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Transcript of PhD LR 1 (2)
Revealing the screening: organisational factors influencing therecruitment of immigrant professionals
Shamika Almeidaa*, Mario Fernandob and Alison Sheridanc
aSchool of Management, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia; bSchool of Management andMarketing, University of Wollongong, Australia; cSchool of Business, Economics and Public Policy,
University of New England, Armidale, Australia
Little attention has been paid to factors that influence employers in their recruitmentbehaviour, especially as it affects immigrants. In order to address this gap in theliterature, a case study of regional Australian employers is used to examine howorganisation-based factors influence the employer screening and recruitment ofimmigrant professionals. The findings indicate that employers are not primarily drivenby a human capital lens during the recruitment process. Rather they seem to beinfluenced by the place and specificity of the process. Some of the key factors whichcan either favourably or unfavourably influence employers include the organisationalsize, type, resource availability, ethnic diversity of clients, level of role criticalness,industry-based culture and management style.
Keywords: employee screening; employment outcomes; immigrant professionals;recruitment
Introduction
Australia is attracting skilled immigrants using formalised migrant programs to solve the
projected skill shortage (Richardson and Lester 2004). Before granting approval for
permanent residency in Australia, the immigration policies require skilled immigrants to
meet a range of rigorous eligibility requirements, including designated qualifications,
work experience, English language ability, age, health and criminal record checks. Yet,
despite meeting these requirements, Green, Kler and Leeves (2005), Junankar and
Mahuteau (2005) and the Productivity Commission (2006) have found significant cases of
job mismatch among recent immigrants to Australia. When compared with their pre-
migration occupations, these skilled immigrants accept entry-level positions and work in
less skilled occupations. Livingstone (1999, p. 164) characterises this as involuntary
reduced employment, where ‘people who have invested many years of their lives in
acquiring advanced formal educational qualifications are unable to obtain commensurate
jobs’.
The research to date on employment outcomes of skilled migrants has mainly focused
on immigrant behaviour and capabilities, immigration policy design and implementation,
and on the cartels formed by professional associations that create barriers to the skill
recognition of overseas qualified immigrants (see following section for a more detailed
discussion). The role of employers in the screening and recruitment process of skilled
ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online
q 2012 Taylor & Francis
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.616527
http://www.tandfonline.com
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
The International Journal of Human Resource Management,
Vol. 23, No. 9, May 2012, 1950–1965
immigrants has largely been ignored, which is somewhat surprising given their central role
in the process of labour market entry for the group in question. This is a significant gap in
the literature.
The employer’s role in skill underutilisation of immigrant professionals can have
implications on the practice and theory of human resource management in a wide range of
labour markets consisting of immigrant workers. Specifically, the employer’s role in the
underutilisation of skills can have implications on the productivity and the skill
maximisation of the labour force. The emphasis is greater here because in a globalised
economy, competitive advantage can be gained through a highly productive skilled
workforce. For instance, although immigration is used as a means of addressing short to
medium term skills gaps (Collins 1988), this will not be achieved unless employers
recognise and utilise these skills. In failing to do so, the flow on effects will ‘ . . . result in a
shortfall in the productivity gains that would otherwise have accrued from a particular
skilled migrant’ (Productivity Commission 2006, p. 182). Similarly, the employer’s role in
the skill underutilisation can carry significant implications for the retention of these highly
skilled professionals within a particular labour market. This is because highly skilled
immigrants are more prone to emigrate (Hugo, Rudd and Harris 2003) and the rate of
re-migration is highest during the first few years of migration to Australia (Productivity
Commission 2006).
Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to examine the role of employers in the skill
underutilisation of immigrant professionals’ skills, with specific focus on their behaviour
in relation to the screening and their willingness to recruit immigrant professionals at the
point of entry into the labour market. This point of entry into the labour market is the
primary setting where employers and prospective immigrant professionals interact with
each other, where employers favourably or unfavourably evaluate the candidate criteria of
the immigrant professionals and make decisions in relation to shortlisting, selection and
employment at their accredited skill levels.
Mainstream perspectives on the skill underutilisation of immigrant professionals
When reviewing the literature on skilled immigrants and their employment outcomes,
there is evidence to indicate that during different periods of time, researchers focused on
varying factors that influence the immigrant’s low employment, low earnings and skill
underutilisation. ‘Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s barriers to credential recognitions
were identified as a major contributing factor to the inferior employment outcomes’
(Hawthorne 2002, p. 55). As a consequence, from the 1980s to the early 2000s, a greater
level of emphasis was placed on the difficulties faced by immigrants with regard to
qualification accreditation, and the lack of employer and professional associations’
willingness to recognise overseas-based qualifications and work experiences. Some of the
key contributing authors identifying the difficulties immigrants face with regard to
qualification accreditation and lack of qualification recognition by Australian employers
include Chapman and Iredale (1993), Hawthorne (1994), Iredale (1997) and Groutsis
(1998).
