PhD LR 1 (2)

Revealing the screening: organisational factors influencing therecruitment of immigrant professionals

Shamika Almeidaa*, Mario Fernandob and Alison Sheridanc

aSchool of Management, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia; bSchool of Management andMarketing, University of Wollongong, Australia; cSchool of Business, Economics and Public Policy,

University of New England, Armidale, Australia

Little attention has been paid to factors that influence employers in their recruitmentbehaviour, especially as it affects immigrants. In order to address this gap in theliterature, a case study of regional Australian employers is used to examine howorganisation-based factors influence the employer screening and recruitment ofimmigrant professionals. The findings indicate that employers are not primarily drivenby a human capital lens during the recruitment process. Rather they seem to beinfluenced by the place and specificity of the process. Some of the key factors whichcan either favourably or unfavourably influence employers include the organisationalsize, type, resource availability, ethnic diversity of clients, level of role criticalness,industry-based culture and management style.

Keywords: employee screening; employment outcomes; immigrant professionals;recruitment

Introduction

Australia is attracting skilled immigrants using formalised migrant programs to solve the

projected skill shortage (Richardson and Lester 2004). Before granting approval for

permanent residency in Australia, the immigration policies require skilled immigrants to

meet a range of rigorous eligibility requirements, including designated qualifications,

work experience, English language ability, age, health and criminal record checks. Yet,

despite meeting these requirements, Green, Kler and Leeves (2005), Junankar and

Mahuteau (2005) and the Productivity Commission (2006) have found significant cases of

job mismatch among recent immigrants to Australia. When compared with their pre-

migration occupations, these skilled immigrants accept entry-level positions and work in

less skilled occupations. Livingstone (1999, p. 164) characterises this as involuntary

reduced employment, where ‘people who have invested many years of their lives in

acquiring advanced formal educational qualifications are unable to obtain commensurate

jobs’.

The research to date on employment outcomes of skilled migrants has mainly focused

on immigrant behaviour and capabilities, immigration policy design and implementation,

and on the cartels formed by professional associations that create barriers to the skill

recognition of overseas qualified immigrants (see following section for a more detailed

discussion). The role of employers in the screening and recruitment process of skilled

ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online

q 2012 Taylor & Francis

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.616527

http://www.tandfonline.com

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

The International Journal of Human Resource Management,

Vol. 23, No. 9, May 2012, 1950–1965

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09585192.2011.616527

immigrants has largely been ignored, which is somewhat surprising given their central role

in the process of labour market entry for the group in question. This is a significant gap in

the literature.

The employer’s role in skill underutilisation of immigrant professionals can have

implications on the practice and theory of human resource management in a wide range of

labour markets consisting of immigrant workers. Specifically, the employer’s role in the

underutilisation of skills can have implications on the productivity and the skill

maximisation of the labour force. The emphasis is greater here because in a globalised

economy, competitive advantage can be gained through a highly productive skilled

workforce. For instance, although immigration is used as a means of addressing short to

medium term skills gaps (Collins 1988), this will not be achieved unless employers

recognise and utilise these skills. In failing to do so, the flow on effects will ‘ . . . result in a

shortfall in the productivity gains that would otherwise have accrued from a particular

skilled migrant’ (Productivity Commission 2006, p. 182). Similarly, the employer’s role in

the skill underutilisation can carry significant implications for the retention of these highly

skilled professionals within a particular labour market. This is because highly skilled

immigrants are more prone to emigrate (Hugo, Rudd and Harris 2003) and the rate of

re-migration is highest during the first few years of migration to Australia (Productivity

Commission 2006).

Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to examine the role of employers in the skill

underutilisation of immigrant professionals’ skills, with specific focus on their behaviour

in relation to the screening and their willingness to recruit immigrant professionals at the

point of entry into the labour market. This point of entry into the labour market is the

primary setting where employers and prospective immigrant professionals interact with

each other, where employers favourably or unfavourably evaluate the candidate criteria of

the immigrant professionals and make decisions in relation to shortlisting, selection and

employment at their accredited skill levels.

Mainstream perspectives on the skill underutilisation of immigrant professionals

When reviewing the literature on skilled immigrants and their employment outcomes,

there is evidence to indicate that during different periods of time, researchers focused on

varying factors that influence the immigrant’s low employment, low earnings and skill

underutilisation. ‘Throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s barriers to credential recognitions

were identified as a major contributing factor to the inferior employment outcomes’

(Hawthorne 2002, p. 55). As a consequence, from the 1980s to the early 2000s, a greater

level of emphasis was placed on the difficulties faced by immigrants with regard to

qualification accreditation, and the lack of employer and professional associations’

willingness to recognise overseas-based qualifications and work experiences. Some of the

key contributing authors identifying the difficulties immigrants face with regard to

qualification accreditation and lack of qualification recognition by Australian employers

include Chapman and Iredale (1993), Hawthorne (1994), Iredale (1997) and Groutsis

(1998).

