How does Carlisle SynTec go about selecting their employees?

Carlisle SynTec has been providing commercial and industrial roofing solutions to its clients for almost half a century. The company offers several employment opportunities for various positions such as factory workers, technical sales, warranty services technicians, customer service representatives, and pricing analysts. When there is a job vacancy for low-level to top management positions in Carlisle SynTec, it is filled up mostly by promoting the qualified employees or transferring them to another department with job vacancies.

The company rarely invites interested applicants outside the organization to apply for a middle- to top-level management positions. Promotion may occur within or outside the department. For instance, the supervisor of the sales department may be promoted to become a manager of the same department or another functional area such as the customer service department. For the entry- to low-level management positions, the company employs an external recruitment strategy by posting job openings on several sources.

These include industry publications, such as Roofing Contractor Magazine and Professional Roofing, and the company’s website, where job seekers can easily search for the positions available, apply online, and submit their resume. This convenient online recruitment system is powered by Hirebridge’s applicant tracking software. The link for employment opportunities can be found on the homepage: http://www. carlisle-syntec. com/index. cfm.

Through the employment opportunities posted on various sources mentioned earlier, the company receives numerous resumes which the human resources department thoroughly reviews. The resumes are submitted online or personally by walk-in applicants. The company also receives resumes submitted via snail mail. Based on these resumes, the HR department selects a pool of potential candidates for a position. These potential candidates are contacted by an HR representative and scheduled for an initial interview. Basically, the goal of the initial interview is to further refine this set of prospective candidates.

The initial interview is conducted in a simplistic manner; it covers personal details about the applicant, including his or her work history and goals in order to determine if the he or she is fit for the position. The initial interview is followed by an aptitude test which ranks the applicant according to a certain classification level. The applicant’s background is also verified by the company. He or she should either meet or surpass the aptitude or classification level that is required for the position.

At the same time, the results of the background and reference check must be favorable in order to be considered qualified for the second round of interview. The second interview is conducted by an HR representative and the supervisor of the department where the position the applicant is interested in belongs. This interview is characterized by an open discussion and role playing wherein the applicant is asked several unstructured and situational questions (i. e. , what would you do if you were faced with this situation? ). These questions are drawn from real-life situations that the applicant may encounter when he or she gets hired.

In this way, the company gets to inform the applicant of the realistic demands of the job he or she is interested in. Thus, the answers of the applicant are highly important as these would determine if the applicant understands the benefits or advantages of the job and accepts its challenges along with the disadvantages that go with it. For example, a job that may involve fieldwork could be enjoyable as one would meet a lot of people and at the same time have a flexible schedule. However, it could be stressful and exhausting, especially if it requires traveling to distant places.

If the applicant does well in the second round of interview, he or she is called back for a third interview. This interview involves meeting with the vice president of the company for a final approval. It is a straightforward interview wherein the goals and expectations of both the applicant and the company are discussed. Following the three successful interview process, the applicant is subjected to a pre-employment drug screening. If the drug test results are favorable, the applicant would be presented with an official offer, which also includes the discussion of salary and benefits.

How is this similar to what we learned from the lesson? The two approaches to recruitment, internal and external recruitment, are employed by Carlisle SynTec, which are described in the lesson. In internal recruitment, the above entry-level positions that are vacant are filled up by employees within the organization by promoting qualified employees or transferring them to another department (page 5). External recruitment, on the other hand, involves filling up vacant positions by drawing interested applicants from outside the organization (page 5).

Although the company has the option to hire middle- to top-level managers externally, these positions are only filled up internally while the company recruits externally to fill up entry- to low-level management positions. The readings also discussed the concept of realistic job previews (RJP) which the company utilizes in a way (page 6). According to the lesson, RJP is a recruitment approach which entails providing the applicants realistic information about the demands of the job, including the favorable and unfavorable side of the job (page 6).

This is employed by some companies so as not to disappoint the applicants with their unrealistic expectations of the job, which, when not met, may be their reason to leave the company in the future (page 6). Carlisle SynTec uses this approach to inform their applicants of the demands of the job in order to find out whether the applicant is up for the job or not. The concept of cut off score is also indicated in the lesson (page 7). This refers to the minimum score that applicants should get in order to be included in the list of qualified candidates for the position (page 7).

This is somehow similar to the aptitude or classification levels that the company uses as basis in determining whether the applicant is suitable for the job. What aspects of the system were most or least interesting/ effective? It was interesting to note that their (external) recruitment process only involves an aptitude test, three consecutive interviews, and a drug screening procedure. Thus, it is not as taxing as the recruitment process of other companies wherein the applicant has to go through longer series of interviews and various tests some of which are unrelated to the job he or she is applying for.

Most of the time, exhausting interviews and tests turn off interested applicants (myself included) to work in such companies. Hence, I believe that Carlisle SynTec’s straightforward, practical, and unthreatening external recruitment process is effective. However, limiting the external recruitment approach to hire entry-level employee and low-level managers may be ineffective. While this situation may be advantageous for me as a current employee of this company, I believe that hiring middle- to top-level managers externally can also be beneficial for the company.

According to the reading, by recruiting outside the organization not only can current employees see new faces, these new recruits may bring fresh ideas and induce creativity, and lead to positive changes in the company (page 5). I also found it interesting that the company employs the realistic job previews (RPJ) approach. Once, when I was applying for a job before, I asked the interviewer some questions about the company and the job. However, the interviewer only provided the positive aspects of the job and withheld the negative ones.

So when I accepted the job, I was overwhelmed with the nature of the tasks that I have to complete everyday. I felt foolish and naive for believing in the company. I also felt that the company sort of betrayed me for not telling me the real nature of the job. For this reason, in spite of the arguments against the RPJ approach (page 6), I believe that using RPJ is better than fooling the applicants by withholding negative information that is significant for the applicant in his or her decision to accept a job offer.

It was also interesting that they post job openings in industry publications such as magazines. I observed that many of the companies today only gather their pool of applicants from online sources, walk-in applicants, and/or employment agencies. By posting job vacancies in such publications, the company may be able to find good candidates for the job who might have missed applying online. What recommendations based on the lesson and readings could I offer? Internal recruitment has several advantages (page 5).

First, it is fast and not costly. Second, it makes managers feel more comfortable as they are promoting someone whose capabilities and work attitude they know very well. Lastly, the possibility of getting promoted of transferred to another department attracts employees and makes them stay longer with the company (page 5). Despite these advantages, internal recruitment also has its drawbacks. For one, it can contribute to a company’s stagnancy as it limits the experiences, concepts, and ideas to what currently exists in the company (page 5).

Thus, I recommend that the company use external recruitment as an option when the company does not have a suitable candidate internally. The reading enumerated some of the benefits of external recruitment (page 5). These include bringing novel ideas and creativity in the company (page 5), which the company may miss out if they just recruit internally only to save costs and avoid having to adjust to new managers/co-workers. Although I believe in its effectiveness, the use of RPJ should not be abused.

The information disclosed to applicants should be limited only to those that are significant to the applicant’s expectations of the job’s nature. It should also not dwell too much on the difficult or negative aspect of the job as this may scare the applicant away. Moreover, a study included in the lesson suggests that highly qualified applicants tend to lose interest in companies that employ RJP approach as these are the ones who are likely to have other job offers (page 6).

Thus, the jobs the nature of which appears more pleasant may be preferred by highly qualified applicants (page 6). Nevertheless, as mentioned in the previous section, not informing the applicant of the realistic demands of the job during the interview may also frustrate the newly hired employee and cause job dissatisfaction. Hence, I recommend that the company choose the information to disclose well and not dwell so much on the downside of the job.