In addition to the research on immigrant qualifications, limited research was published
from the mid 1980s till 2006 on the difficulties immigrants faced with regard to the
employer recognition of their overseas-based work experiences. In particular, such
research indicates that employers do not recognise work experiences gained in
immigrants’ home countries in spite of pre-migration qualifications accreditation
(Bauder and Cameron 2002; Productivity Commission 2006).
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1951
From the late 1990s till 2006, many researchers including Chiswick and Miller (2002),
Shields and Wheatley-Price (2002) and Dustmann and Fabbri (2003), called attention to
the immigrant’s language skills and the resulting lower employability and earnings.
Immigrants from English-speaking backgrounds tend to have higher incomes than
immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds. Birrell, Hawthorne and Richardson
(2006) took the issue of immigrant language skill deficiency to another level by focusing
on policy issues, specifically the inappropriate threshold specification of the International
English Language Testing System (IELTS) band required for pre-migration assessment of
skilled immigrants.
In addition to the issues relating to the recognition of overseas-based qualifications and
work experiences and language skills, researchers also consistently highlighted how
immigrants’ inferior employment outcomes were influenced by issues relating to
discrimination and prejudices within the hiring process (Evans and Kelley 1991;
Productivity Commission 2006; Markus 2009). The majority of the discrimination and
prejudices were based around the group identity which included cultural background,
ethnicity, names, and to a lesser extent, religion.
As discussed above, research into the immigrant-based capabilities identifies how
immigrant qualifications, work experiences, language skills and discriminatory attitudes
influence immigrants’ employment, earning and productivity outcomes. The research on
policy issues identify the weaknesses of existing immigration-related policy issues
relating to qualifications assessment and minimum IELTS scores required by particular
professional groups and skill migration. Much of these immigrant-based and policy-based
research findings have influenced the immigration debates and policy decisions.
In Australia, such influences have had positive effects on the increased language skill level
of the skilled immigrants coming into Australia, streamlining the qualification assessment
systems and attaining considerable improvement in the level of recognition of overseas-
based qualifications (Hawthorne 2002).
Despite these beneficial outcomes, the issue of accredited immigrant professional skill
underutilisation seems to still remain unresolved. As indicated earlier in this paper, this
may be due to the lack of attention to the role of the employers in immigrant
skill utilisation in the organisational pre-employment phase. Thus, the issue of skill
underutilisation needs to be examined from an employer focus within the pre-employment
phase. It is the preliminary context within which employers socially interact with the
immigrant professionals, and make decisions on integrating such individuals to their
organisations.
Research context and process of analysis
The present research was conducted between 2007 and 2009 in an Australian regional city,
Wollongong, in New South Wales. This location allowed the study to be bounded both
spatially and temporally. The city of Wollongong is situated in the Illawarra region, which
has an area of approximately eight and a half thousand square kilometres and lies directly
south and south-west of metropolitan Sydney and north-east of Australia’s capital city,
Canberra (Illawarra Regional Information Service 2008). Focusing the research study on a
particular region and treating the research sample as one single case study of employers in
one region enables the researchers to: (1) learn from specific issues relating to the
organisations, and how such specific factors influence employer evaluation resulting in
identifying previously unrecognised issues with relation to immigrant skill use and
recruitment, (2) control for any possible environmental variation and ambiguity,
S. Almeida et al.1952
and (3) compare and contrast the research findings against other potential regional studies
in the future (Yin 2003).
Thus, the purpose of this research is particularisation and not generalisation. There is
an emphasis on uniqueness and understanding of the case itself. Although the actual data
of this research are specific to Wollongong employers, the theory that is generated from
the findings may be relevant to other employers and policymakers in the recruitment
process to better understand the factors influencing employers’ willingness to recruit
immigrant professionals, and relate it to their own experiences (Gillham 2000). Such
strategies can then be used to build relevant hypotheses for future research enquiries.
Furthermore, ‘to control for variations that may occur due to occupational differences’
(Smith and Sheridan 2006, p. 225), this study focused on accounting and IT occupations.
These occupations are the top two nominated occupations of the skilled immigrants in
Australia (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2009).
