Practical Applications and Recommendations for HR and OD Professionals in the Global Workplace_6 docx

In thissection we focus two factors that can impact recruiting strate-gies and outcomes— the macro societal or cultural context andthe external labor market in which the organization is

hand, recruits across the globe with a specific set of criteria, andlooks for individuals who fit the GE value system For instance, in

2007, of the 1,053 students hired into GE’s leadership programs,

224 were from Asia; 148 were from Europe, the Middle East, andAfrica; and 681 were from the Americas (Hill, 2008)

There is no one best practice or gold standard for recruiting,but there are certainly some practices that organizations havefollowed which have helped them identify and attract good can-didates (Fern´andez-Araoz, Groysberg, & Nohria, 2009) Typically,when human resource practices fit exogenous contingency factorssuch as national culture and laws, as well as endogenous organi-zational factors such as size or technological sophistication of theorganization, they most effectively help enhance organizationalperformance (Immelt, Govindarajan, & Trimble, 2009; Lengnick-

Hall & Lengnick-Hall, 1988; McGaughey & De Cieri, 1999; Schuler

& Tarique, 2007) In the next two sections we outline key externaland internal contingency factors that may influence organizations’recruiting efforts, and call for managerial attention to these whenchalking their recruitment strategies

Exogenous Contingency Factors in Recruitment

Exogenous contingency factors are those that are outside ofthe immediate control of the organization, but are those whichmay significantly influence organizational functioning In thissection we focus two factors that can impact recruiting strate-gies and outcomes— the macro societal or cultural context andthe external labor market in which the organization is situated

We especially focus on these two factors because of their directimpact on recruiting strategies and activities Given the variouscross-country and sometimes within-country differences in legalelements such as employment standards, worker compensation,unionization, human rights, and the availability of niche liter-ature regarding the legal context of human resource practices(Berkowitz & Muller-Bonanni, 2007; Shilling, 2008), we do notdelve into the legal context in terms of recruiting in this chapter

We also do not outline cross-country political factors in recruitingfor similar reasons

Societal or Cultural Context

Managerial assumptions and work values are shaped by the etal and national cultures in which they operate (Laurent, 1986)and human resource practices may not always trump sociocul-tural boundaries of different countries (Mendonca & Kanungo,1996; Sparrow & Budhwar, 1997) Thus, although the ‘‘what’’question in human resource philosophy may be universal (forexample, effective employee recruitment), the ‘‘how’’ questionmay be culture-specific (for example, criteria and sources ofrecruitment) (Tayeb, 1995; 1998) This is especially the casebecause historical legacies, social stratification, educational sys-tem, and pressure groups all have their origins in national culture,and exert their own influences on work values, attitudes, behav-iors, and thus on organizational human resource policies andpractices (McGaughey & De Cieri; 1999; Tayeb, 1995; 1997).Overall, criteria as well as methods and sources of recruitmentmay be culture bound

soci-Managers in individual-oriented or self-oriented countriesmay recruit differently as compared with managers in collec-tive or socially oriented countries (Kulkarni, Lengnick-Hall, &Valk, 2010) In individually oriented countries, recruitment may

be based more on hard criteria such as competences and skills

In socially oriented countries, recruitment may be based more

on soft criteria such as social and interpersonal skills, or sociallyascribed status For example, whereas education and past workexperience may be specific recruitment criteria in the UnitedStates, in Asia or the Middle East a criterion may be whether ornot the candidate belongs to the manager’s ‘‘in-group.’’ Specifi-cally, managers from mature economies such as the United Statesmay be individualistic in that their in-group may not includethe workplace (Tayeb, 1995), whereas managers from growth ordeveloping countries are generally more family- and community-oriented in that members from the workplace may be viewed as thein-group (Mendonca & Kanungo, 1996) Although the personnelfunction in Asia and the Middle East is becoming more strategicand objective, networks based on social contacts, caste, and othersocial connections still influence human resource policies andpractices Indians, for example, are relatively more collectivist,clan oriented, and caste conscious (Tayeb, 1987), and Taiwanese

and Malaysians are rooted in traditional Chinese values of group

or collective orientation People in Thailand, China, and nam are also known to administer preferential treatment towardnetwork or in-group members (Zhu, Warner, & Rowley, 2007).Networks or the collective in-group may also be determined byreligion A large body of research shows that religion is important

