1.1 Introduction
An online examination system for recruitment of staff is a web application that establishes a network between the organization and applicants. The organization enters on the site the questions they want in the exam. These questions are displayed as a test to the eligible students. The answers inputted by the applicants are then evaluated and their score is calculated and saved. This score then can be accessed by the institution to evaluate their performance. Questions are posted not by the site, but by owners of the site. Recruitment system is a comprehensive tool to manage the entire recruitment processes of an organization. It is one of the technological tools facilitated by the information management systems to the Human Resource (HR) of the organizations. Just like performance management, pay roll and other systems, Recruitment Management System helps to manage the recruitment processes and effectively managing the return on investment on recruitment.
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Recruiting people with the right abilities reinforces the organizational goals (Boxall & Purcell, 2003). Every organization is made up of employees, and before employees are recruited, information pertaining to them is obtained, processed and analyzed after they have applied to determine their qualification for employment into a given position. For every position, there are certain skills and qualifications needed. The performance of the individual is a function of employee ability, motivation and opportunity (Boxall & Purcell, 2003).
Recruitment is described as the set of activities and processes used to legally obtain a sufficient number of qualified people at the right place and time so that the people and the organization can select each other in their own best short and long term interest. In other words, the recruitment process provides the organization with a pool of potentially qualified job candidates from which judicious selection can be made to fill vacancies. Successful recruitment begins with proper employment planning and forecasting. In this phase of the staffing process, an organization formulates plans to fill or eliminate future job openings based on an analysis of future needs, the talent available within and outside of the organization, and the current and anticipated resources that can be expended to attract and retain such talent.
In a typical online examination system, the questions are strict and set with care. Although the exam questions are in the multiple choice format (objectives), the questions are chosen at random. All students have the same questions but the order of questions is different. Since the order of the question differs on each computer, the motive in students to cheat is reduced. Cheating at examinations is unacceptable. It is common knowledge that people are likely to cheat in a network environment but this is wrong as cheating at examinations is unacceptable as it affects the fairness of an examination. This situation implies that to overcome the tendency to cheat is the major challenge in online examinations. Despite the pitfalls, online examination is very important and useful as it breaks the barrier of distance and different geographical location. Applicants from all over the world can access the system thereby giving the examiners a good chance to identify highly intelligent prospective staff.
Short-listing of employees also known as Recruitment and selection, forms a core part of the central activities underlying human resource management: namely, the acquisition, development and reward of workers. It forms an important part of the work of human resource managers − or designated specialists within work organizations. It has an important role to play in ensuring worker performance and positive organizational outcomes. It is often claimed that selection of workers occurs not just to replace departing employees or add to a workforce but rather to put in place workers who can perform at a high level and demonstrate commitment. Recruitment is important for organizations since it performs the essential function of drawing an important resource, human capital, into the organization (Boxall & Purcell, 2003; Parry & Tyson, 2008). It has a strategic aim as it focuses on the need to attract high-quality people in order to gain a competitive advantage (Parry & Tyson, 2008; Malinowski et al, 2005).
Conducting examination before employees are recruited is very important as their level of success in the exams will reflect their level of competence or ability. Online examination widens the spectrum for organizations to reach out to more applicants and to get the best. It is on this premise that this research study is set to examine the design and implementation of an online examination system for recruitment of staff.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that many organizations do not have competitive personnel and this negatively affects the productivity and image of the organization. In addition, there is no effective structure to recruit staff that is able to stand up to the responsibility of their duties. Many organizations still adopt the manual method of recruiting and the applicants are limited to those in their immediate environment. Also, many applicants find it difficult to get to the examination centers due to distance and high cost of transportation.
Organizations are unable to reach out to a wide spectrum of applicants so as to be able to recruit the best employees. The traditional examination for recruitment is usually characterized by cheating which hampers the credibility of recruited employees. There is need for a more effective system that is able to reach out to a wider spectrum of employees, breaking the barrier of distance and cost and thereby promoting the recruitment of well qualified staff.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to Design and Implement an Online Examination System for Staff Recruitment. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to design and develop an application software that will:
- Properly document an individual’s job profile in the organization or firm.
- Create a database that will manage the applicants’ resume and match with the job profile of the organization or firm.
- Create a quick search and advance search that the user will use during the recruitment examination process.
- Identify the benefits of an online examination system for the recruitment of staff.
- Find out the challenges/disadvantages of the adoption of online examination system for the recruitment of staff.
1.5 Significance of Study
The significance of the study is that it will bring to light the relevance of adopting online examination system for employee short-listing or e-recruitment system and the need for its adoption by organizations. It will help organizations solve the present challenges they are facing in attracting eligible and professional employees by providing a software system that processes the application of different applicants. It will also save them time and cost of recruiting. In addition, other scholars seeking for valuable information on the subject will find this research material relevant.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Design and Implementation of an Online Examination System for Staff Recruitment using Haliburton Company in Port Harcourt, Rivers State as a case study. The proposed system is limited towards managing recruitment examination processed between applicants and the firm or organization.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Establishment Policies: Establishment policies posed a serious limitation as most staffs are not ready to release information needed for this project work. There were lots of information needed from the staffs of this institution to enhance the study which took them time to release or they did not release at all for security purposes, hence the scope was reduced.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
RMS (Recruitment Management System): This is also known as e-recruitment or Online Examination System for Staff Recruitment is a multi-component software tool designed to automate and facilitate the processes involved in finding, attracting, accessing, interviewing and hiring new personnel.
ROI (Return on Investment): A measure of a corporation’s profitability, equal to a fiscal year’s income divided by common stock and preferred stock equity plus long-term debt.
JB (Job Management): This involves the operations of creating job interviews test and grading applicant, and selecting applicant by grades.