Justification of the purposive sample size
According to Guest, Bunce and Johnson (2006, p. 61) ‘research that is field oriented in
nature and not concerned with statistical generalizability often uses nonprobabilistic
samples’ and the most commonly used samples, particularly in applied research, are
purposive (Miles and Huberman 1994). This research used such a purposive sample and
identified potential participants according to predetermined criteria relevant to the
research objective. In this case, the purposive sample included HR professionals, heads of
IT divisions/public accounting firms and recruitment consultants specialising in IT and
accounting professional recruitment.
There were 21 research participants. The sample size is considered large enough for an
exploratory analysis of patterned recurrences of employer recruitment process
experiences. According to Guest et al. (2006), the purposive sample size relies on the
concept of saturation. Theoretical saturation of categories occurs when no new properties
are revealed about these categories and thus there is no need for collecting more data
(Hood 2007; Weiner 2007). Guest et al.’s (2006) experiment using 60 in-depth interviews
with women in two West African countries, confirmed that saturation occurred within the
first 12 interviews. For example, these researchers found that ‘after analyzing all sixty
interviews, a total of thirty-six codes were applied with a high frequency to the transcripts.
Of these, thirty-four (94%) had already been identified within the first six interviews, and
thirty-five (97%) were identified after twelve’ (p. 73). Similarly, we found that the later
interviews only reconfirmed the previously disclosed organisation-based factors as
influencing the employers’ screening and recruitment of immigrant professionals and no
new categories emerged during the later stage of the data collection.
Supplementary data collection methods
Research participants were contacted through email and telephone communication to seek
clarification for the data and gather additional information. Two participants reviewed the
overall findings of this research. On the basis of their feedback and comments, certain
aspects of the findings and analysis were revised, using participants’ care of accountability
(Gillham 2000).
In addition to the primary data gathered through in-depth elite interviews, this study
also made use of multiple secondary sources (Yin 2003). This enabled the research to
triangulate the findings and ground theory generation in a dynamic manner by supporting
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1953
the facts of a case by more than one single source of evidence (Sieber 1973). Thus,
multiple sources of evidence provide multiple measures of the same phenomenon
(Yin 2003). Some of the key secondary data sources include the organisational Equal
Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy documents, organisational websites, internal
newsletters or newspapers, organisational documentation and policies on HR policies and
recruitment advertisements for accounting, IT and other staff. These documents were used
to analyse and further substantiate participant claims and views.
Data analysis
Codes, memo writing and integrative diagrams were used to analyse the data. Codes
helped to set up a relationship between the data and the research respondents (Star 2007),
and capture patterns and themes and cluster them in ways that could help generate groups
(Lempert 2007, p. 253). This coding process then facilitated the formation of categories.
Categories are higher level codes that have ‘grown in complexity and abstraction’
(Bryant and Charmaz 2007, p.18). See Table 1 below for a sample of coding, categories
developed and the related significance of each of these codes.
Findings and analysis: Organisational factor influences on the recruitment phases
Recruitment is the process of ‘attracting a pool of qualified candidates’ (Rudman 1999,
p. 284) and ‘gathering legally defensible information about job candidates’ (Schuler,
Dowling, Smart and Huber 1992, p. 171). However, Townley et al. (1989, p. 97) argues that
recruitment and selection ‘involves a process of discrimination, and the opportunity for
management to emphasize employee “acceptability” for which they apply certain criteria to
choose, or discriminate, between possible candidates’. For the employers to apply particular
criteria and discriminate between particular candidates, they follow a particular process.
As per Rudman (1999) this process can be divided into four key phases. These are: (1) the
planning phase, (2) external versus internal recruitment phase, (3) outsource versus in-
house recruitment, and (4) shortlisting and selection phase. The following section illustrates
how the empirical evidence describes some of the organisational factors that influence the
employer screening of immigrant professionals in each of these phases of recruitment.
The planning phase of recruitment
Rudman (1999) says that the planning phase of recruitment and selection involves job
analysis, review and development of a job description, job specification and person profile
for a particular vacancy, development of a competency framework and deciding on the
selection criteria and methods. Job analysis includes gathering and recording of
information on a job and creating two basic job documents; the job description and the job
specification (Delahaye 2005). The job description details the contextual and background
information of the position, the job duties and the performance indicators. The job
specification lists the knowledge, skills and abilities required for a successful applicant to
carry out the job duties and achieve the set performance standards (Delahaye 2005).
Finally, the job specification involves employers making use of competency frameworks
to specify the models of employee characteristics and behaviour required of potential
employees to do a particular job effectively (Roberts 1997).
The findings of this research contribute to the existing literature by identifying how
organisational characteristics influence employers in the design and development of job
S. Almeida et al.1954
Table
1.
Sam
ple
ofcoding,them
esandcategories.