In addition to the research on immigrant qualifications, limited research was published

from the mid 1980s till 2006 on the difficulties immigrants faced with regard to the

employer recognition of their overseas-based work experiences. In particular, such

research indicates that employers do not recognise work experiences gained in

immigrants’ home countries in spite of pre-migration qualifications accreditation

(Bauder and Cameron 2002; Productivity Commission 2006).

The International Journal of Human Resource Management 1951

From the late 1990s till 2006, many researchers including Chiswick and Miller (2002),

Shields and Wheatley-Price (2002) and Dustmann and Fabbri (2003), called attention to

the immigrant’s language skills and the resulting lower employability and earnings.

Immigrants from English-speaking backgrounds tend to have higher incomes than

immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds. Birrell, Hawthorne and Richardson

(2006) took the issue of immigrant language skill deficiency to another level by focusing

on policy issues, specifically the inappropriate threshold specification of the International

English Language Testing System (IELTS) band required for pre-migration assessment of

skilled immigrants.

In addition to the issues relating to the recognition of overseas-based qualifications and

work experiences and language skills, researchers also consistently highlighted how

immigrants’ inferior employment outcomes were influenced by issues relating to

discrimination and prejudices within the hiring process (Evans and Kelley 1991;

Productivity Commission 2006; Markus 2009). The majority of the discrimination and

prejudices were based around the group identity which included cultural background,

ethnicity, names, and to a lesser extent, religion.

As discussed above, research into the immigrant-based capabilities identifies how

immigrant qualifications, work experiences, language skills and discriminatory attitudes

influence immigrants’ employment, earning and productivity outcomes. The research on

policy issues identify the weaknesses of existing immigration-related policy issues

relating to qualifications assessment and minimum IELTS scores required by particular

professional groups and skill migration. Much of these immigrant-based and policy-based

research findings have influenced the immigration debates and policy decisions.

In Australia, such influences have had positive effects on the increased language skill level

of the skilled immigrants coming into Australia, streamlining the qualification assessment

systems and attaining considerable improvement in the level of recognition of overseas-

based qualifications (Hawthorne 2002).

Despite these beneficial outcomes, the issue of accredited immigrant professional skill

underutilisation seems to still remain unresolved. As indicated earlier in this paper, this

may be due to the lack of attention to the role of the employers in immigrant

skill utilisation in the organisational pre-employment phase. Thus, the issue of skill

underutilisation needs to be examined from an employer focus within the pre-employment

phase. It is the preliminary context within which employers socially interact with the

immigrant professionals, and make decisions on integrating such individuals to their

organisations.

Research context and process of analysis

The present research was conducted between 2007 and 2009 in an Australian regional city,

Wollongong, in New South Wales. This location allowed the study to be bounded both

spatially and temporally. The city of Wollongong is situated in the Illawarra region, which

has an area of approximately eight and a half thousand square kilometres and lies directly

south and south-west of metropolitan Sydney and north-east of Australia’s capital city,

Canberra (Illawarra Regional Information Service 2008). Focusing the research study on a

particular region and treating the research sample as one single case study of employers in

one region enables the researchers to: (1) learn from specific issues relating to the

organisations, and how such specific factors influence employer evaluation resulting in

identifying previously unrecognised issues with relation to immigrant skill use and

recruitment, (2) control for any possible environmental variation and ambiguity,

S. Almeida et al.1952

and (3) compare and contrast the research findings against other potential regional studies

in the future (Yin 2003).

Thus, the purpose of this research is particularisation and not generalisation. There is

an emphasis on uniqueness and understanding of the case itself. Although the actual data

of this research are specific to Wollongong employers, the theory that is generated from

the findings may be relevant to other employers and policymakers in the recruitment

process to better understand the factors influencing employers’ willingness to recruit

immigrant professionals, and relate it to their own experiences (Gillham 2000). Such

strategies can then be used to build relevant hypotheses for future research enquiries.

Furthermore, ‘to control for variations that may occur due to occupational differences’

(Smith and Sheridan 2006, p. 225), this study focused on accounting and IT occupations.

These occupations are the top two nominated occupations of the skilled immigrants in

Australia (Department of Immigration and Citizenship 2009).

