Värbamine ja valik sihtasutuses Noored Kooli
Date
2012
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Tartu Ülikool
Abstract
The topic of my thesis is “Recruitment and Selection in SA Noored Kooli”. The aim of my
thesis is to analyze the recruitment and selection strategies, messages and reception by
candidates in SA Noored Kooli. As an important part of the message, I pay special attention to
the “Ideal Candidate Profile” as seen by both experts of the organization and by candidates
themselves.
SA Noored Kooli was founded in Estonia in 2006, following the example of a similar
organization in USA – Teach For America founded sixteen years earlier. The mission of the
organization is to decrease educational limitations so that each child could get excellent
education. The programme aims to recruit the most successful recent college graduates that
show significant leadership abilities. The corps members teach in schools for two years.
Meanwhile the program offers them leadership- and teacher-training to further increase their
impact to the educational field. Similar programs have been founded all over the world. For
Noored Kooli the quality and motivation of corps members is the most important factor of
success, meaning recruitment is one of the most important processes in the organization.
The theoretical frame of the thesis is built on theorists’ work including Luhmann, Habermas,
Parsons and Lasswell. In my thesis I give an overview of their views on concepts like system,
communication and education as my work is mainly concerned with recruitment as an
communicative process within the educational field. Additionally, I place the organization
Noored Kooli within the framework of social marketing as seen by Lefebvre, Andreasen and
Smith. In the empirical part of the work I give a brief overview of the main recruitment
theories and the basis of recruitment in Noored Kooli as well as Teach For America.
Both the education and the programme Noored Kooli can be seen as systems. Luhmann (2009)
finds that a system is defined by communications that include or exclude elements to the
specific system, therefore opposing itself to the environment. The aim of communication
according to Luhmann (2009) is to result in a desired change in receiver. Bourdieu (2003)
describes terms like “field” and “habitus”, that help us better understand how and why an
individual acts as it does. The communication model and functions described by Lasswell’s
(2007) views are a good addition to the works of Luhmann and Bourdieu. Lasswell believes
that in addition to monitoring the environment, the main functions of communication is
creating the correlation of the parts of society in responding to the environment and
transmission of social heritage from one generation to another.
Luhmann (2009) sees education as an intended and systematic process with results that are
difficult to prognose in the long timeframe. Bourdieu (2003) describes it as a way of
regenerating the current social pattern, meaning that through education the hierarchy of society
is formed. Similarly, Lasswell (2007) sees school as a place to spread the myths and ideas of
society. Luhmann (2009) finds that most educational problems are actually problems of
communication.
The communication of SA Noored Kooli can be seen as social marketing. Noored Kooli uses
tools normally used in marketing to convince people to apply to become a corps member.
Teacher’s profession in Estonia is not very prestigious among youth, meaning that the values
and views have to be changed in order to evoke desired action. The subject of social marketing
regarding the project Noored Kooli is teacher’s profession and other education-related
positions. Lefebvre’s (via Schwartz 2010), Andreasen’s (1997) and Smith’s (1997) approaches
to social marketing are to some extent different: Andreasen and Smith see social marketing and
its goals above all at the level of individual, while Lefebvre emphasizes long-term changes in
the values of social groups. Andreasen and Smith have emphasized that the aim of social
marketing is a change in behavior after which the target group starts acting in the “right” way.
Lefebvre describes the change of action as a process and the journey to it more important than
the change itself. In my thesis I rely on the named theories and describe social marketing as an
action with a goal to change the group’s values so that they would act in a desired and socially
useful way, offering them different benefits in return. Classical marketing principles are being
used and different leadership processes modelled.
In the center of current thesis is the recruitment communication of SA Noored Kooli. Barber
(1998:5) has defined recruitment as organization’s practices and actions with the main aim to
identify and create interest in potential workers. Similar definitions have been used by Harris &
Lasson (2003) and Rynes (1991, via Barber 1998). The process of recruitment can be divided
into four stages (Breaugh and Strake 2000): firstly, the purpose of recruitment needs to be set,
then a strategy has to be elaborated, recruitment and the selection of the best candidates has to
be done and lastly, the results of recruitment need to be analyzed. The process is influenced by
different factors such as candidate’s attention and understanding, importance of the message
and its suitability to the candidate, general attractiveness of the organization, offered benefits,
the realistic perception, knowledge, skills, abilities and needs of the candidate. Thus, the
process can be analyzed by both the viewpoint of organization and the recruited- in my work I
have done both.