Codes
Them
esCategories
Significance
Tickboxevaluationsystem
Traditional
recruitmentapproach
Organisation
specificfactors
Unfavourably
influence
employer
screeningoftheim
migrant
professionals
Traditional
managem
ent
style
Preference
forinternal
recruitment
versusexternal
recruitment
Preference
forinternal
recruitmentunfavourably
influence
employer
screeningoftheim
migrantprofessionals
Groominggraduates
totake
over
managem
entpositions
Organisational
andindustry
culture
Createless
opportunitiesfornew
immigrantsto
enter
Resourceavailabilityfor
training
Smallorganisationsareless
likelyto
havethetimeandresources
for
trainingofnew
recruits
Smallorganisationssuch
asprivatelyowned
publicaccounting
firm
swould
beless
likelyto
takeonim
migrants
Clientethnicity
Greater
theclientethnic
diversity
greater
theem
ployer
tolerance
Greaterleveloftolerance
influence
employersfavourablywhen
screeningim
migrantprofessionals
Typeoforganisation
Privatelyheldpublicaccounting
firm
sversusIT
divisionsorIT
organisations
Privatelyheldpublicaccountingfirm
sareleastlikelyto
recruit
immigrantaccountantswithnolocalwork
experiences
Role
criticalness
Greater
therole
criticalness,greater
thelevel
oflocalwork
experiences
specified
byem
ployers
Greater
therole
criticalness,lesser
chance
ofim
migrants
withoutlocalwork
experience
beingrecruited
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1955
specifications, competency frameworks, person profiles and selection methods, which in
turn can result in the immigrant professional’s recruitment or rejection in the hiring process.
The first organisational characteristic that influenced the employers is the type of
service or product delivered to its clients. For instance, generally the employers who
delivered specialised accounting services such as public accounting firms sought
Australian specific accounting experience. Further, they were less concerned about the
source of qualification as long as the relevant work experiences were gained in Australia:
I think we will always prefer Australian background. As we know they done [sic ] theirAustralian tax and they know how to do things. If there is someone with Australian workexperience but studied somewhere else, that’s fine. (Head of accounting, 9 July 2008)
Such organisations justified their need for Australian experienced professionals by
illustrating how their clients depended on advice specific to Australia to manage their
business activities:
Our clients need to be guided by us completely. Consequently, we have to know a lot about amuch wider area in accounting. That requires the degree of knowledge that is quite broad andspecific to Australia. Importantly, we need to identify that this [lack of accounting knowledgespecific to Australia] is the issue with immigrant professionals. (Head of accounting firm,9 July 2008)
However, it is possible that such preferences for locally qualified candidates are
influenced by what Rudman (1999) classifies as the ‘just like me’ effect, where HR
professionals and heads of the accounting divisions profile the potential candidate with a
mirror image of themselves. For example, some of the owner public accounting
professionals develop job specifications and competency frameworks that reflect their own
personal background; qualifications, work experiences and personal attributes. Such
employers only considered candidates who had similar types of qualifications and work
experiences as them. Generally, these professional owner managers and the other
employees of the organisation were all locally qualified and experienced and thus, the job
descriptions and selection criteria mirrored similar qualifications and work experiences.
Consequently, when organisations develop competency frameworks based on the
‘understanding and meanings of behaviour that exists within an organisation’ (Bratton and
Gold 2007, p. 247), these can negatively influence immigrant professional candidates’
opportunities, whose qualifications, work experiences and personal characteristics are
perceived to differ most from the recruitment and selection decision-makers’ own personal
profiles and source of qualifications and work experiences.
The second organisational factor that can unfavourably influence the Wollongong
employers during the planning phase was how critical the role was and its centrality to the
day-to-day operations of the organisation:
It depends on the job. If the job is part of a big team, if it’s more non critical, then they[employers] are more willing to be tolerant. But if you are the critical person of thatorganisation or project, then you are much more selective in who you employ. (Recruitmentconsultant, 13 June 2008)
For instance, in the case of an organisation depending solely on the chief financial
accountant for its operational support, then the employers tend to design a more rigid and
narrow job specification, person profile and competency framework specifying Australian
knowledge and work experiences. This creates a significant unfavourable influence on
immigrant professionals with overseas-based qualifications and work experiences.
Similarly, when a professional IT or accounting vacancy arises due to an employee
leaving the organisation, the organisations are under pressure to fill the vacancy within the
S. Almeida et al.1956
shortest possible time. Employers perceive that locally qualified and experienced
accounting professionals with experience in a similar profile are able to independently
function in their work role from the start of their employment with minimum supervision,
training and will incur minimum cost to the organisation.
