6 Recruitment Ethical Rules

Human is the most important resource to an organization. Recruitment or hiring process, is the first step in selecting this important human resource into an organization, and will significantly influence the success of the organization.

Ethics plays a very important role issues during the recruitment of this precious resource. Here, I shall discuss what the ethical issues we should be mindful of in the hiring process.

Law and regulations dictate that we have to be ethical in hiring process. However, ethical hiring practice goes beyond them as well. It has been widely reported that ethical hiring practices actually result in better employees being recruited.

It is therefore important that sound ethical rules are followed when hiring a new employee. We shall discuss six such rules:

1. Candidates are to be Selected Based on Merits

Applicants should be selected based only on merits to the firm's requirements. Merit criteria can be how relevant the knowledge is to the firm's requirements, how useful the skills are to the firm's operation, and how well the applicant can perform the tasks the position calls for.

If the firm practices any affirmative action, these considerations should be well stated in the company's policy statement. Any preferential treatment should be one that is legally allowed.

Other than the preferential treatments to certain specific groups, there should be no discrimination to people from any other group due to race, religion, gender, marital status, or even pregnancy.

2. Objective in Candidate Evaluation

Consistency and objectivity are very important when we evaluate the suitability of a candidate for a position. Consistency and objectivity not only ensure that the most suitable candidate is selected; they also ensure that our employees maintain a high level of morale. This is because it is important that our employees hold high regards for their colleagues. It is frustrating to have to work with an underperforming colleague who was recruited through a faulty selection process.

In case of any change in the criteria, they changed be announced and explained to avoid creating unnecessary accusation of being biased in the recruitment process.

3. All Information Relevant to Employment Disclosed

When recruiting new employees, the candidates should be told the truth about the organization, and under no circumstance they should not be misled. For example, the candidate should be informed of any relevant information, including those not publicly known, that may materially affect the new employee's future employment with the organization. The case of Phil McConkey highlights the danger of failing to do so. Phil was recruited without being told that the company was being taken over by a new owner. He lost his job one year after joining the new company. He sued and was awarded $10 million.

4. No Misleading Recruitment Advertisement

We should not place misleading job advertisement just to get applications while we actually want to offer a different type of job contracts. For example, imagine the situation where what we really want to engage are independent contractors but not full-time salaried employees. We may choose to engage independent contractors because we do not have to burden ourselves with high wage bills for employees who do not perform well, but we will reward employees according to their performance. In this case we should be upfront with our terms and conditions. We should never get involved in any job scam.

5. Do not Hire Former Employees of Another Organization to Reward or Lobby

This rule applies especially when employing former senior government employees or their relatives. If the senior government employee has an influence on the awards of contracts to an organization like yours, do not return employment favor to win contracts. The case of Ms. Darleen Druyun at the Department of Defense and Mr. Michael Sears at Boeing is a good illustration of the importance of such a rule. In this case, employment favor was apparently granted by Boeing in exchange for favorable consideration for the awards of contracts by Department of Defense.

Also, be careful not to employ former government employees for the purpose of lobbying for contracts from their previous government departments. At least, do not do so within the first two years of the employee leaving the government service.

6. Courtesy

Even though it may not be considered as unethical by some employers, as a matter of courtesy and good public relationship we should inform an unsuccessful applicant. In this case, if situations change and the unsuccessful applicants are now suitable, they may be more inclined to respond positively when approached to offer jobs to them.

These six rules, while simple and logically, are not normally followed by many organizations in their recruitment process, leading to poor employee morale and productivity, as well as damaging law suits.

Reference:
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