For a manufacturing company in Chattanooga

PRESENTED BY:

GABBIE EMMERT

AMIRA MARQUEZ MORENO,

KELSEY WALTON,

JALYN YORK


The present team project aimed to update the job description of an HR Recruiting specialist for a manufacturing company based in Chattanooga, TN.

About the position

Currently, the HR Recruiting Specialists at the manufacturing company oversee the staffing needs of each manager’s department, using ASAP as the leading software to monitor the company’s recruiting and hiring process. Specifically, the HR Recruiting Specialist oversees sharing all CVs with the hiring managers, tracking the hiring process, and predicting the performance of candidates. They also inform other departments, including stakeholders, the IT department, compensation, and the payroll department, about future and current employees’ career development and termination process. Finally, the individual in this position is expected to monitor issues that may arise during the candidate recruiting and hiring process, including maintaining a pool of candidates ready to be interviewed and troubleshooting the access to the online application, test, and interviews for the candidate and hiring manager. Currently, the HR Recruiting Specialist is assigned some of the responsibilities of the Manufacturing Recruiting Specialist. For this reason, the manufacturing company needed to update the HR Recruiting Specialist job description into the Manufacturing Recruiting Specialist role with the current activities assigned to this position.

Our Approach

What we did

The methodology used, task statements, and a final updated job description are shared in this document, as well as recommendations for the organization to appeal to a more diverse applicant pool. Finally, a brief description of the limitations of the current project was provided that may have hindered the ability to address the project in its entirety.

Interview Design

A structured interview is one of the most frequently used methods for job analysis. They consist of questions regarding duties and responsibilities, work-related characteristics required for the position, and conditions of employment (Gatewood et al., 2015).

A structured interview is one of the most frequently used methods for job analysis. They consist of questions regarding duties and responsibilities, work-related characteristics required for the position, and conditions of employment (Gatewood et al., 2015). In addition, a structured interview usually requires predetermined questions and rating scores to measure critical job tasks and KSAOs. For the present project, we utilized this method to collect information on daily job task details, clarify the information in the standing job description for accuracy, and provide recommendations for how the manufacturing company can appeal to a broader pool of qualified candidates.

The questions were structured into six sections: a day in the life and previous experiences; required KSAOs; training and education; ergonomics, work modality, tools/software needed; managerial responsibilities and team interaction; and critical incidents. Specific questions included asking the percent of time spent in each activity, if she had to learn any new skills after being hired, how familiar she had to be with any specific software, and how to identify poor performance in the position (see Appendix D for the entire structured interview script and questions).

TASK RATINGS

The task statements were distributed to the job incumbent to be rated based on perceived importance to the role and frequency in which they would be performed. Five-point Likert scales were used to assess both importance and frequency. For importance ratings: 0 = not important at all, 1 = somewhat important, 2 = moderately important, 3 = important, 4 = critically important. For frequency ratings, 0 = never performed, 1 = occasionally performed, 2 = frequently performed, 4 = almost always performed.

After analyzing the incumbent’s ratings for each task statement, the percentages of daily tasks she offered during the structured interview were not validated; however, there may be an explanation for this discrepancy. The top-ranked task category in importance was the scheduling/monitoring tasks category, with a mean task rating of 3.33. The category with the second most important tasks was recruiting tasks, with a mean rating of 3.00. Finally, the communication tasks averaged a rating of 2.75. Since the job incumbent described her daily activities as 50% recruiting tasks, 20% scheduling and monitoring tasks, 15% communication tasks, and the remaining time was spent performing miscellaneous HR tasks, the task ratings did not seem to align with the information received in the structured interview. However, this discrepancy may be explained by the following task in the recruiting tasks category: “Attends regional job fairs and conferences specific to the industry to find qualified candidates.” This task was ranked as moderately important and occasionally performed. This task’s ratings did not align with the high importance and frequency of the other tasks in this category. However, in the structured interview, the job incumbent frequently described this task as vital for a candidate to expect of the role. She described that, even though she does not frequently travel for recruiting events in post-COVID work, it is essential that the individual in this role can travel when required. Despite the low rating, since the interviewee made this aspect of the role seem critical, this task was kept in the item pool to be addressed in the updated job description.