Viet-in Islamic countries, particularly Viet-in the Middle East Numerousstudies across countries such as Egypt (Leat & El-Kot, 2007), Oman(Aycan, Al-Hamadi, Davis, & Budhwar, 2007), Iran (Namazie &Frame, 2007), United Arab Emirates (Rees, Mamman, & Braik,2007), and Saudi Arabia (Alsahlawi & Gardener, 2004), to name

a few, indicate that managers may target familiar others based onreligion The tendency to recruit from the known social network,some argue, reflects uncertainty avoidance (Leat & El-Kot, 2007),and a social or collective orientation (Aycan, Al-Hamadi, Davis, &Budhwar, 2007) This tendency may be reflective of developingcountries in general (Kanungo & Jaegar, 1990), given that there isgenerally more uncertainty in developing countries as comparedwith mature ones

Overall, societies that value interpersonal relationships willgear recruitment efforts to identify candidates that fit the socialnetwork in the organization (Aycan, 2005) This has a direct andsubstantive influence on where and who managers recruit Recruit-ment may be especially driven by ascribed status driven by familialand social connections—that is, personal relationships—a situa-tion that may not be overt or explicit in European organizations(Budhwar & Khatri, 2001; Sharma, 1984; Sparrow & Budhwar,1997) In sum, collective or high–uncertainty avoidance cul-tures may prefer internal recruitment channels, and informaland network-based recruitment (Aycan, 2005) Considering thefact that people who live and work in countries described as

‘‘developing’’ or ‘‘growth’’ comprise almost 80% of the world’spopulation (Aycan, Al-Hamadi, Davis, & Budhwar, 2007), and thisregion is where job growth is currently highest (InternationalLabour Organization, 2009), the impact of social factors cannot

be overlooked by multinational organizations

What have organizations done given this situation? nizing such regional differences, some organizations, such asUnisys, leverage a hybrid model to tap into global talent In a

Recog-hybrid model, each business unit has a recruiting specialist tofulfill functional roles within that designated unit, but targetedrecruiting strategies are centralized Thus the process of imple-menting the recruiting policy is delegated to the local unitswhich are clearly tuned into local realities (Corporate LeadershipCouncil, 2006b).

Macro societal aspects also influence what the available laborpool values, and consequently what organizations should signalwhen attracting candidates For example, whereas candidates inindividually oriented countries such as the United States stronglyvalue health benefits, this benefit is among the least valued inAsia and Australia Recruitment efforts thus have to be tar-geted Cendant Mobility, a provider of workforce developmentsolutions, provides an example from India Indian employeeshave familial obligations and responsibilities that are complexand often more demanding than a Western notion of familyresponsibilities Indians may be expected to care more for theirextended families (Budhwar, 2001; 2003; Kulkarni, Lengnick-Hall, & Valk, 2010) This suggests that work-life benefits such asflexible time-off may be more compelling for attracting candi-dates in India as compared with elsewhere (Corporate LeadershipCouncil, 2006b)

So what should global managers do in regard to the macrosocial context when recruiting globally? One, global managersshould be trained and sensitized to be aware of the significantroles that institutions such as family, religion, education, tradeunions, and the state play in shaping employee attitudes andactions across the world This awareness will help the managers todevise appropriate means to handle diversity at the micro level.Two, managers should clearly describe the jobs for which theyare recruiting so that even if certain regions tap into their socialnetworks and leverage informal methods, recruitment and hiring

is particular to the job in question Three, managers must decide

if they want to delegate recruiting to local units, and for whichlevels of hiring this delegation is appropriate Four, managersshould build flexibility into their recruitment strategies to includeand actively signal different incentives and perquisites to cater todifferent expectations across the world

