, Amazon Inc. will use telephone, individual, and task-oriented interviews. Telephone interviews will be carried out by an expert who will call and assess an applicant's willingness to continue with the employment recruitment process. Importantly, he/she will ask the interviewee a few questions concerning warehouse supervision to determine the latter's expertise in the job opening.
The individual interviews will be face-to-face interactions between the candidates and the human resource officers. This interview will take about 30 minutes and will enable the company to have an in-depth understanding of the applicant's character (Mathis & Jackson, 2010). Importantly, the human resource officers will be able to evaluate if the interviewee's previous telephone responses are similar to what they hear in this interview.
Finally, the task-oriented interview will aim at testing applicant's analytical and creative skills. Accordingly, interviewee's will be given an opportunity to supervise the implementation of various complex tasks in one of the company's warehouse. Therefore, this interview will disclose the candidate's leadership ability and technical skills.

To ensure a successful recruitment process, Amazon Inc. must consider the technical skills of an employee and also his/her ability to integrate into the company's culture. Therefore, when hiring a warehouse supervisor Amazon Inc. will evaluate the person's technical skills and experience, conduct a background check, and also evaluate if his/her characters match those of the organization. Such an analysis will result in the hiring of persons who are competent and can also fit into Amazon's culture. Importantly, the company will offer equal opportunities to all employees and will not unfairly discriminate candidates based on their gender, race, religion, disability, or marital status.

Question 1: 

Referring to the case study, HRM206 lectures and external sources.

1. Recruiting candidates can be from within or outside the organization. What is the difference between internal and external recruitment? Discuss while talking about each one's advantages and disadvantages. 
2. Discuss Amazon recruitment plan while stating which recruitment strategy is the company applying? 

Question 2:

Referring to the case study, HRM206 lectures and external sources; 

1. Identify the 6 tools used by Amazon to find candidates. Explain 4 of these tools while talking about each one's advantages and disadvantages. 
2. Explain the interview techniques used by Amazon? What does the company do to ensure a successful recruitment process?