The compliance work [accounting], we carry out is very regimental and very detailed. We hadto recently fill a vacancy for a tax accountant. We were so busy and so we had no time to train.Unfortunately, overseas experience is not relevant here. (Head of accounting firm, 17 July2008)
If I am looking to replace, I want someone with experience doing that type of job previously[accounting], because immediately they are more functional to me and they understand whatis required at that level. (Head of accounting division, 17 July 2008)
If and when employers perceive locally qualified and experienced accounting
professionals to be more productive and cost effective, such employers may be more
inclined to design rigid job description that would automatically result in a mismatch
between the candidates with overseas qualifications and experiences during the
shortlisting and selection process.
The third organisational factor that influenced employers within the planning phase
was the level of organisational resources available to train and support new recruits.
For example, in a small to medium size organisation having limited allocated resources for
training and supporting new recruits, the employer designed job specifications and person
profiles that reflected the current operational needs of the job rather than the long-term
organisational needs.
Larger organisations have better in-house training programs, they have better resources, moretime and money to spend on training individuals, whereas training for us is on-the-job and anexpense that is difficult to justify. (HR professional, 24 July 2008)
Similarly, larger organisations having more experience working with employees from
different countries were considered to follow a more globalised and an open recruitment
approach.
The larger blue chip organisations are probably more inclined to take them [immigrantprofessionals] yes. But that could also be because they recruit more often, they know themarketplace, they know the contribution of the skilled overseas people. They are also moreopen-minded. Whereas, the small to medium size organisations may not recruit that often,may have their own perceptions. (Recruitment consultant, 10 July 2010)
However, irrespective of the size and resources of the organisation, an organisational
characteristic that may positively influence employers during the planning phase was the
ethnicity of its clients. If and when an employer organisation has a growing ethnic group of
clients, they tend to design less rigid job specifications and personal profiles. This reflected
their willingness to consider employing immigrant professionals from cross cultural
backgrounds to cater to the changing needs of their clients.
A lot of our services are provided to overseas students. So from that aspect it will be good tohave somebody who can relate to that situation, from different cultures. From a common senseperspective, it would be good to have people from multicultural paths. (HR professional,24 July 2008)
Nevertheless, it was noted that there were very few organisations displaying such
levels of client ethnic diversity in the region.
I have a standard interview question that I ask and that is ‘why do you want to work here?’And twice when I had people from Asia, Pakistan and India, they said that they wouldreally like to work at xxxx because xxxx has a much more tolerant working environment.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1957
And I think that says that they have encountered intolerance in many places and I amsure it’s true. I think when you compare other organisations in Wollongong with ourorganisation; I think our organisation is different in that respect. (Head of IT division, 3 July2009)
When analysing the organisational factors influencing the interviewed employers, it
seems that the overall organisational factors tend to influence them to design job
specifications, person profiles and competency frameworks in a manner which as Rudman
(1999) says is irrelevant or discriminatory, or inappropriate, resulting in the exclusion of
particular groups of candidates even before the labour market entry point.
The internal versus external recruitment phase
After the planning phase, employers need to decide whether the vacancy can be filled
internally or whether they are to open the vacancy to the external labour market. This
decision is based on the HR strategy and goals of the organisation (Rudman 1999). It is
more common in large organisations like BHP Billiton to have an HR policy that promotes
filling vacancies through internal transfers or promotions (Stone 2010). The findings of
this research confirm Stone’s argument and illustrate how the large Wollongong-based
organisations also tend to groom professionals from graduate positions to specialised
management roles.
There are many reasons for organisations to groom professionals from within. In the
case of Wollongong employers, many of the traditional manufacturing industry-based
organisations in the region are renowned for being excellent remunerators and thus
experience low staff turnover levels.
When you become part of the xxx industry, it’s like winning the lottery in some respects.People are well remunerated, and challenged and localised. It tends to be family oriented. Ifyou look at the managers, every year XXX has a function at his own house for Christmasrather than just go out. Two weeks ago we had an award ceremony. We recognise things like25 years of service, 35 years and 40 years. (HR professional, 7 July 2009)
Furthermore, analysis of the secondary data sources from the large manufacturing
organisations (such as the origins of the management staff, the organisational
newsletters, HR policy documents together with the other media articles) indicates that
the specialised and skilled jobs within these organisations also tend to be localised, where
knowledge and access to the specialised professional jobs remain within a particular
inner network of professionals. For instance, when a job opening occurs in these large
organisations, there is a tendency for the organisations to fill the vacancy through
internal candidates or persons working within their organisational or industry-based
network. These industry-based networks generally encompass persons from
the organisational suppliers, organisational buyers and other stakeholders within the
particular industry.
