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Hiring Practices:
By James Brademas, Ph.D.
Recently the Office of Recreation and Park Resources of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studied the practices used in hiring part-time and seasonal employees in public leisure service agencies in Illinois. Recruiting and selecting such employees represents a large part of an agency's overall employee selection process and occurs continuously. By obtaining information about present hiring practices, we hoped to be able to suggest ways that these techniques could be improved. The data were collected by means of a self-administered questionnaire consisting of 50 questions. Some of the questions were aimed at obtaining descriptive background information on the agency and others pertained directly to current methods of recruitment and selection. The following is a brief summary of the larger report. Summary and Recommendations The broad cross-section of Illinois agencies that responded to the questionnaire appear to be quite representative of the public leisure service agencies in the state. These agencies represented communities with populations ranging from under 5,000 to over 100,000. The number of part-time and seasonal staff members hired by these agencies ranged from 3 to 600, with a median of 60. The percentage of the agencies' budgets allocated to part-time and seasonal staff members was quite high; the largest number of agencies allocated from 16 to 30 percent of their budgets, and the median allocation was 20.1 percent. The process of hiring part-time and seasonal personnel represents about 10 percent of an agency's workload. Only 30 percent of the agencies indicated that they were "very much aware" of equal employment opportunity (EEO) regulations, but 54 percent indicated that they were "somewhat aware." Some of the survey responses suggested that equal employment guidelines and minority hiring practices were not very rigorously followed. This lack of total dedication to equal opportunity employment and minority hiring efforts might stem from the composition of the work force in some Illinois communities where there may not be heavy concentrations of minority candidates from which to draw. On the other hand, in areas where there is a sufficient number of minority workers available, some agencies may be ignoring that fact and may not be making a sufficient effort to recruit them. Although perhaps this lack of effort was not a problem in the past at least for the agency, the filing of a discrimination case by only one dissatisfied applicant could prompt an investigation of the agency's entire recruitment and selection process by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the state's Fair Employment Practices Commission. In such an investigation, the agency must set forth all of its procedures and produce all records pertaining to its recruitment and selection program. It is important that agency administrators be familiar with equal employment opportunity guidelines and implement those guidelines in their hiring programs.
Only 30 percent of the agencies responding required applicants to submit resumes, whereas 96.5 percent required application forms. Agencies reviewed resumes and applications for information about the applicant's education, experience, personal skills and references. A surprising 88.5 percent checked applications for accuracy and honesty. Because of the seasonal nature of the jobs, it is perhaps not unusual that 70 percent of the agencies did not require resumes. However, a resume can be an effective prescreening instrument and could be useful in reducing the number of applicants who apply formally.
Illinois Parks and Recreation 28 May/June 1981 Conversely, from a public relations viewpoint, accepting formal applications from all interested candidates is a positive indication of interest on the part of the agency and also negates potential charges that the agency has not given all applicants fair consideration. It is strongly recommended that all agencies, in keeping with current practice, obtain a formal application from all applicants and keep all such forms on file whether the applicant is hired or not. Only 60 percent of the agencies use written job descriptions for part-time and seasonal employees. Of those that do, 84 percent make these job descriptions available during the recruitment and selection phase. Good personnel practices, however, require that agencies develop written job descriptions for all positions and make them available during recruitment and selection. Job descriptions are essential to establishing wage or salary levels, setting qualifications for hiring, and, after hiring, for guiding and evaluating the new employee. Virtually all agencies (94.8 percent) use interviews in the selection process. Over 50 percent conduct interviews lasting from 15 to 30 minutes, and nearly 30 percent interview for less than 15 minutes. It is interesting that over 90 percent use specific questions in the interview. Although the use of a structured interview format rather than an unstructured format or freewheeling questioning is a positive step, an interview lasting less than 15 minutes does not give much of an opportunity to probe the applicant's background. Only 22.6 percent of the agencies use a form for recording the applicant's responses during the interview. It would appear to be difficult if not impossible to recall the results of a number of interviews without some written record of applicant responses. Equal employment opportunity guidelines consider the interview as a test or measurement. With such short interviews the questions should be specific, answers should be recorded, and the results should be filed with the applicant's other documents (such as the resume and application form). It is not too surprising that 77.2 percent of the agencies use no testing procedures in selecting part-time and seasonal employees, although strictly speaking the interview is considered a test. The one test used most by the agencies was the lifeguard test. Only a few used recreation program leadership tests. Of the 26 agencies using tests, 24 develop their own tests and 2 purchased commercially available tests. It is highly recommended that agencies develop or acquire written tests and use them at least as screening devices to reduce the number of candidates that must be interviewed. Approximately 74 percent of the agencies reported that they routinely check the references listed by applicants. The majority of agencies check more than one reference. Almost 94 percent check past employers, and 72 percent check the applicant's teachers. To check ministers, family members, and friends is of questionable value, although some agencies do check these sources, perhaps because they may be the only references given if the applicant has not held a job before. It is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain written references from former employers, especially if the comments are negative. Some former employers will not put anything negative about a past employee in written form because they may later be held liable for the consequences. An employer must be able to prove the accuracy of negative information by producing substantiating documentation. Because of this reluctance on the part of former employers to give written recommendations, much heavier use is being made of telephone reference checks. It was found that 84 percent of the responding agencies use the telephone in conducting reference checks, whereas only 28 percent use letters of inquiry. It is generally agreed that considerably more information can be gained from a telephone conversation than from a written recommendation because the former provides an opportunity to probe topics more deeply. One interesting piece of information about reference checks is that 20 percent of the agencies arrange face-to-face meetings with those persons that an applicant lists as references. The value of this is questionable in view of the amount of time it requires. Although the majority of respondents indicated that there was sufficient time allotted for the recruitment and hiring of part-time and seasonal personnel and that they were generally satisfied with current hiring practices, our study would indicate that some specific elements of the recruitment and selection process should be improved. In summary, we recommend that agencies: 1. Pay more attention to equal employment opportunity
Illinois Parks and Recreation 29 May/June 1981 guidelines in the recruitment and selection of personnel. 2. Require standard application forms from all applicants and keep those applications on file regardless of whether the applicant is hired. 3. Develop written job descriptions for all positions and make them available to all applicants during the recruitment and selection phases. 4. Use a structured interview format to insure proper comparisons of applicants; record the applicants' responses during these interviews and file them with other application documents. 5. Develop or acquire adequate screening tests to reduce the number of final interviews. In view of the constantly changing requirements in personnel selection and because agency personnel report that they have not had adequate preparation in the recruitment and selection of personnel, it is strongly recommended that continuing, education opportunities in this area be provided by state societies and educational institutions that prepare professionals for the field. It is apparent from the results of this study that public leisure agencies in Illinois allot considerable amounts of money to the employment of part-time and seasonal personnel and considerable amounts of time to the recruitment and selection of this class of employee. Some of the hiring practices in use are quite standard and are applied with varying degrees of sophistication. Aspects of the hiring process that need strenthening include familiarity with EEO guidelines, testing, and documentation of the results of all phases of the recruitment, screening, and selection process.
Illinois Parks and Recreation 30 May/June 1981 |
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