Justification of the purposive sample size

According to Guest, Bunce and Johnson (2006, p. 61) ‘research that is field oriented in

nature and not concerned with statistical generalizability often uses nonprobabilistic

samples’ and the most commonly used samples, particularly in applied research, are

purposive (Miles and Huberman 1994). This research used such a purposive sample and

identified potential participants according to predetermined criteria relevant to the

research objective. In this case, the purposive sample included HR professionals, heads of

IT divisions/public accounting firms and recruitment consultants specialising in IT and

accounting professional recruitment.

There were 21 research participants. The sample size is considered large enough for an

exploratory analysis of patterned recurrences of employer recruitment process

experiences. According to Guest et al. (2006), the purposive sample size relies on the

concept of saturation. Theoretical saturation of categories occurs when no new properties

are revealed about these categories and thus there is no need for collecting more data

(Hood 2007; Weiner 2007). Guest et al.’s (2006) experiment using 60 in-depth interviews

with women in two West African countries, confirmed that saturation occurred within the

first 12 interviews. For example, these researchers found that ‘after analyzing all sixty

interviews, a total of thirty-six codes were applied with a high frequency to the transcripts.

Of these, thirty-four (94%) had already been identified within the first six interviews, and

thirty-five (97%) were identified after twelve’ (p. 73). Similarly, we found that the later

interviews only reconfirmed the previously disclosed organisation-based factors as

influencing the employers’ screening and recruitment of immigrant professionals and no

new categories emerged during the later stage of the data collection.

Supplementary data collection methods

Research participants were contacted through email and telephone communication to seek

clarification for the data and gather additional information. Two participants reviewed the

overall findings of this research. On the basis of their feedback and comments, certain

aspects of the findings and analysis were revised, using participants’ care of accountability

(Gillham 2000).

In addition to the primary data gathered through in-depth elite interviews, this study

also made use of multiple secondary sources (Yin 2003). This enabled the research to

triangulate the findings and ground theory generation in a dynamic manner by supporting


the facts of a case by more than one single source of evidence (Sieber 1973). Thus,

multiple sources of evidence provide multiple measures of the same phenomenon

(Yin 2003). Some of the key secondary data sources include the organisational Equal

Employment Opportunity (EEO) policy documents, organisational websites, internal

newsletters or newspapers, organisational documentation and policies on HR policies and

recruitment advertisements for accounting, IT and other staff. These documents were used

to analyse and further substantiate participant claims and views.

Data analysis

Codes, memo writing and integrative diagrams were used to analyse the data. Codes

helped to set up a relationship between the data and the research respondents (Star 2007),

and capture patterns and themes and cluster them in ways that could help generate groups

(Lempert 2007, p. 253). This coding process then facilitated the formation of categories.

Categories are higher level codes that have ‘grown in complexity and abstraction’

(Bryant and Charmaz 2007, p.18). See Table 1 below for a sample of coding, categories

developed and the related significance of each of these codes.

Findings and analysis: Organisational factor influences on the recruitment phases

Recruitment is the process of ‘attracting a pool of qualified candidates’ (Rudman 1999,

p. 284) and ‘gathering legally defensible information about job candidates’ (Schuler,

Dowling, Smart and Huber 1992, p. 171). However, Townley et al. (1989, p. 97) argues that

recruitment and selection ‘involves a process of discrimination, and the opportunity for

management to emphasize employee “acceptability” for which they apply certain criteria to

choose, or discriminate, between possible candidates’. For the employers to apply particular

criteria and discriminate between particular candidates, they follow a particular process.

As per Rudman (1999) this process can be divided into four key phases. These are: (1) the

planning phase, (2) external versus internal recruitment phase, (3) outsource versus in-

house recruitment, and (4) shortlisting and selection phase. The following section illustrates

how the empirical evidence describes some of the organisational factors that influence the

employer screening of immigrant professionals in each of these phases of recruitment.

The planning phase of recruitment

Rudman (1999) says that the planning phase of recruitment and selection involves job

analysis, review and development of a job description, job specification and person profile

for a particular vacancy, development of a competency framework and deciding on the

selection criteria and methods. Job analysis includes gathering and recording of

information on a job and creating two basic job documents; the job description and the job

specification (Delahaye 2005). The job description details the contextual and background

information of the position, the job duties and the performance indicators. The job

specification lists the knowledge, skills and abilities required for a successful applicant to

carry out the job duties and achieve the set performance standards (Delahaye 2005).

Finally, the job specification involves employers making use of competency frameworks

to specify the models of employee characteristics and behaviour required of potential

employees to do a particular job effectively (Roberts 1997).