Labor Market Conditions

The second macro level contingency which directly and cantly affects recruiting efforts is the condition of the labor market.The labor market is defined as the general area from which appli-cants have to be recruited Various factors such as national andregional economies, skill and education level of the workforce,and demographic composition of the labor pool all affect thelabor market This story gets complicated further when we con-sider the global labor market Two types of labor markets influencerecruitment— scarce and abundant labor markets Scarcity in thelabor market implies that the labor market is tight, and there is lowunemployment Consequently, organizations have to try harder

signifi-to recruit good candidates Abundance in the labor market, onthe other hand, implies the labor market is loose, and there ishigh unemployment (Bohlander & Snell, 2004) It is important

to note, however, that the labor market is different for differentlevels within an organization For example, it is quite possible thateven though there is an abundant supply of available labor forlower-level positions, recruiting people for strategic positions may

be tough, as that market may be scarce We first discuss how ascarce labor market influences recruitment efforts, and then focus

on how an abundant labor market influences recruitment efforts

Scarcity in the labor market. Consider these examples TheCheesecake Factory in the United States attracts and hires over20,000 people per year, operates more than 110 restaurants, and

is expanding nationally (Dessler, 2008) Infosys attracts and hiresover 24,000 people annually, and is expanding globally Further, adepleting talent pool is forcing organizations to incur higher costs

to source the right talent How can organizations such as thesefind good candidates? The solution that most organizations haveadopted is innovation in their recruitment efforts and strategies(Dessler, 2008; Kossek, 1987)

Organizations can employ one or all of three strategies toattract candidates in a scarce market—attract candidates throughinnovative campus recruiting efforts, create a strong organiza-tional brand, actively tap ‘‘passive’’ job seekers—and, if possible,leverage technology for all of the above The three strategies

are not mutually exclusive (campus activities can help build an

organizational brand) but are discussed separately for tractability

In the following, we discuss ways in which various organizationshave successfully implemented the previous strategies Use ofinnovative technologies depends on the technological sophisti-cation of an organization, and we therefore discuss it in greaterdetail in a later section which elaborates on internal contingencyfactors.

Creating a strong campus presence A wide variety of zations with a presence across the world utilize campus recruitingheavily to attract bright candidates We will consider examplesfrom Ernst and Young (Sullivan, 2008b), Tata Consultancy Ser-vices Ltd (Fern´andez-Araoz, 2007), Procter & Gamble (Ready

organi-& Conger, 2007), Valero (Sullivan, 2006c), and Infosys shaw, 2008) What do these organizations do in common? All fourorganizations have created a strong campus presence and haveestablished robust ties with national or international universities,

(Birkin-or both, f(Birkin-or campus recruiting

Campus recruiting is taken very seriously at Ernst and Young,and they have created a campus-centric team approach thatincludes a coordinating partner, campus recruiter, campus cham-pion (senior manager), a diversity champion, and they have addedcampus recruiting goals into managers’ personal developmentplans and performance scorecards They have strong internshipprogram ties with over 300 business schools in North America,and they leverage former interns as campus ambassadors to attractnewer candidates These practices ensure that 90% of their internsjoin them as full-time hires (Sullivan, 2008b) Similar practices arefollowed by Infosys (Birkinshaw, 2008)

University recruiting is also a line-led activity at Procter & ble, and many senior managers personally lead campus teams attop universities around the world To strengthen and solidifyties with top universities, which are a key source of talent, thecampus team leaders not only lead recruitment efforts, but theyalso fund research, make technology gifts, and participate in var-ious activities such as conducting talks at the campus, or judgingcompetitions (Ready & Conger, 2007) Valero goes a step fur-ther in terms of innovative practices in campus recruiting Theyleverage teaching assistants as talent scouts on targeted campuses,allowing Valero to secure interns and full-time employees prior togoing for formal on-campus recruiting events (Sullivan, 2006c)

Gam-Accenture taps into specific student clubs at elite universitiessuch as Yale to recruit the brightest from campus (McConnon

& Silver-Greenberg, 2008) Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) hasalso implemented a unique recruitment strategy to build strongcampus ties They have partnered with certain schools to designspecific classes that fit TCS manpower and skill requirements(Fern´andez-Araoz, 2007)