Consequently, the internal recruitment methods can encompass more than just filling
of vacancies through transfers and promotions. Rather, the findings indicate that the
internal recruitment avenues also encompass recruiting through industry-based networks.
For example, internal recruitment could occur through word-of-mouth referrals from
existing supplier, partners and other industry-based networks.
As a consequence of these industry specific organisational characteristics, generally
many of the large organisations seem to reflect a human resource strategy that favours
recruiting the skills, knowledge and abilities from within the organisation and its industry
specific networks. As noted by Rudman (1999), when organisations train and develop
S. Almeida et al.1958
existing employees and use external markets only as a source of entry-level recruits or
particular specialist skills that are not available internally, it can restrict employment entry
access to the middle management level for the external applicants (in this case the skilled
immigrant accounting and IT professionals).
Outsource versus in-house recruitment phase
If and when the employers decide to open the vacancy to the external labour market, they
have the option of either using external management recruitment consultants that
specialise in managerial and professional positions or employment agencies that specialise
in recruitment of junior accounting and IT professionals (Stone 2010). Alternatively,
employers can manage the recruitment in-house.
The overall research findings indicate that the Wollongong-based recruitment
consultants are more positive in their screening and assessment of immigrant professionals
than their client firms for the following key reasons. First, it is more likely that
recruitment consultants will have more opportunities and time to build relationships with
immigrant professionals. The Wollongong community members seem to have strong
relationships that encompass networks and interactions across both professional and
personal spheres. This spatially specific community-based relationship orientation may
influence the Wollongong recruitment consultants in building professional relationships
with the newly arriving immigrant professional candidates. Second, they are also more
likely to have an impartial approach to the immigrants as they are not part of the employer
organisation (for which the applicants will work). Third, recruitment consultants
are also able to assess immigrant skills and capabilities without a commitment of
employment.
Alternatively, HR professionals seldom get the opportunity to build relationships with
the immigrant professionals without any promise of paid employment and rely mostly on
either the paperwork or what has been advised to them by the recruitment consultants
during the organisational pre-employment phase. Therefore, at times, it is possible that the
recruitment consultants in Wollongong act as an intermediary that enables them to
influence a favourable employment outcome for immigrant professionals at their skill
accredited levels.
However, the recruitment consultants’ level of success in placing immigrant
professionals within their client organisations depend on whether the employers (clients of
the recruitment consultant) perceive the recruitment consultant to be an expert on
evaluating overseas work experiences and there is an established trusting relationship
between the two parties. In such instances, there is potential for their clients (potential
employers) to accept the recommendations of the recruitment consultant and recognise the
relevance of overseas-trained immigrant professionals.
. . . sometimes, we are able to convince the employers that they should take on new immigrantprofessionals. It all depends on the relationship I have with my client. If they trust me, thenyes, they can be convinced to give an opportunity to the new immigrant even without localwork experience. (Recruitment consultant, 4 June 2008)
. . . it all depends on the relationship and the level of trust we have between us in convincingthem. So if we really have a good feeling about the candidate, we can convince the client totake a chance. (Recruitment consultant, 3 July 2008)
As such, the findings note a greater probability for skilled immigrant professionals to
be favourably screened and assessed by recruitment consultants than HR professionals due
to the given recruitment context.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1959
The shortlisting and selection phases
The shortlisting phase is where employers use the legally gathered information about the
job applicants (mainly from the written application) to discern which applicants should be
shortlisted (Rudman 1999). Selection is the process of assessing the information that was
gathered within the organisational pre-employment phase to decide who has the skills,
knowledge and other attributes required for successful performance in that job, and who is
likely to fit in well with the organisation (Rudman 1999). The findings of this research
make an important contribution to the existing literature on employer behaviour in relation
to the immigrant professionals and identify the organisational factor influences on the
shortlisting and selection process. The following section details some of these influencers.
One key influencer during the short listing and selection phase is the level of urgency
to fill the particular work role. In situations where employers have to fill a vacancy without
delay, the HR manager or the recruitment consultant may overlook immigrant
professionals as potential shortlist candidates. This is mainly due to the perceived
difficulties in assessing the overseas-based work experience and the conduct of reference
checks.
Sometimes when we are recruiting there is a sense of urgency, having someone who isqualified to do the role, so if I can get someone who can do the job locally, they would get thepreference. (HR professional, 24 July 2008)
Similarly, another distinct organisational feature that tends to influence the employer
shortlisting and selection is the existence of a traditional inward looking management
style, ‘white male monoculture’, the existence of a ‘Wollongong boy’s club’ and the
‘countrified, old fashioned and discriminatory’ management attitudes within some of
the more established organisations in Wollongong.