The findings of this research contribute to the existing literature by identifying how

organisational characteristics influence employers in the design and development of job


Table

1.

Sam

ple

ofcoding,them

esandcategories.

Codes

Them

esCategories

Significance

Tickboxevaluationsystem

Traditional

recruitmentapproach

Organisation

specificfactors

Unfavourably

influence

employer

screeningoftheim

migrant

professionals

Traditional

managem

ent

style

Preference

forinternal

recruitment

versusexternal

recruitment

Preference

forinternal

recruitmentunfavourably

influence

employer

screeningoftheim

migrantprofessionals

Groominggraduates

totake

over

managem

entpositions

Organisational

andindustry

culture

Createless

opportunitiesfornew

immigrantsto

enter

Resourceavailabilityfor

training

Smallorganisationsareless

likelyto

havethetimeandresources

for

trainingofnew

recruits

Smallorganisationssuch

asprivatelyowned

publicaccounting

firm

swould

beless

likelyto

takeonim

migrants

Clientethnicity

Greater

theclientethnic

diversity

greater

theem

ployer

tolerance

Greaterleveloftolerance

influence

employersfavourablywhen

screeningim

migrantprofessionals

Typeoforganisation

Privatelyheldpublicaccounting

firm

sversusIT

divisionsorIT

organisations

Privatelyheldpublicaccountingfirm

sareleastlikelyto

recruit

immigrantaccountantswithnolocalwork

experiences

Role

criticalness

Greater

therole

criticalness,greater

thelevel

oflocalwork

experiences

specified

byem

ployers

Greater

therole

criticalness,lesser

chance

ofim

migrants

withoutlocalwork

experience

beingrecruited


specifications, competency frameworks, person profiles and selection methods, which in

turn can result in the immigrant professional’s recruitment or rejection in the hiring process.

The first organisational characteristic that influenced the employers is the type of

service or product delivered to its clients. For instance, generally the employers who

delivered specialised accounting services such as public accounting firms sought

Australian specific accounting experience. Further, they were less concerned about the

source of qualification as long as the relevant work experiences were gained in Australia:

I think we will always prefer Australian background. As we know they done [sic ] theirAustralian tax and they know how to do things. If there is someone with Australian workexperience but studied somewhere else, that’s fine. (Head of accounting, 9 July 2008)

Such organisations justified their need for Australian experienced professionals by

illustrating how their clients depended on advice specific to Australia to manage their

business activities:

Our clients need to be guided by us completely. Consequently, we have to know a lot about amuch wider area in accounting. That requires the degree of knowledge that is quite broad andspecific to Australia. Importantly, we need to identify that this [lack of accounting knowledgespecific to Australia] is the issue with immigrant professionals. (Head of accounting firm,9 July 2008)

However, it is possible that such preferences for locally qualified candidates are

influenced by what Rudman (1999) classifies as the ‘just like me’ effect, where HR

professionals and heads of the accounting divisions profile the potential candidate with a

mirror image of themselves. For example, some of the owner public accounting

professionals develop job specifications and competency frameworks that reflect their own

personal background; qualifications, work experiences and personal attributes. Such

employers only considered candidates who had similar types of qualifications and work

experiences as them. Generally, these professional owner managers and the other

employees of the organisation were all locally qualified and experienced and thus, the job

descriptions and selection criteria mirrored similar qualifications and work experiences.

Consequently, when organisations develop competency frameworks based on the

‘understanding and meanings of behaviour that exists within an organisation’ (Bratton and

Gold 2007, p. 247), these can negatively influence immigrant professional candidates’

opportunities, whose qualifications, work experiences and personal characteristics are

perceived to differ most from the recruitment and selection decision-makers’ own personal

profiles and source of qualifications and work experiences.

The second organisational factor that can unfavourably influence the Wollongong

employers during the planning phase was how critical the role was and its centrality to the

day-to-day operations of the organisation:

It depends on the job. If the job is part of a big team, if it’s more non critical, then they[employers] are more willing to be tolerant. But if you are the critical person of thatorganisation or project, then you are much more selective in who you employ. (Recruitmentconsultant, 13 June 2008)

For instance, in the case of an organisation depending solely on the chief financial

accountant for its operational support, then the employers tend to design a more rigid and

narrow job specification, person profile and competency framework specifying Australian

knowledge and work experiences. This creates a significant unfavourable influence on

immigrant professionals with overseas-based qualifications and work experiences.

Similarly, when a professional IT or accounting vacancy arises due to an employee

leaving the organisation, the organisations are under pressure to fill the vacancy within the


shortest possible time. Employers perceive that locally qualified and experienced

accounting professionals with experience in a similar profile are able to independently

function in their work role from the start of their employment with minimum supervision,

training and will incur minimum cost to the organisation.