Overall, campus recruiting not only helps directly in securingcandidates; it also helps indirectly by creating a future pipeline

of candidates based on the recruiting organization’s past actionsand the reputation it builds on campuses from where it routinelyrecruits For example, when recruiting on campus, MotorolaChina offers a variety of services to students including career plan-ning, resume writing, and team-building exercises As a result, theorganization hires about 250 to 400 interns annually from partnercolleges, of which 60–80% eventually become full-time employees(Corporate Leadership Council, 2006b) Some organizations tar-get students even before they get to any university Organizationssuch as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, IBM, and General Electricundertake various activities to teach U.S high school studentsscience, technology, engineering, and math skills Boeing volun-teers, for example, teach science with the aid of flight simulatorsand a mock space shuttle with wireless computers, and NorthropGrumman, a leading global security organization, provides 7,000high school seniors across North America with 17 weeks of ele-mentary job training About 6,000 students have found jobs atNorthrop since the program started in 1971 (Reveron, 2009)

Differentiating by creating an organizational brand. Anotherstrategy that organizations follow to attract candidates is to create

a clear employer brand image Organizations such as Google, forexample, have been very successful at branding, and consequentlyattracting candidates (Sullivan, 2006a) who are attracted to what

is implied by the brand Organizations follow various methods tocreate a brand image by signaling certain positive attributes anddifferentiating themselves in a labor market Branding influencesfamiliarity and recall ability which in turn positively influencecandidate attention and job application behaviors (Collins, 2007).The key idea in branding is to make the organization salient in

the mind of the labor pool, so that when the opportunity arises,candidates will apply to the organization.

So which recruiting strategies based on branding have nizations followed to ensure that people sit up and take notice

orga-of them?

Hiring managers at Intel offer podcasts and host Webinars toexplain jobs and opportunities, and answer questions from poten-tial candidates This is a low-cost method for building relationshipsand it also focuses on a very specific audience that the organization

is trying to target (Institute of Management and Administration,Inc., 2008) Another low-cost but relatively nontraditional method

to attract skilled workers is what is referred to as‘‘ proximityrecruiting.’’ Toxbox, a next-generation provider of a free ser-vice that lets you talk with your friends over live video, engaged

in innovative proximity recruiting when Yahoo! was laying off itsemployees Toxbox set up a taco truck outside Yahoo’s campus andoffered affected and other employees hot lunch while also adver-tising employment opportunities at Toxbox They could thus tapinto valuable talent from Yahoo! and garner enormous publicityfor their relatively unknown organization (Sullivan, 2008a).Certis CISCO, the largest auxiliary police force operator in Sin-gapore, traveled a little farther away from their campus to developtheir brand and recruit candidates They wanted to attract rela-tively large numbers of auxiliary police officers and managementpersonnel to join their growing organization This was accom-plished by sending out a ‘‘recruitment bus’’ to travel to theheartlands They also organized road shows where they offerediPods to the first 100 applicants, and set up library talks to reachout to people who may not necessarily have been familiar with theforce (Lee, 2007)

Organizations across the world have also used visual media topromote their brand and gain attention of applicants by makingthe organization salient in the minds of people exposed to themedia Donald Trump’s ‘‘The Apprentice’’ and ESPN’s ‘‘DreamJob’’ are well known Organizations such as Aviva Life Insurance,Flextronics Software Systems, LG Electronics, Impetus Technolo-gies, DNA, Yes Bank, and Denstu have also participated in atelevised recruitment drive This televised event was hosted in

India by Naukri.com, in association with CNBC TV 18, a ing business news and information channel (‘‘The Job Show,’’2006) Deloitte Consulting also leveraged visual media, and in

lead-2007 invited its employees to create a three-minute amateur filmanswering the question, ‘‘What’s your Deloitte?’’ Not only did thisinitiative spark widespread interest within the internal community,

it eventually became a great recruiting tool for the organization(Fugure, 2009)

