HRM Report: Analyzing Recruitment & Selection at Amazon Inc.

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) practices at Amazon Inc., with a specific focus on recruitment and selection processes. It begins with an introduction to Amazon and the importance of effective HRM in its success. The report then identifies and discusses major challenges faced by HR managers at Amazon, such as resource constraints, balancing transparency with effectiveness, and finding employees who align with the company's culture. Following this, the report outlines and analyzes best practices employed by Amazon's HR department to address these challenges. These practices include optimal resource utilization, attracting and retaining talent, embracing change, developing future leaders, and effective communication strategies. The report concludes with suggestions and recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of Amazon's recruitment and selection procedures, offering valuable insights into the company's approach to talent acquisition and management.

Running Head: Human Resource Management
AMAZON INC.
Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management 1
Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Major challenges for HR managers..............................................................................................................2
Best practices in relation with challenges faced by HR managers...............................................................2
Suggestions and Recommendations............................................................................................................2
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................2
References...................................................................................................................................................3

Human Resource Management 2
Introduction
Amazon Inc. is an American e-commerce and cloud computing organization headquartered in
Seattle, Washington, U.S. Company was founded by the most innovative leader of this era Jeff
Bezos on 5th July 1994. Initially, organization was started from a garage by selling books which
later on becomes the largest online shopping website across the globe in terms of revenues.
Today, the company delivers more than a million goods over their website in more than 168
countries and it is present in more than 12 countries across the globe. Every company's success
and growth is dependent on its employees' and leader's talent, knowledge and experience.
Amazon has Jeff Bezos which is the most innovative and skilled leader of this era. He dreamt of
selling products and services over internet and today he living his dream. In relation with this,
Jeff Bezos believes in bringing his staff up along with himself and in relation with this, his
expectations from his employees are bit high in comparison with other leaders' (Amazon Inc.,
2018).
To manage organizational operations in an effective manner, appointment and management of
employees is an effective approach. Thus, human resource management plays vital role in doing
so. In relation with this, recruitment and selection activity must be performed in the most
appropriate manner so that the right person could be appointed at the right position with the
objective of originating better outcomes (Shackleton, 2015). In this report, human resource
management’s one of the primary activity will be discussed i.e. Recruitment & Selection with
regards to analysing its effectiveness and efficiency. Further, report will move towards
determining the challenges and issues faced by HR managers of Amazon while appointing and
selecting the candidates for specified positions. Next phase of the report will focus on best
practices in relation to mitigate the challenges and recommendations with regards to improve the
efficiency of recruitment and selection procedure.
Major challenges for HR managers
It has been observed that while hiring new candidates, HR managers and specialists faces
numerous challenges. But it is the duty and responsibility for HR managers to tackle these
obstacles in order to search great and talented candidates for the organization who could fit as the

Human Resource Management 3
best for the vacant position (Taylor, 2014). Following are some of those challenges which are
faced by HR professionals while executing recruitment and selection activity:
 Lack of enough resources: HR managers need to perform their activities with the
available resources and sometimes, these resources do not act as enough to perform the
activities in the appropriate manner. For example lack of budget in relation to posting
ads over internet and other trending recruitment spots and they need to use traditional
recruiting channels and free job boards to invite candidates. This leads to a big
challenge for the HR managers to find the qualified and talented candidates. In relation
with Amazon Inc., there is sufficient budget is provided to the HR department so that
the most eligible candidate could be appointed over vacant position in relation with the
accomplishment of organizational goals and objectives (Kurtz & William, 2017).
But there are several other challenges which HR managers of Amazon face such as
finding innovative, efficient and talented candidates, finding consistent employees, etc.
HR managers of Amazon use improvised and trending techniques to appoint innovative
and creative candidates who come up with an extra ordinary idea of enhancing
organizational performance. Finding innovation and creative skills in candidates leads
to a long and complex process of recruitment and selection under which 60% of
candidates give up in between the process. This left the HR managers with few options
to select the most appropriate candidate as per organizational requirement (Chaneta,
2014).
 Transparency versus Effectiveness: Amongst HR professionals across the globe,
transparency has gained the peak place. This is done to impress the applicants and
primary objective behind this is that the more transparent company will be the high
reliability will be developed amongst applicants (Cascio, 2018). In relation with this,
HR managers need to make boundaries so that only that much information is provided
to the applicants which are necessary for the applicants otherwise, it could affect
applicant's overall performance because it will showcase high expectations of company
from candidates. In this concern, HR managers in Amazon are not able to find
appropriate options as per the requirements for vacant position. In this regard, HR
Managers needs to appoint from the few options left and it leads to risk that the