The compliance work [accounting], we carry out is very regimental and very detailed. We hadto recently fill a vacancy for a tax accountant. We were so busy and so we had no time to train.Unfortunately, overseas experience is not relevant here. (Head of accounting firm, 17 July2008)

If I am looking to replace, I want someone with experience doing that type of job previously[accounting], because immediately they are more functional to me and they understand whatis required at that level. (Head of accounting division, 17 July 2008)

If and when employers perceive locally qualified and experienced accounting

professionals to be more productive and cost effective, such employers may be more

inclined to design rigid job description that would automatically result in a mismatch

between the candidates with overseas qualifications and experiences during the

shortlisting and selection process.

The third organisational factor that influenced employers within the planning phase

was the level of organisational resources available to train and support new recruits.

For example, in a small to medium size organisation having limited allocated resources for

training and supporting new recruits, the employer designed job specifications and person

profiles that reflected the current operational needs of the job rather than the long-term

organisational needs.

Larger organisations have better in-house training programs, they have better resources, moretime and money to spend on training individuals, whereas training for us is on-the-job and anexpense that is difficult to justify. (HR professional, 24 July 2008)

Similarly, larger organisations having more experience working with employees from

different countries were considered to follow a more globalised and an open recruitment

approach.

The larger blue chip organisations are probably more inclined to take them [immigrantprofessionals] yes. But that could also be because they recruit more often, they know themarketplace, they know the contribution of the skilled overseas people. They are also moreopen-minded. Whereas, the small to medium size organisations may not recruit that often,may have their own perceptions. (Recruitment consultant, 10 July 2010)

However, irrespective of the size and resources of the organisation, an organisational

characteristic that may positively influence employers during the planning phase was the

ethnicity of its clients. If and when an employer organisation has a growing ethnic group of

clients, they tend to design less rigid job specifications and personal profiles. This reflected

their willingness to consider employing immigrant professionals from cross cultural

backgrounds to cater to the changing needs of their clients.

A lot of our services are provided to overseas students. So from that aspect it will be good tohave somebody who can relate to that situation, from different cultures. From a common senseperspective, it would be good to have people from multicultural paths. (HR professional,24 July 2008)

Nevertheless, it was noted that there were very few organisations displaying such

levels of client ethnic diversity in the region.

I have a standard interview question that I ask and that is ‘why do you want to work here?’And twice when I had people from Asia, Pakistan and India, they said that they wouldreally like to work at xxxx because xxxx has a much more tolerant working environment.


And I think that says that they have encountered intolerance in many places and I amsure it’s true. I think when you compare other organisations in Wollongong with ourorganisation; I think our organisation is different in that respect. (Head of IT division, 3 July2009)

When analysing the organisational factors influencing the interviewed employers, it

seems that the overall organisational factors tend to influence them to design job

specifications, person profiles and competency frameworks in a manner which as Rudman

(1999) says is irrelevant or discriminatory, or inappropriate, resulting in the exclusion of

particular groups of candidates even before the labour market entry point.

The internal versus external recruitment phase

After the planning phase, employers need to decide whether the vacancy can be filled

internally or whether they are to open the vacancy to the external labour market. This

decision is based on the HR strategy and goals of the organisation (Rudman 1999). It is

more common in large organisations like BHP Billiton to have an HR policy that promotes

filling vacancies through internal transfers or promotions (Stone 2010). The findings of

this research confirm Stone’s argument and illustrate how the large Wollongong-based

organisations also tend to groom professionals from graduate positions to specialised

management roles.

There are many reasons for organisations to groom professionals from within. In the

case of Wollongong employers, many of the traditional manufacturing industry-based

organisations in the region are renowned for being excellent remunerators and thus

experience low staff turnover levels.

When you become part of the xxx industry, it’s like winning the lottery in some respects.People are well remunerated, and challenged and localised. It tends to be family oriented. Ifyou look at the managers, every year XXX has a function at his own house for Christmasrather than just go out. Two weeks ago we had an award ceremony. We recognise things like25 years of service, 35 years and 40 years. (HR professional, 7 July 2009)

Furthermore, analysis of the secondary data sources from the large manufacturing

organisations (such as the origins of the management staff, the organisational

newsletters, HR policy documents together with the other media articles) indicates that

the specialised and skilled jobs within these organisations also tend to be localised, where

knowledge and access to the specialised professional jobs remain within a particular

inner network of professionals. For instance, when a job opening occurs in these large

organisations, there is a tendency for the organisations to fill the vacancy through

internal candidates or persons working within their organisational or industry-based

network. These industry-based networks generally encompass persons from

the organisational suppliers, organisational buyers and other stakeholders within the

particular industry.