Finally, to stand apart in a crowded organizational world, someorganizations include the applicant’s family in the recruitmentdrive For example, some organizations pay the expenses for anapplicant’s spouse to accompany him or her on a site visit Thisorganizational act suggests to the applicant that the organizationalculture is supportive of work-family issues (Boswell, Roehling,LePine, & Moynihan, 2003) Overall, these strategies are designed

to make the organization salient in the minds of potential jobseekers

Actively targeting passive job seekers.A survey of global CEOsshows that most organizations start their recruitment process reac-tively when a position opens, but it is clearly more useful to startthe search process much in advance for all levels of the organiza-tion Intuit, a software organization, known for such products asQuickBooks and TurboTax, carefully starts their search process inadvance of headcount needs They have created supply-demandmaps for all organizational levels and manage to accurately antic-ipate more than 90% of their talent needs (Fern´andez-Araoz,Groysberg, & Nohria, 2009)

However, anticipating need and then targeting the correctcandidate is tougher than it may seem, especially for strategicpositions In such cases, organizations may actively seek passive jobseekers—people currently employed by other organizations, whoare happy at their current workplace, and aren’t looking activelyfor jobs (Chatman, O’Reilly, & Chang, 2005) Consider the case ofAmazon Amazon’s business model requires the organization tomanage a constant flow of new products, suppliers, and customers,

as well as deliver orders by promised dates When Amazon needed

a new head for its global supply chain, it recruited Gang Yu, aprofessor of management science and a software entrepreneurwho is one of the world’s leading authorities on optimization

analytics Of course, this combination of analytical, business, andrelationship skills was difficult to find, and Amazon looked atnontraditional sources to tap someone who can be seen as a

‘‘passive job seeker.’’ SAS, a software organization, also needscandidates for niche and state-of-the-art business applicationssuch as predictive modeling or recursive partitioning (a type ofdecision tree analysis) To fill these niche positions, they beginrecruiting up to 18 months before they need to fill such positions(Davenport, 2006)

Consider yet another example Chiron, a pharmaceutical nization, operates in a very tight labor market where only a fewpotential candidates exist around the world for certain scientificpositions Chiron recruiters learn the business specifics from var-ious business units and try to build relationships with passive jobseeker scientists who are in turn open to talking with someonewho understands their work and business (Corporate LeadershipCouncil Recruiting Roundtable, 2006)

orga-Passive job seekers can be sought from various places and invarious ways Cisco recruiters follow innovative recruiting tacticssuch as attending garden shows or microbrewery festivals—anypotential places that their target candidates frequent At onepoint Cisco had also rigged its Web site to spot candidates fromrival organization 3Com and greeted these people with a pagethat asked them if they wanted a job at Cisco (Kiger, 2003).Though this may sound like an outrageous strategy, recruitersalso frequent bars where unsuspecting target candidates maycongregate (Sullivan, 2006b)

The other strategy that organizations are following to tap intokey candidates in a tight labor market is to look at the temporary

or part-time labor pool To target such candidates, organizationsare leveraging niche job boards Stay-at-home mothers who are

looking for jobs can be recruited through channels such as

Work-ing Mother Magazine, or bluesuitmom.com; temporary workers

can be targeted via channels such as temps.com; retired ees can be tapped through retiredbrains.com; and finally, diversedemographic groups can be tapped into through latina.com orblackcareerwoman.com Organizations such as United Parcel Ser-vice (UPS) that leverage a large temporary workforce customizepart of their Web site to target the part-time candidates For

employ-example, their Web site showcases employee testimonials in terms

of what the organization has done for the specific demographicgroups, and why it is therefore a good fit for other such can-didates (Corporate Leadership Council, 2006a) L’Oreal follows

a similar strategy and highlights women scientists on their Website to attract other such employees (Institute of Managementand Administration, Inc., 2008) Finally, the U.S Army uses sim-ulation video games directed at recruits who are technologicallysophisticated and avid gamers (Sullivan, 2006a)

In sum, scarcity in the labor market can be dealt with by ing a campus presence, making the organizational brand salient

creat-in the mcreat-inds of potential candidates, and actively tappcreat-ing passivejob seekers In the next section we discuss how organizations adapttheir recruitment strategies when there is abundance in the labormarket