Human Resource Management 4
appointed candidate would be able to comply with organizational requirements and
policies or not (Chiang & Suen, 2015).
 Finding employees who fit the company’s culture: HR professionals hire candidates
with the objective of enhancing organizational performance and for the same, new
candidates require working effectively in team along with showcasing their skills for
which they are hired. If this does not happen as per the expectations, HR professionals
require investing in training acquisition process so that the new employees could be
groomed as per organizational culture and organizational environment to promote team
work with the motive of uplifting organizational performance. Finding appropriate
candidates who could fit with the company’s culture is the biggest challenge for HR
professionals for Amazon as well as for other companies. Inappropriate employees
affect organizational environment and this lead the organization let go its great
candidates because they did not get fit with the culture and environment of organization
(Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017).
Best practices in relation to challenges faced by HR managers
HR managers are appointed in companies so that they could hire innovative, creative,
experienced and talented employees for organization in relation with enhancing performance,
enhancing market share and gain competitive advantage in the competitive business
environment. Apart from this, Amazon’s primary objective in relation HR department is to find
innovative and creative employees so that they could come up with new and unique ideas in
relation with accomplishment of tasks to gain better outcomes (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
Further, they are appointed with an expectation that they will stick with the organization for a
long period of time and if in between they leave the job, this becomes a big loss for the
organization. Making reduction in labour turnover is responsibility of HR professionals and for
this, they could adopt numerous strategies such as motivation, strategies in relation with
retaining key employees, by fulfilling employees’ basic needs and by offering them attractive
incentive and other beneficial packages. Following are some of the best practices discussed in
relation to the above discussed challenges which HR professionals face while executing
recruitment and selection activity:

Human Resource Management 5
 Optimum utilisation of available resources: HR professionals in Amazon are talented
and experienced enough to tackle these challenges in an effective manner so that desired
goals and objectives could be acquired. With this regard, the first and foremost activity
performed by them is examining available recruitment tools such as employee
management plans and software. Recruiters should take appropriate and full information
in relation to the requirements for the vacant position. Gaining enough knowledge
regarding vacant position helps the HR professionals to determine the specific
requirements of management regarding the specific position (Stone & Deadrick, 2015).
Further, HR managers need to utilise the gained information so that while recruiting,
those requirements must be fulfilled initially before providing training and development
sessions to provide necessary information regards to the organization such as policies,
laws, regulations, and standards. Apart from this, HR managers utilise the available
resources of positing ads for inviting employees so that the most appropriate candidate
could be hired. Amazon Company has provided enough platforms and resources through
which HR managers could invite huge number of candidates at one time from various
places (Brewster, Chung & Sparrow, 2016). This also requires huge efforts from HR
managers because selecting desired and most appropriate candidate from vast choice is
bit difficult task. For this, HR managers have segregated recruitment and selection
procedure into small segments such as aptitude test, personal assessment, group
discussion, etc. (Woodrow & Guest, 2014).
 Attracting new candidates and retaining key employees: Attracting and retaining the
best talent takes discernment, time, and a whole lot of work. HR managers need to
appoint the appropriate candidate as per organizational requirements with regards to the
vacant positon but with due to dynamic business environment, changing organizational
culture and job roles, tasks for HR managers is becoming more difficult. With this
regard, HR managers use effective platforms to post advertisements regarding vacancies.
Selection of platforms is done on the basis of frequently used by candidates. This helps
the human resource department to find the talented candidates to fulfil the job roles,
responsibilities for the particular position in the workplace. Attracting the candidates is
the primary step and if HR team got the talented candidates in initial step then, they are