Consequently, the internal recruitment methods can encompass more than just filling

of vacancies through transfers and promotions. Rather, the findings indicate that the

internal recruitment avenues also encompass recruiting through industry-based networks.

For example, internal recruitment could occur through word-of-mouth referrals from

existing supplier, partners and other industry-based networks.

As a consequence of these industry specific organisational characteristics, generally

many of the large organisations seem to reflect a human resource strategy that favours

recruiting the skills, knowledge and abilities from within the organisation and its industry

specific networks. As noted by Rudman (1999), when organisations train and develop


existing employees and use external markets only as a source of entry-level recruits or

particular specialist skills that are not available internally, it can restrict employment entry

access to the middle management level for the external applicants (in this case the skilled

immigrant accounting and IT professionals).

Outsource versus in-house recruitment phase

If and when the employers decide to open the vacancy to the external labour market, they

have the option of either using external management recruitment consultants that

specialise in managerial and professional positions or employment agencies that specialise

in recruitment of junior accounting and IT professionals (Stone 2010). Alternatively,

employers can manage the recruitment in-house.

The overall research findings indicate that the Wollongong-based recruitment

consultants are more positive in their screening and assessment of immigrant professionals

than their client firms for the following key reasons. First, it is more likely that

recruitment consultants will have more opportunities and time to build relationships with

immigrant professionals. The Wollongong community members seem to have strong

relationships that encompass networks and interactions across both professional and

personal spheres. This spatially specific community-based relationship orientation may

influence the Wollongong recruitment consultants in building professional relationships

with the newly arriving immigrant professional candidates. Second, they are also more

likely to have an impartial approach to the immigrants as they are not part of the employer

organisation (for which the applicants will work). Third, recruitment consultants

are also able to assess immigrant skills and capabilities without a commitment of

employment.

Alternatively, HR professionals seldom get the opportunity to build relationships with

the immigrant professionals without any promise of paid employment and rely mostly on

either the paperwork or what has been advised to them by the recruitment consultants

during the organisational pre-employment phase. Therefore, at times, it is possible that the

recruitment consultants in Wollongong act as an intermediary that enables them to

influence a favourable employment outcome for immigrant professionals at their skill

accredited levels.

However, the recruitment consultants’ level of success in placing immigrant

professionals within their client organisations depend on whether the employers (clients of

the recruitment consultant) perceive the recruitment consultant to be an expert on

evaluating overseas work experiences and there is an established trusting relationship

between the two parties. In such instances, there is potential for their clients (potential

employers) to accept the recommendations of the recruitment consultant and recognise the

relevance of overseas-trained immigrant professionals.

. . . sometimes, we are able to convince the employers that they should take on new immigrantprofessionals. It all depends on the relationship I have with my client. If they trust me, thenyes, they can be convinced to give an opportunity to the new immigrant even without localwork experience. (Recruitment consultant, 4 June 2008)

. . . it all depends on the relationship and the level of trust we have between us in convincingthem. So if we really have a good feeling about the candidate, we can convince the client totake a chance. (Recruitment consultant, 3 July 2008)

As such, the findings note a greater probability for skilled immigrant professionals to

be favourably screened and assessed by recruitment consultants than HR professionals due

to the given recruitment context.


The shortlisting and selection phases

The shortlisting phase is where employers use the legally gathered information about the

job applicants (mainly from the written application) to discern which applicants should be

shortlisted (Rudman 1999). Selection is the process of assessing the information that was

gathered within the organisational pre-employment phase to decide who has the skills,

knowledge and other attributes required for successful performance in that job, and who is

likely to fit in well with the organisation (Rudman 1999). The findings of this research

make an important contribution to the existing literature on employer behaviour in relation

to the immigrant professionals and identify the organisational factor influences on the

shortlisting and selection process. The following section details some of these influencers.

One key influencer during the short listing and selection phase is the level of urgency

to fill the particular work role. In situations where employers have to fill a vacancy without

delay, the HR manager or the recruitment consultant may overlook immigrant

professionals as potential shortlist candidates. This is mainly due to the perceived

difficulties in assessing the overseas-based work experience and the conduct of reference

checks.

Sometimes when we are recruiting there is a sense of urgency, having someone who isqualified to do the role, so if I can get someone who can do the job locally, they would get thepreference. (HR professional, 24 July 2008)

Similarly, another distinct organisational feature that tends to influence the employer

shortlisting and selection is the existence of a traditional inward looking management

style, ‘white male monoculture’, the existence of a ‘Wollongong boy’s club’ and the

‘countrified, old fashioned and discriminatory’ management attitudes within some of

the more established organisations in Wollongong.