Abundance in the labor market.At first glance, it may seem like

an ideal situation—organizations have a large pool of candidates

to choose from, but surveys and studies show that finding goodcandidates is tough even in times of high unemployment wherethe supply from the external labor market is not tight (Dessler,2008) To make matters worse, many job applicants who are in thelabor market looking for jobs have an incomplete or inaccurateunderstanding of what a job opening involves, are not sure whatthey want from a position, and do not have insight with regard

to their knowledge, skills, and abilities (Breaugh, 2008) Thus,abundance in the labor market implies that organizations have tosift through a deluge of non-matched candidates What do organi-zations do in such conditions? There are various strategies—theycan create multiple rounds to zero in on the right candidate, lever-age an external skills database if available, leverage employees asambassadors to spot and attract talent, and target boomerangemployees

Creating multiple rounds to zero in on the right candidate.Consider the sheer number of applicants at Infosys Every year,1.3 million candidates apply for a job at Infosys, and about 17,000are selected How does Infosys deal with this large number?Recruiters have created various rounds to zero in on the rightcandidates Online applications are screened carefully, and only10% of the applicants are invited to take an online test designed

to measure applicant technical and written skills This test isconducted by an external vendor and less than 1% of peoplewho do well on this test are considered further (Birkinshaw,2008) Thus, capitalizing on technology allows Infosys to narrow

an immense number of possible candidates down to a more selectand manageable amount

Leveraging an external skills database To sift through the vastnumber of applications, industry bodies are also helping organi-zations For example, The National Association of Software andServices Companies (NASSCOM), the chief industry body for theIndian information technology (IT) and technology services com-panies, has created a National Skills Registry (NSR), a centralizeddatabase of all employees of the technology services and businessprocess outsourcing (BPO) organizations in India Launched in

2006, the NSR contains third-party–verified personal, tion, and career information of IT professionals Organizations inthe IT and BPO industry leverage this skills database to informtheir recruitment practices

qualifica-Leveraging current employees as ambassadors to spot and attract talent Cisco is another organization that gets many appli-cants To ensure they hire the correct candidate from manyapplicants, Cisco follows an innovative strategy by carefully target-ing ‘‘active job seekers.’’ Cisco noticed that people would click

on their Web site for information about the organization, andwanted to know more in terms of the work opportunities avail-able Cisco created a ‘‘make friends @ Cisco’’ button on theirWeb site, and when people clicked on this button, they got a callfrom current Cisco employees who talked about their work A fewyears ago, Cisco received 100 to 150 requests per week from appli-cants wishing to be introduced to a ‘‘friend@Cisco,’’ and 60% ofthe people who joined Cisco did so because they had a friendworking there already (Chatman, O’Reilly, & Chang, 2005) Ciscoalso relies heavily on employee referrals, and about 55–60% ofits hires in the sales organization are from referrals (‘‘Perfecting

your employee referrals program,’’ Human Capital, 2006).

The Cisco example brings up an important point Employeesare a good resource in terms of sifting through candidates aswell as attracting candidates (‘‘Perfecting your employee referralsprogram,’’ 2006) Employees understand how an organization

functions and who may be a good fit Recognizing this, someorganizations have very successfully used employee referral pro-grams At Sasken, 30% of the top management level recruiting

is done through referrals, whereas 32% of all hiring is throughreferrals Other organizations leverage their social networks tospot the right candidates At Eli Lilly, for example, key newhires are asked to identify good performers that the organiza-tion can eventually target Eli Lilly also hosts ‘‘bring your ownrolodex’’ meetings where senior staff are encouraged to networkwith passive but high-value potential candidates Organizationscan thus develop a large talent pool proactively and much inadvance of actual staffing needs by tapping into networks ofemployees (insiders) as well as trusted suppliers, customers, andformer employees (outside-insiders) (Fern´andez-Araoz, Groys-berg, & Nohria, 2009)