Traditionally it is a very white male monoculture. In the HR dept, up to four–five years agoI was the only Non English Speaking person. It is changing but very slowly. You will find thatmost of the senior executive positions are held by men. (HR professional, 5 June 2008)
One of the qualified accounting candidates told me that Wollongong employers are ‘toocountrified and old fashioned and discriminatory’. Maybe it is because there is a bit of an ‘oldboys club here’ it still exists. (Recruitment consultant, 16 July 2008)
Wollongong has such an old school type culture. The majority of our senior managers comefrom Wollongong. It has still got that small company mentality (HR professional, 6 June2008)
According to Zulauf (1999), similar patterns of old boys networks are visible within
the city-based merchant banking sector in Britain. These old boys networks then create
obstacles to the newer European Union migrants to access jobs within the city-based
merchant banking organisations.
One of the characteristics of the traditional approach to recruitment is classified as the
use of a ‘tick box’ evaluation system that is used to screen and shortlist candidates for
professional roles. Each of the applicants is assessed against specific and labelled
candidate criteria considered essential for the performance of the particular job. Some of
the key labelled criteria include required qualifications, the relevant work experience or
specialised skills in a particular area. This tick box method in turn enables the decision-
makers to create more easily a shortlist for the professional role.
. . . we create a spreadsheet with labels of the key selection and decision-making criteria. Forexample, tertiary qualifications, experience in xxx industry, knowledge of specific type ofprogram, other factors such as completing their masters, etc. (HR professional, 8 July 2009)
S. Almeida et al.1960
Most often HR professionals and recruiters who are in charge of the shortlisting
phase tend to stick to the criteria that are at best rigid in nature. For example, if the role
requires work experience in a particular industry and type of organisational role, then it
is most probable that the decision-makers in charge of initial screening would not take
time to understand overseas-based work experiences that may not strictly fit within the
set criteria.
Finally, another characteristic that influences the employers during the shortlisting and
selection is the difference in the industry-based work role structuring and the work
environment between the IT and accounting-based organisations and divisions. When
analysing participant feedback together with the secondary data (i.e. staff origin, HR
policies and other organisation-based documents), we noted that most IT work roles tend
to be team or project-based and thus characterise a collectivist approach to their work.
For example, many IT employers indicate that when a new employee joined, they are
‘buddied up’ with a more senior local team member to ensure that the new employee is
familiarised with the organisational culture, the way of doing things and to support their
initial adaptation to the organisation.
IT is a contemporary style industry. When people first join, we buddy them up, especially thejunior members. (HR professional, 6 June 2008)
On the other hand, the research findings generally indicate that accounting work roles
are designed to have clear individual responsibilities without much collective support
systems.
. . . we need people who can start and get on with the work without much backup support.Otherwise they become a burden to the organisation. (HR professional, 7 July 2008)
Furthermore, IT divisions/organisations also exhibit a contemporary perspective in
their style of management; have a younger management team and encompass a younger
group of employees/professionals working for such divisions and organisations. Such
characteristics then enhanced their levels of tolerance and reduced the overall
organisation’s level of prejudices against new ethnic immigrant groups.
IT is a contemporary style industry. Fifty percent of our staff is under the age of thirty fiveyears and the acceptance is way different. The guy who owns the company is only forty two.Those things help us to be sensible and not be driven by prejudices that make no sense.(HR professional, 6 June 2008)
As a consequence, IT work structures and environment seem to be more
accommodating towards the immigrant professionals and may be better equipped to
support them adapt to the needs of the Australian-based organisational environment.
Implications for recruitment theory
The majority of the research studies that have examined the employment outcomes of
immigrant professionals are situated within a human capital theoretical framework, where
the assumption is that the labour market treats all potential labour equally based on their
skills (Evans 1984; Block 1990). Thus, it is presumed that all HR professionals, recruiters
and other individuals involved within the recruitment process adopt a human capital
perspective during all phases of recruitment.
However, the findings of this research seem to indicate that HR professionals,
recruiters and other individuals who are involved within the recruitment process are
influenced by organisational-based characteristics and are not primarily driven by a
human capital perspective. For instance, the organisation-based factors such as
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1961
organisational type (accounting firm versus IT firm), client ethnicity and management
style (traditional white male monocultures at management level) can influence their level
of tolerance, stereotypes and comfort levels resulting in the shortlisting and the
selection of persons who are closely matched to the existing profiles of professionals
within the organisations.
