As the director of the City of Springfield’s economic development division, hiring competent employees with the necessary skills and behaviors for a particular job is a serious matter. Managerial, political, legal, and ethical approaches must all be considered because research has shown that each has its own set of values that reinforce each other to achieve quality in an organization (Rosenbloom, 1983). Based on the managerial approach, Frederick Taylor’s scientific management movement values of efficiency, economy, and effectiveness provide invaluable insights into the hiring process (Rosenbloom, 1983). Furthermore, Rosenbloom (1983) advises that public administrators are built solely on merit. Based on the political approaches, I will argue that applicants emphasize the importance of accountability, representativeness, and political responsiveness (Rosenbloom, 1983). Political pluralism is another political approach to consider when hiring employees for public administration positions. However, both political and managerial approaches tend to have tensions regarding values.
Although the managerial approach contains most of the legal approach content, it is crucial to consider the core values an employee must have to provide quality service. As a director of Springfield’s development division, I would consider jurisdictional legal approaches (Rosenbloom, 1983). Ethically, honesty and integrity in answering questions and from referees would be a consideration when hiring a public administrator for the City. As previously stated, considering all approaches is critical, and each perspective should be treated equally. This is true because each point of view has distinct core values that work in tandem with other issues to improve the hiring process. As a result, during the hiring process, it is critical to consider political, managerial, legal, and ethical approaches to ensure that a company or organization lands a competent workforce for quality service.
Workforce scrutiny is critical because no company or organization wants a half-baked employee. All organizations around the world strive to be a model of quality, cultural competence, and ethical behavior (Lopes de Sousa Jabbour et al., 2019). As such, the hiring process scrutiny is a step-by-step procedure to evaluate recruits’ competencies in terms of skills, workability, and behaviors (Lopes de Sousa Jabbour et al., 2019). After assessing the five applicants, I can say that the process was thorough and enjoyable because I probably met the most competent workers in the world. Their experiences, potential, and workability all contributed to this decision.
However, the process submitted unnecessary reports that did not add significant thoughts regarding recruits’ competencies. For example, the MPA intern presented personal life events such as alcohol consumption and clubbing, which were irrelevant to the hiring process. As a result, I should have made it clear to the MPA intern that she should only provide the reference check and not go beyond that. I would not look into an applicant’s background check, health, drug test, or job application. Personal information, beliefs, religion, and social life aspects must not be considered during the hiring process (Raghavan et al., 2019). Furthermore, recent research shows that considering race and religion during the hiring process results in discrimination (Pedulla & Pager, 2019). As such, I would only concentrate on work experience, skills, and behavior when considering employees for administration positions for the City.
A hiring manager is responsible for securing competent workforces that help a company or organization progress. As a result, the hiring process must evaluate applicants’ efficiencies to meet job requirements. Hiring managers are, therefore, tasked with deciding who to hire using evaluation tools such as scoring matrices (Le, 2019). Since the organization has two vacant positions, as the director of the City, I would use a scoring matrix to evaluate the most two competent applicants from the five finalists. The scoring matrix would show how many points each applicant received.
The scoring matrix shows that the top-ranked applicants for this position are Martha Hernandez and Paul Allen. Both candidates score between 8-10 points which are keyed as very strong. This implies that both Martha and Paul meet the job requirements advertised by the City. This is true because Martha and Paul have great work experiences and can reinvigorate the department. As such, Martha and Paul are most suitable for the five finalists compared to other candidates whose point scores do not match that of Martha and Paul. Considering the Google information provided by the MPA intern, I would not use the information because they are irrelevant to the job described. However, using social media such as Google search, Facebook, and Twitter accounts is only ethical when information is used in the hiring process and must have ties to the job description. Thus, I would not use the personal information that the intern provided. This follows the merit system principle that all applicants must receive fair treatment (Wijaya et al., 2019). Hence I would not use social media information to render appropriate judgment to all applicants.
Since Martha and Paul, the most qualified candidates for the jobs, are not residents of Springfield, the question of interest will not dwell on their families but on their willingness to move to the City with their families. First, I will want to know if both Martha and Paul would freely and willingly relocate or leave their families’ homes to work. In case of relocation barriers, I would want to know how the qualified candidates would break it down to relocate to the City to work. As Hartwell & Campion (2019) confirm, employers should never ask applicants for personal information because it is irrelevant to the job description. The personal information is marital status, the willingness of the applicant’s family to relocate, or if they have children. Personal information is not germane to the applicants’ ability to render expected services. As an analyst, I would want to ask Martha Hernandez about the Sustainability work for the next century. The question would test her abilities to develop new ideas and energy, and she must be able to reinvigorate the department to realize its anticipated growth.
Based on Paul’s Allen reference check, all agreed that he does not have experience in sustainable development. For this reason, I would ask Paul and try to know if he knows something about a sustainable development plan. This could ascertain if the referees gave correct information on Paul’s experience with sustainable development. The question would test Paul’s knowledge of sustainable projects. His referees may not have witnessed his expertise in sustainable development.
References
Hartwell, C. J., & Campion, M. A. (2019). Getting social in selection: How social networking website content is perceived and used in hiring. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 35(9).
Le, N. Q. K. (2019). Fertility-GRU: Identifying Fertility-Related Proteins by Incorporating Deep-Gated Recurrent Units and Original Position-Specific Scoring Matrix Profiles. Journal of Proteome Research, 18(9), 3503–3511.
Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, A. B., Rojas Luiz, J. V., Rojas Luiz, O., Jabbour, C. J. C., Ndubisi, N. O., Caldeira de Oliveira, J. H., & Junior, F. H. (2019). Circular economy business models and operations management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 235(5), 1525–1539.
Pedulla, D. S., & Pager, D. (2019). Race and Networks in the Job Search Process. American Sociological Review, 84(6), 000312241988325.
Raghavan, M., Barocas, S., Kleinberg, J., & Levy, K. (2019). Mitigating Bias in Algorithmic Employment Screening: Evaluating Claims and Practices. SSRN Electronic Journal, 32(5).
Rosenbloom, D. H. (1983). Public Administrative Theory and the Separation of Powers. Public Administration Review, 43(3), 219.
Wijaya, A. F., Kartika, R., Zauhar, S., & Mardiyono, M. (2019). Perspective merit system on placement regulation of high-level official civil servants (a Case Study of placement civil servants in Local Government on Palembang). HOLISTICA – Journal of Business and Public Administration, 10(2), 187–206.