Targeting boomerang employees The final strategy we discuss

in this section is called boomerang recruiting Boomerang ees, also commonly referred to as rehires, are former employeeswho return to an organization Oftentimes, employees leave theorganization only to realize that their ex-employer wasn’t as bad asthey’d thought At the same time, the ex-employer may want thesame employee back, given her skill set that was developed withinthe organization and thus well suited to it Boomerang recruiting

employ-is cost efficient because of lower costs of retraining such employeesand building their organizational commitment (naukrihub.com,2009) Organizations such as McKinsey, Microsoft, Deloitte, Ernstand Young, Booz Allen, and Bain, to name a few, are pioneer-ing corporate alumni programs to track good employees whohave left the organization and may want to come back (Puri,2009) Booz Allen Hamilton has gone further, and has created

a dedicated team called the ‘‘comeback kids’’ that has provenvery successful in encouraging former employees to return (Sulli-van, 2006a)

In sum, abundance in the labor market can be dealt with bycreating multiple rounds of recruiting, leveraging an external skillsdatabase if available, leveraging employees as ambassadors, andtargeting boomerang employees In the next section we direct ourattention to endogenous or internal organizational factors thatinfluence recruitment strategies

Endogenous Contingency Factors in Recruitment

Various organizational level or internal factors influence an nization’s recruiting strategies In this section we elaborate ontwo factors that can have an impact on recruiting strategiesand outcomes: the size of the organization, and its technolog-ical sophistication Although various indicators of size such assales volume or other performance measures are used, the mostcommon indicator of size is the number of employees, as thisindicates both current capacity for work and current performance

orga-level (Scott, 2003) In this section we also use the word size to

denote number of employees, as this has a direct relationship withhuman resource strategies Technological sophistication of theorganization implies organizational comfort with leveraging tech-nology, and this also has a direct relationship with human resourcestrategies, especially attracting and tracking candidates It is quitepossible that large global organizations are also technologicallymore sophisticated than small local setups

Organizational Size

Organizational size influences the structure of departments,their functioning, and strategies of an organization As organi-zations grow, a simple informal model of control through mutualadjustment and social interactions gives way to more standard-ized control (Mintzberg, 1979) Human resource strategies andrecruitment practices in particular also become more formal,bureaucratic, and resource intensive than practices of smallerorganizations (Fisher, Schoenfeldt, & Shaw, 2006) Large organi-zations can follow two broad strategies when recruiting: formalizerecruiting processes across the organization, and leverage theinternal labor market This is an especially important point forlarge global organizations that can systematically comb their ownranks to spot and deploy talent where required

Formalizing recruitment procedures Formalizing externalrecruitment procedures is important because large organiza-tions are involved in recurring transactions (such as recruitingmany people) and can economize costs per recruit (Bhattacharya,2008) Recruiting costs of large organizations such as Infosyscan be amortized over many hiring decisions Further, large

organizations are more likely to have dedicated recruiters whoare formally trained Larger organizations are also more likely

to use more screening procedures than smaller organizationsbecause large organizations have the resources available to design

or acquire (and validate) multiple screening devices such as chological tests, physical abilities tests, and so forth (Birkinshaw,2008) Finally, formalization is important as large organizationsface institutional pressures and public scrutiny and are answerable

psy-to multiple stakeholders (Barber, Wesson, Roberson, & Taylor,1999; Kossek, 1987)

Leveraging the internal labor market Considering that formalprocedures in recruiting can be seen through previous sectionsand examples, this section will focus on recruiting in the largeinternal labor market that exists in large organizations A 2004 pollconducted by Development Dimensions International showed thatinternal recruiting for management positions was at 53% withinthe 350 organizations polled This was an increase from 44% in

19 countries and employs over 60,000 employees worldwide, savedseveral million dollars last year by recruiting internally (Resourc-ing, 2009) Recognizing the importance of recruiting from within,organizations such as General Electric and United Parcel Serviceput great emphasis on developing talent that can be leveraged

in multiple units of the organization when needs arise (Fisher,Schoenfeldt, & Shaw, 2006)

How do organizations tap into the available labor pool tofill positions as they open up? Consider the cases of Cisco andHouston’s M D Anderson Cancer Center Cisco createdand launched a software application called the Pathfinder Thissoftware, used by about 20% of the organization’s engineers tochange jobs, allows employees to load their r´esum´es into thesystem, sift through openings by location, career level, and other