Selection & Ethics - A Case Study.

Ibrahim Zahari. Graduate Business School, Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Bangi/Putrajaya, Selangor.

SELECTION & ETHICS

A well-known and international respected university has a vacancy for a managerial position in facility management. The job advertisement for this position was published in national newspapers and on the website of the university. The job requirements include a Bachelors or Masters degree in Facility Management, Business or General Management. And the candidate needs at least five years of managerial work experience in facility management.

The HR department has received more than fifty letters and after a first selection ten potential candidates are invited for a first round of job interviews. The HR director himself is actively involved in the selection procedure. Part of the preparation for the job interviews is a screening of all the candidates using the internet. The usual search engines (including Google) are used to check for additional information on the ten candidates that have been invited for a job interview.

Personal information, including party pictures and personal websites, from six candidates can be found by the HR director. One of them has been actively involved in a weblog discussion on depressions. In fact, the person is very open about his personal life and his psychological problems of the last four years. These problems appeared to be closely related to eating disorders and overweight. The HR director shares this personal information with the other members of the selection committee.

Question 1.

To what extent can the selection committee make use of the internet information collected by the HR director? If they can and will use it, how can they proceed during the selection interviews?

Question 2.

Discuss human resource planning and recruitment in term of selection procedure. At the forecasting stage of HR planning, what are the steps you would recommend for HR planning to the top management of the university?