Contextualised Recruitment – Good or Bad?

What is contextualised recruitment?

Contextualised Recruitment is essentially the practice of equality in the recruitment process. Equal assessment is the theme if most recruitment processes anyway. However, the equality can always be questioned when it comes to deciding who to progress through these processes. Are they progressed through their actual talent or simply their credentials?

Contextualised Recruitment is the focus on the talent and potential of any applicant or candidate – their tangible skills outweigh their background. Think of it this way; if you received applications from two candidates, one with a first class degree and the other with a second class degree – who would you seek to hire?

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How does contextualised recruitment work?

The implementation of Contextualised Recruitment seeks to stem away from the generalisations that the candidate with the better degree is the better choice.

Employers will tend to make an offer to the candidate with the first class degree, purely because of their background. Furthermore, this looks to delve deeper into the candidates’ actual abilities and their achievable potential.

• • Increased talent pool. Increasing the number of applicants, with a more accurate screening process, leans towards the assumption that at least one of them will have exactly what you want.

• • Wider skills base. This links hand-in-hand with the increased talent pool; no candidate is the same as the next, meaning there will be a greater variety of skills at your disposal.

• • Builds public profile. You begin to get noticed more by a wider group of people; there is not one type of person that will apply – you are seen to be making offers to different people with different skills.

What are the downsides of Contextualised Recruitment?

Where there are positives, there are also negatives – Contextual Recruitment is no exception. Like most things, following the guidelines too strictly creates its own issues.

• • Following CR too strictly can lean back towards a sense of inequality in your recruitment process. It’s easy to fall back into the routine of hiring the same person every time.
    Taking the easy option of avoiding the repetitive, tedious work that comes with sifting through copious amounts of applications may seem the best thing to do, because it provides you with more time to focus on other things.
    The idea behind Contextualised Recruitment isn’t to say that Candidate B is always going to be the better option. The idea is simply in place to ensure that you can pick the most suitable candidate for the best reasons.
    The fear of not receiving fair assessment is enough to discourage candidates from applying.

• Whilst CR can increase the talent pool, it can also create an adverse effect if followed too strictly. My advice? Create a screening process that is the result of a number of different recruitment theories and ideas. This will help you find the one most suited to the needs of your business.

The appropriateness of Contextualised Recruitment is in the eye of the beholder. Will you look to incorporate it into your future recruitment plans?

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