Traditionally it is a very white male monoculture. In the HR dept, up to four–five years agoI was the only Non English Speaking person. It is changing but very slowly. You will find thatmost of the senior executive positions are held by men. (HR professional, 5 June 2008)

One of the qualified accounting candidates told me that Wollongong employers are ‘toocountrified and old fashioned and discriminatory’. Maybe it is because there is a bit of an ‘oldboys club here’ it still exists. (Recruitment consultant, 16 July 2008)

Wollongong has such an old school type culture. The majority of our senior managers comefrom Wollongong. It has still got that small company mentality (HR professional, 6 June2008)

According to Zulauf (1999), similar patterns of old boys networks are visible within

the city-based merchant banking sector in Britain. These old boys networks then create

obstacles to the newer European Union migrants to access jobs within the city-based

merchant banking organisations.

One of the characteristics of the traditional approach to recruitment is classified as the

use of a ‘tick box’ evaluation system that is used to screen and shortlist candidates for

professional roles. Each of the applicants is assessed against specific and labelled

candidate criteria considered essential for the performance of the particular job. Some of

the key labelled criteria include required qualifications, the relevant work experience or

specialised skills in a particular area. This tick box method in turn enables the decision-

makers to create more easily a shortlist for the professional role.

. . . we create a spreadsheet with labels of the key selection and decision-making criteria. Forexample, tertiary qualifications, experience in xxx industry, knowledge of specific type ofprogram, other factors such as completing their masters, etc. (HR professional, 8 July 2009)


Most often HR professionals and recruiters who are in charge of the shortlisting

phase tend to stick to the criteria that are at best rigid in nature. For example, if the role

requires work experience in a particular industry and type of organisational role, then it

is most probable that the decision-makers in charge of initial screening would not take

time to understand overseas-based work experiences that may not strictly fit within the

set criteria.

Finally, another characteristic that influences the employers during the shortlisting and

selection is the difference in the industry-based work role structuring and the work

environment between the IT and accounting-based organisations and divisions. When

analysing participant feedback together with the secondary data (i.e. staff origin, HR

policies and other organisation-based documents), we noted that most IT work roles tend

to be team or project-based and thus characterise a collectivist approach to their work.

For example, many IT employers indicate that when a new employee joined, they are

‘buddied up’ with a more senior local team member to ensure that the new employee is

familiarised with the organisational culture, the way of doing things and to support their

initial adaptation to the organisation.

IT is a contemporary style industry. When people first join, we buddy them up, especially thejunior members. (HR professional, 6 June 2008)

On the other hand, the research findings generally indicate that accounting work roles

are designed to have clear individual responsibilities without much collective support

systems.

. . . we need people who can start and get on with the work without much backup support.Otherwise they become a burden to the organisation. (HR professional, 7 July 2008)

Furthermore, IT divisions/organisations also exhibit a contemporary perspective in

their style of management; have a younger management team and encompass a younger

group of employees/professionals working for such divisions and organisations. Such

characteristics then enhanced their levels of tolerance and reduced the overall

organisation’s level of prejudices against new ethnic immigrant groups.

IT is a contemporary style industry. Fifty percent of our staff is under the age of thirty fiveyears and the acceptance is way different. The guy who owns the company is only forty two.Those things help us to be sensible and not be driven by prejudices that make no sense.(HR professional, 6 June 2008)

As a consequence, IT work structures and environment seem to be more

accommodating towards the immigrant professionals and may be better equipped to

support them adapt to the needs of the Australian-based organisational environment.

Implications for recruitment theory

The majority of the research studies that have examined the employment outcomes of

immigrant professionals are situated within a human capital theoretical framework, where

the assumption is that the labour market treats all potential labour equally based on their

skills (Evans 1984; Block 1990). Thus, it is presumed that all HR professionals, recruiters

and other individuals involved within the recruitment process adopt a human capital

perspective during all phases of recruitment.

However, the findings of this research seem to indicate that HR professionals,

recruiters and other individuals who are involved within the recruitment process are

influenced by organisational-based characteristics and are not primarily driven by a

human capital perspective. For instance, the organisation-based factors such as


organisational type (accounting firm versus IT firm), client ethnicity and management

style (traditional white male monocultures at management level) can influence their level

of tolerance, stereotypes and comfort levels resulting in the shortlisting and the

selection of persons who are closely matched to the existing profiles of professionals

within the organisations.

