Recruitment and Selection Practices Among Telecommunication Engineering Firms in Nairobi County Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the recruitment and selection practices adopted by telecommunication engineering firms in Nairobi County, Kenya. Specifically, the study sought to understand how the telecommunication engineering companies used pre-interviewing, job advertising, short-listing, interviewing, reference checks and medical examinations during the recruitment and selection of their workers. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. A census survey of all the 26 telecommunication engineering companies operating in Nairobi County was conducted. The Human Resources managers were the target respondents. Data from the respondents was collected using semi-structured questionnaires. The collected data was analyzed using descriptive statistics including frequencies, percentages, means, and standard deviations. The results of the study indicated that majority of respondents strongly agreed that; their firms use advertising to attract the right kind of candidates; the main objective of conducting interviews is to find the right person for the job; their firms use a minimum of three referees for the job applicants; and their firms used medical examination only when the job positions to be filled demands physical strength. By ranking mean scores, the most frequently used medium of recruiting and selecting workers in telecommunication engineering firms in Nairobi County was found to be job advertising. It was also concluded that telecom-engineering firms in Nairobi County have well-established and formal policies for recruiting and selecting their workers. The study recommended that owing to the powerful nature of advertising human resource managers of these firms should learn to use social media tools to connect with more candidates.