Consequently, the findings seem to emphasise that the employer screening, assessment
and recruitment of new employees may be biased by the overwhelming power the
employers have over the various recruitment phases. This finding is also noted by
Bratton and Gold (2007, p. 240): ‘approaches to recruitment and selection tend to
emphasise the power of employers’ and display how the decision-maker’s prejudice
and subjective biases influence their assessment and selection of candidates’. Bowles and
Gintis (1975) take a similar view claiming that the human capital theory disregards the
power of employers over the individual’s ability to gain employment in a manner that
maximises their skill utilisation, productivity and earnings.
In terms of this research context, employers seem to acquire power through distinct
organisation-based characteristics, which are in turn used to determine how they
manoeuvre and operate in various recruitment phases. Perhaps, it is appropriate to
question whether employers in practice adopt a human capital perspective in the various
recruitment phases. It seems employer behaviour in each of the recruitment phases may be
better understood with reference to place and specificity.
Massey (1994, p. 5) claims that a ‘particular articulation of [social relationships] . . . , a
particular moment in those networks of social relations and understandings’ can influence
the employer screening and recruitment of skilled immigrants within various recruitment
phases. Consequently, as illustrated by Massey (1995) and Peck (1996), the findings of this
study could be used to speculate how the webs of interconnecting relationships between
the organisational-based factors interact with each other to influence the employers in their
screening and recruitment of the skill accredited immigrant professionals. See Figure 1
below.
There are significant implications of the above model to the recruitment practice and
theory. For instance, the model could be used to identify the influence of the organisational
characteristics on the recruitment process. These characteristics could be reflective of the
organisational culture, and the level of integration between the organisational recruitment
policies and the corporate strategies. If an organisation aims to have clear integration of
HR policies with its corporate and business strategies, then they need to pursue
contemporary recruitment and selection practices (Thornhill, Lewis, Millmore and
Saunders 2000) and become long term oriented in their recruitment policy formulation
and implementation.
Adopting contemporary recruitment strategies would mean that the organisations
would need to develop strategic recruitment policies and processes that take into account
the differences in the potential candidate bases in their labour market. For instance, if an
organisation’s recruitment processes are geared towards a traditionally narrow source of
candidates with qualifications, work experiences and personal attributes that are
reflective of the existing employee base, then such organisations may need to adopt a
more inclusive recruitment processes to suit the diversity of the skilled professional
candidates in a particular labour market. Such actions can then lead to better utilisation
of the immigrant professionals’ accredited skills and build an organisational culture that
reflects its ability to adapt to the highly competitive and rapidly changing globalised
environment.
S. Almeida et al.1962
Conclusion
This paper has introduced an employer perspective to the skill underutilisation of
immigrant professionals. The in-depth case evidence from this study points to the limited
applicability of the human capital framework and more appropriate application of the
place and specificity influences on the HR policies, designing of job specifications,
competency frameworks, screening, shortlisting and selection in explaining the skill
underutilisation of immigrant professionals. The findings of this study suggest that the
factors impacting the employment opportunities available to immigrant professionals are
complex, and may be contradictory.
Future research could be directed towards identifying how place and specificity of the
organisational and industry-based characteristics could influence the adoption of either a
traditional or a contemporary recruitment process. For example, researchers could
Recruitmentphases
FactorsImplications for
immigrant screeningEmployment
outcome
Planning
Internal Vs.External
OutsourceVs. In-houserecruitment
Short-listingand
selection
• Type of service/product delivered
• Role centrality
• Organisational resources• Ethnicity of clients
• HR policy (Grooming from within, word of mouth referrals)
• Size of organisation
• Recruitment consultant vs. HR professionals
• Urgency to recruit
• Management style
• Role structuring
Rigid/flexible jobdescriptions andpersonal profilematch/mismatch
Accessibility tomanagerialprofessionalvacancies
Opportunities tobuild relationships
and trust withrecruiters and HR
professionals
Individualist/Collectivist style of
induction
Levels of toleranceto difference
Unfavourablescreening and
non-recruitment
Favourablescreening and
recruitment
Figure 1. Organisational factor influences on the immigrant professional screening andrecruitment.
The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1963
examine whether large organisations with resource availability for new recruit training and
development and who engage with ethnically diverse group of clients are more inclined to
pursue contemporary recruitment processes that accommodate a wider range of candidates
within a labour market. Similarly, future researchers could also examine whether the
industry-based organisational culture and role-specific characteristics influence organis-
ations to pursue traditional recruitment processes resulting unfavourably in their
recruitment of skilled immigrant professionals. Researchers could use the model presented
in Figure 1 to carry out the above line of enquiries.
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