Consequently, the findings seem to emphasise that the employer screening, assessment

and recruitment of new employees may be biased by the overwhelming power the

employers have over the various recruitment phases. This finding is also noted by

Bratton and Gold (2007, p. 240): ‘approaches to recruitment and selection tend to

emphasise the power of employers’ and display how the decision-maker’s prejudice

and subjective biases influence their assessment and selection of candidates’. Bowles and

Gintis (1975) take a similar view claiming that the human capital theory disregards the

power of employers over the individual’s ability to gain employment in a manner that

maximises their skill utilisation, productivity and earnings.

In terms of this research context, employers seem to acquire power through distinct

organisation-based characteristics, which are in turn used to determine how they

manoeuvre and operate in various recruitment phases. Perhaps, it is appropriate to

question whether employers in practice adopt a human capital perspective in the various

recruitment phases. It seems employer behaviour in each of the recruitment phases may be

better understood with reference to place and specificity.

Massey (1994, p. 5) claims that a ‘particular articulation of [social relationships] . . . , a

particular moment in those networks of social relations and understandings’ can influence

the employer screening and recruitment of skilled immigrants within various recruitment

phases. Consequently, as illustrated by Massey (1995) and Peck (1996), the findings of this

study could be used to speculate how the webs of interconnecting relationships between

the organisational-based factors interact with each other to influence the employers in their

screening and recruitment of the skill accredited immigrant professionals. See Figure 1

below.

There are significant implications of the above model to the recruitment practice and

theory. For instance, the model could be used to identify the influence of the organisational

characteristics on the recruitment process. These characteristics could be reflective of the

organisational culture, and the level of integration between the organisational recruitment

policies and the corporate strategies. If an organisation aims to have clear integration of

HR policies with its corporate and business strategies, then they need to pursue

contemporary recruitment and selection practices (Thornhill, Lewis, Millmore and

Saunders 2000) and become long term oriented in their recruitment policy formulation

and implementation.

Adopting contemporary recruitment strategies would mean that the organisations

would need to develop strategic recruitment policies and processes that take into account

the differences in the potential candidate bases in their labour market. For instance, if an

organisation’s recruitment processes are geared towards a traditionally narrow source of

candidates with qualifications, work experiences and personal attributes that are

reflective of the existing employee base, then such organisations may need to adopt a

more inclusive recruitment processes to suit the diversity of the skilled professional

candidates in a particular labour market. Such actions can then lead to better utilisation

of the immigrant professionals’ accredited skills and build an organisational culture that

reflects its ability to adapt to the highly competitive and rapidly changing globalised

environment.


Conclusion

This paper has introduced an employer perspective to the skill underutilisation of

immigrant professionals. The in-depth case evidence from this study points to the limited

applicability of the human capital framework and more appropriate application of the

place and specificity influences on the HR policies, designing of job specifications,

competency frameworks, screening, shortlisting and selection in explaining the skill

underutilisation of immigrant professionals. The findings of this study suggest that the

factors impacting the employment opportunities available to immigrant professionals are

complex, and may be contradictory.

Future research could be directed towards identifying how place and specificity of the

organisational and industry-based characteristics could influence the adoption of either a

traditional or a contemporary recruitment process. For example, researchers could

Recruitmentphases

FactorsImplications for

immigrant screeningEmployment

outcome

Planning

Internal Vs.External

OutsourceVs. In-houserecruitment

Short-listingand

selection

• Type of service/product delivered

• Role centrality

• Organisational resources• Ethnicity of clients

• HR policy (Grooming from within, word of mouth referrals)

• Size of organisation

• Recruitment consultant vs. HR professionals

• Urgency to recruit

• Management style

• Role structuring

Rigid/flexible jobdescriptions andpersonal profilematch/mismatch

Accessibility tomanagerialprofessionalvacancies

Opportunities tobuild relationships

and trust withrecruiters and HR

professionals

Individualist/Collectivist style of

induction

Levels of toleranceto difference

Unfavourablescreening and

non-recruitment

Favourablescreening and

recruitment

Figure 1. Organisational factor influences on the immigrant professional screening andrecruitment.


examine whether large organisations with resource availability for new recruit training and

development and who engage with ethnically diverse group of clients are more inclined to

pursue contemporary recruitment processes that accommodate a wider range of candidates

within a labour market. Similarly, future researchers could also examine whether the

industry-based organisational culture and role-specific characteristics influence organis-

ations to pursue traditional recruitment processes resulting unfavourably in their

recruitment of skilled immigrant professionals. Researchers could use the model presented

in Figure 1 to carry out the above line of enquiries.

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