This case study examines the planning and execution failures of a new campus recruiter at ABC, Inc., who was inadequately trained and supervised during his first six months on the job. Despite successfully recruiting fifteen new trainees, the recruiter failed to properly prepare for a June 15 orientation, discovering critical gaps — missing paperwork, unscheduled drug tests, incomplete training manuals, and unavailable facilities — just two weeks before the event. The paper evaluates two courses of action (proceeding on schedule versus postponing by one month), recommends postponement to protect ABC from legal exposure, and proposes long-term reforms in supervisor mentoring, milestone scheduling, and cross-departmental communication.
ABC, Inc. did not provide adequate training and supervision for its new campus recruiter, who had only been with the company for six months. As a result, the recruiter exhibited poor planning and execution of his responsibilities.
The recruiter completed one job function successfully — the recruitment of fifteen new trainees hired in early April. However, he failed in his assignment to conduct employee orientation on June 15 for the new hires, despite having assured his supervisor that meeting this deadline would not be a problem. He realized the full scope of the problem near the end of May, when he discovered missing paperwork on the new employees, a failure to schedule required drug tests, an insufficient number of incomplete training manuals, and unavailable training facilities.
The recruiter could proceed with the June 15 schedule. To do so, he would have to scramble to contact the new hires to obtain missing paperwork and to ask them to schedule drug testing. He would need to contact human resources to request the missing pages for the training manuals and to make additional copies. He would also have to locate offsite training facilities, since the company's training room had already been reserved by others.
The downside of this option is that with only two weeks of preparation time, some employees might not be able to respond to requests for paperwork and drug test scheduling in time. In that case, appropriate background screening would not begin until after the employees started work. If negative results were discovered after the start date, dismissal could expose ABC to legal liability. Furthermore, ABC would incur additional costs for offsite training facilities.
Alternatively, the recruiter could postpone the orientation by one month. This would give him adequate time to obtain missing paperwork and ensure that all required drug tests were completed. He could easily obtain complete copies of the training manuals and conduct the orientation at ABC's own facilities.
However, the recruiter had promised his supervisor that training would take place on June 15. Informing her of the need to change the date would highlight his mistakes as a new employee, and his supervisor might not be willing to agree to the change. If she did agree, the recruiter would need to explain to the various supervisors of the new hires that their employees would be starting later than originally planned, potentially causing scheduling difficulties. The company would also need to notify the new employees of the revised start date and might be responsible for providing compensation during the period they are not working due to the change in the promised start date.
The recruiter should move the training schedule back one month to give the company time to follow its established human resources procedures. Despite the shortcomings of this recommendation noted above, the legal implications of not following ABC's policies could be significant. The recruiter will need to negotiate the new start date with his supervisor by having an honest discussion about his mistakes and by explaining why it is important to follow company policies. He will need to notify the relevant supervisors of the new start dates and be prepared to take responsibility for the change. In the interim, he must take immediate steps to obtain missing paperwork, request and verify drug tests, update and copy training manuals, and book training rooms.
"Mentoring, scheduling, and communication reforms"
Because the recruiter was a new employee, his supervisor should have been working more closely with him to ensure that he was taking the necessary steps to be successful. Closer mentoring and oversight during the early months of employment would have caught scheduling and compliance gaps before they became critical.
The recruiter should not have been identifying major problems at the end of May. Instead, he should have had a schedule of milestones that he was following and verifying from the very start of the assignment. A detailed schedule of activities would have forced him to think realistically about the time required for each process before orientation and would have helped ensure that all appropriate procedures were followed on time.
The recruiter should have maintained better communication with his supervisor, human resources, and facilities throughout the process. He should have been regularly reviewing schedules and progress with his supervisor. He should have reviewed a copy of the training manual early in the process and communicated his needs to human resources well in advance. He should also have notified the facilities team of his need for training rooms as soon as the orientation date was set.
The recruiter's mistakes, as well as ABC's failure to adequately support a new employee, should serve as valuable lessons learned to avoid the same issues in the future. The short- and long-term recommendations offered in this report will, if implemented, enable ABC to be more successful with its next recruiting and orientation efforts.
You’re 92% through this paper. Sign up to read the remaining 1 section.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.