HRM201: Case Study - Do you have sales potential?

Saujanya Acharya 1

Case Synopsis: This case deals with a firms ineffectiveness in selecting the candidate for the sales force mainly due to lack of variation of tools they have been utilizing in the process. Case Issues: Why is there a difficulty within the company to recruit sales employees? How have they been going about on recruiting the employees, and how effective has it been? What have been the implications on the organization due to the current recruitment process? Issue Related Facts: The company practices a rather ineffective selection process, where they pretty much base the decision on the same interview questions they ask every candidate. Such method has resulted in difficulty in selecting the sales forces, as the interview does not critically assess their ability to sell products in the real work setting. Due to lack of employee-job fit, the company is not being able to earn much profit, and with such trend it is expected to go out of business soon. Applicable Concepts: Recruitment and Selection strategy Job Interviews Ability-job fit measurement Various types of selection processes

Analysis In this case, I believe that the organization does not have a proper HR, and their approach to it is rather cursory. It is the effective HR that will make sure that there is the right person for the right job at the right time. And, with the selection process that this company relies on, such goal is not accomplished.

HRM201: Case Study - Do you have sales potential?

Saujanya Acharya 2

First of all, they need to work on their interview questions. The main goal of the interviews is to understand various characteristics of the candidate to determine the likelihood of abilityjob fit. In addition, it is also possible to determine the likelihood of employee-organization fit as well. However, asking the same question to every single candidate would not do the job. This will have a rather liner and not a multidimensional understanding on a candidate essentially we will be missing either the strengths and weaknesses that we could have identified had we varied the questions from person to person. Secondly, they need to vary the selection tool as well. In this context, the company is having a difficulty selecting the employee for the sales team. Such difficulties arise when they base their selection on interviews. Candidates may excel in interviews, demonstrating their conceptual understanding of the work itself. However, they could be very weak in terms of practical execution of their knowledge. Hence, they need to explore more selections tools than just the interviews. I simply believe that they need to incorporate a form of work sampling by making the employees complete certain tasks i.e. take on some responsibility of the sales force in a controlled environment or in the actual environment. Then the managers can evaluate them on their actual performance in various settings. This will make sure that they hire the employees who are not jus all-talk but also are pragmatic and are performers. Interview is not a poor choice. However, interview alone could be misleading when the job requirement is something that requires an all-rounder. In order to select the right candidate, the company needs a holistic approach on the selection process. Gaps The company is trying to select the employees for the sales forces, which requires a good understanding of the products as well as an ability to sell the product. Essentially, they need an all rounder. However, with the selection tool they are using, it is not possible to select the candidate with an appropriate level of ability-job fit. Recommendation

HRM201: Case Study - Do you have sales potential?

Saujanya Acharya 3

It is important that the company incorporates a work sampling as well as a personality test to make sure that the employees have the personality it takes to be a good sales person. Then they could further proceed the selection with the interviews to make sure that they achieve certain level of employee-organization fit. In such way, they could establish a more rigorous and holistic approach.