The frequency ratings for the task statements aligned with the percentages of daily tasks that the job incumbent described in the interview. Recruiting tasks had an average rating of 3.13, followed by scheduling/monitoring tasks (M = 3) and communication tasks (M = 2.75). From this analysis, no tasks were ranked as “not important at all” or “somewhat important”, suggesting that all task statements that the job incumbent received were important tasks performed in this role. Additionally, no tasks were ranked as never performed, and the only task ranked as only occasionally performed was the recruiting task previously described. These analyses show that the most important and frequent tasks performed in this role are those that include the management of full HR process life cycles, actively recruiting and maintaining a ready-to-work applicant pool, training others to maintain impartial and consistent recruitment experiences among candidates, and communicating with other departments to assess their recruiting needs.


WRITING KSO STATEMENTS

Through utilizing the task statements, task ratings, and information from similar positions researched on O*NET, KSAO statements were written to describe potential qualities that are essential to the role. These statements consisted of the knowledge, skills, abilities, or other characteristics required for success in the position. Knowledge describes a body of factual and procedural information about a job aspect critical for success (Gatewood et al., 2015). A skill is considered one’s level of proficiency in a specific task, usually described numerically. Skills are considered something that one can develop over time and with practice, like dexterity skills. An ability is described as a more trait-like capability one exudes when one performs work tasks, like reasoning abilities. Finally, other characteristics are considered those other tasks that do not necessarily fall into the previous categories but may help an individual excel in a job or task. Personality traits or one’s working styles are often considered in this category. 20 KSAO statements were deduced from the preceding job tasks rated by the incumbent.


JOB UPDATED DESCRIPTION

ROLE SUMMARY

The original job description was developed a few years ago, when the manufacturing company had an offsite recruiting center with a full staff of contractors. Since then, this center has been shut down, creating the need to remove all mentions of this project. For the updated role summary, we felt it necessary to include details that highlight the manufacturing aspect/focus of this position, especially with the renaming of the position to Manufacturing Recruiting Specialist (originally HR Recruiting Specialist). Additionally, we included the span of employees they would be looking to recruit, the full extent of their recruitment responsibilities, as well as their use of the SuccessFactors Applicant Tracking System and other IT softwares needed within these processes.

ROLE RESPONSABILITIES

Originally, the job description consisted of 19 role responsibilities, with many of them being wordy and in no order. We removed eight of these responsibilities, kept seven, edited four, and created three new items for our new list of 14 role responsibilities. A large portion of the removed items were in reference to the since closed offsite recruiting center, mentions of social media usage, and repetitiveness/similarity to other previously listed responsibilities. Our three newly added role responsibilities were created in response to the increase of communication in this role, as described by the task ratings, with the job incumbent expected to communicate across positions and career clusters to successfully recruit and identify potential candidates depending on organizational and department needs.

REQUIERED QUALIFICATIONS

Both the original and newly required qualifications section contains eight items.  A majority of our edits address the recent change of expectations in a candidate's prior experience and education, while our new items address the necessity of previous knowledge and experience with HRIS/HRMS and applicant tracking systems.

PREFERRED (SUPLEMENTAL) QUALIFICATIONS

The preferred (supplementary) qualifications section contains six items in both the original and updated job description. We removed two of the original qualifications, kept one, edited three, and added two new qualifications. A number of these changes were minor wording changes in regards to the closed offsite recruiting center and desired SHRM or equivalent certifications. The new supplementary qualifications include a master’s degree and proficiency with the SuccessFactors Applicant Tracking System.

FINAL RECOMMENDATIONS