To analyze the comprehension of the candidates I carried out two semi-structured interviews
with 18 people who had gone through the first application round. The first interview took place
before the selection workshop where candidates needed to present a 7 minutes long sample
lesson and participate in a group work and a self-analyzing interview. The second interview
was conducted not later than 3 days after participating in the selection workshop. The aim of
interviewing a person twice was to observe if the sense and motivation during the selection
changes or not. The participants were chosen by the principles of constructing a strategic
sampling: all candidates had the homogenous feature of applying for the programme Noored
Kooli and the heterogeneous feature, e.g. sex (14 female, 4 male), field of study and university,
subject to be taught through the programme. To analyze the recruitment from the perspective
of organization, I conducted a double-interview with the head of recruitment- and
communication and the head of selection- and alumnus-programme. In the analysis I used
comparisons with Teach For America and Teach First programmes and the information found
in public communication materials of the project Noored Kooli.
While analyzing the interviews, it occurred that SA Noored Kooli wants to introduce two main
ideas to the candidates. Firstly, candidates should see an opportunity of personal development
and secondly, the chance to contribute to society and education. The candidates’ descriptions
of motivation showed similar goals. They were interested in the training programme,
internationality, possibility to improve the situation of educational system and chance to
experience working as a teacher during a specific period without having a corresponding
education. Many candidates had been motivated by their friends who had already participated
in the programme and described it as challenging but also giving good experience and
satisfaction. The candidates described the programme as the most preferable of all available
job offers.
Personal contacts (including the participation in the programme’s informational gathering)
were considered to be the most important channel for gaining useful information. During the
recruitment process candidates were motivated by the contacts with participants and crew
members of the programme. Some candidates were therefore motivated by participating in the
selection workshop. However, others admitted that during the long selection their eagerness
decreased. The experts of school pointed out that their analysis have shown that personal
communication is the most effective way to find good candidates. Noored Kooli experts say
the most important channels of forwarding information are linked to university. Information
about the programme is shared through student organizations, social media channels, e-mail
lists and student publications. The recommendation for possible participants is also asked from
lecturers. Candidates gained information from the programme’s website, participants’ blogs
and Facebook page. A number of candidates had heard of the programme from media or
noticed the flyers in the university. In many cases, the candidates admitted to have thought of
participating in previous years, but not having met the criteria and therefore needed to wait.
A good candidate is expected to have good academic results, be socially active or have a
leadership experience and the wish to contribute to the educational field. In the process of
election, candidates’ suitability with the programme’s competence model is valued as well.
The important competences are orientation to achievement, effective scheduling, endurance of
stress, ability to work in a team, ability to motivate and influence others, and logical thinking.
The candidates need to share the main values of the organization, i.e. caring, hope in the
possible changes, constant learning and the courage to take responsibility. Candidates’ view of
the ideal candidate profile was similar to the one described by experts. They similarly pointed
out good academic results, social activeness, communication- and teamwork skills. During the
election candidates understood the importance of coping with stress, flexibility and effective
planning. When describing themselves, the candidates pointed out the same characteristics that
were expected from a good candidate and considered themselves well applicable. Most of the
candidates felt the same after participating in the selection workshop and only few of them
thought that they might not be suitable for the programme, since the selection workshop did
not go as well as hoped.
The experts told that the objective of recruitment period was to find 25 participants for the
programme.172 applications were hoped to be received in the first round. Actually, the number
of applications was smaller and 23 participants were found. To find suitable people, the places
where youth with excellent academic, professional or social activity were most likely to be
found, were seeked. Then they are given information about the programme and convinced to
apply for the programme. At the same time, they are evaluated to see if they have the
characteristics of a suitable participant. In the first round, the candidates need to submit a
written application, in the next round selection workshops consisting of a short sample lesson,
group-work and feedback interview takes place. After the selection workshop, youth will pass
the professional personality test (OPQ test) and a test of specialized knowledge, if needed. All
parts of the selection process have the function of helping to ascertain the characteristics of a
good candidate as described before.
The subject field of recruitment communication undoubtedly offers many opportunities for the
researchers to analyze the practice of finding new employees for different organizations. In my
thesis, I analyze the recruitment communication of SA Noored Kooli by a quantitative model,
examining above all the organization’s recruitment and selection strategy and possible
comprehension of potential participants about the organization and recruitment process.
Studying recruitment communication offers very different research issues. For example, it is
possible to examine one stage of recruitment, to analyze quantitatively the connections of
recruitment process and the results of it, etc. The subject field and also the activity of SA
Noored Kooli surely deserves more thorough examination in the future.