Human Resource Management 6
not required to put many efforts on further step of recruitment and selection such as
screening of employees (Veloso, Tzafrir & Enosh, 2015).
 Embracing change with grace and ease: Change is a shapeshifter, thus, it influences
environment, competitors, customers, and workplace. It has been observed that humans
always afraid to change irrespective of the change, whether it would be technological,
procedural or structural whereas organization always seeks for change in order to make a
distinctive position in the dynamic and competitive business environment. Major reason
behind this is that employees make themselves comfortable with the existing procedures,
culture, and environment while switching to another forms lead to generate anxiety and
uncertainty (Veth, Korzilius, Van der Heijden, Emans & De Lange, 2017). Thus, HR
professionals are required to appoint those candidates who could easily bear change and
are flexible enough to mould their skills, talent, and knowledge as per changing business
environment. HR managers and the whole department are responsible for managing
human resources within the workplace. Along with this, they are held responsible for
uplifting employees' skills and efficiency by providing them training, development
sessions in various forms. This makes the employees efficient enough to tackle change
along with originating better outcomes. Training could be provided to the existing
employees through available measures such as on-the-job training method, off-the-job
training method.
 Developing leaders of tomorrow: Team leader is the most crucial person and
effectiveness of a team leader could be evaluated by its team performance. This is the
reason why all teams of the organization do not perform at same level. It has been
observed that many employees leave their jobs due to poor relationships with their
managers and team leaders. Thus, it is required for the leaders to conduct interactive
sessions so that the team members could feel comfortable. It also helps the leader to
generate positive outcomes because every teammate would be able to communicate with
its team members along with team leader. This will encourage them to share their views
and ideas to perform the task. Team interactive sessions play vital role in enhancing
organizational performance (N. Theriou & Chatzoglou, 2014). This activity will provide
various options to the organization in relation to choosing effective leader for tomorrow
which ultimately helps the employees to boost up their career growth.

Human Resource Management 7
 Effective communication: Trending techniques in relation to improving employee
relationship with employer is adaptation of effective communication technique at
workplace. This helps the organization to develop an effective workplace environment
and under this environment, every employee could share communicate directly with its
superiors using effective communication mediums. Apart from this, trending strategies in
relation to retaining key employees is developing health and safety workplace
environment. Health at workplace is not regarding developing hygiene and safety, it is
more than that (Kavanagh & Johnson, 2017). Every employee has its own specifications
and capabilities. For example, every employee is a good performer in pressure so it is the
duty of HR managers to develop appropriate workplace environment in relation with
developing appropriate workplace environment where every employee could sustain for
a longer period of time.
Suggestions and Recommendations
In order to improvise functionalities of human resource management in relation to recruitment
and selection activity, following are certain suggestions and recommendations through which HR
department of Amazon could hire talented and valuable employees:
 Social media: HR department of Amazon could post ads on social media platforms in
relation to spreading awareness amongst the people regarding hiring. Advertisement over
social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. should provide
sufficient information to the candidates regarding vacant position, application procedure,
etc. HR team will be able to invite large number of candidates with minimum
investments over advertisement on social media platforms (Craig, 2015).
 Linked in employer branding: This platform is the most suitable and reputed platform
for finding knowledgeable and talented employees. Over this platform, HR managers
could post their ad and promote company’s features and strategies so that crucial
candidates could be attracted. In this procedure, users of this platform will be able to
gather appropriate information regarding job vacancy at Amazon. Along with this, linked
in a largest professional medium which will help the HR managers of Amazon to attract
key candidates as per organizational requirements (Carpenter & Charon, 2014).

Human Resource Management 8
 Creation of blogs and posts depicting employee policy in organization: HR managers
could also portray its employee policies for attracting talented employees through
creating blogs and posts on social media platforms. Apart from this, organizational
website and other recruitment channels could also be utilised for depicting employee
policy. Under employee policy, all those points will be highlighted which a candidate
seeks for before getting a job such as flexibility, workplace safety, etc. (Tracey, 2016).
 Referral bonus: HR managers could also invent referral policy in order to invite talented
employees. This will reduce the work load of HR managers as accountability for existing
employees increases and they will refer only those employees who are capable and
appropriate as per vacant position in the organization. In return, they get referral bonus
which encourages employees to refer other people (Kuvaas, Dysvik & Buch, 2014).
Conclusion
From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that recruitment and selection is the major
activity of human resource management in every organization. Major challenges faced by HR
managers to recruit and select appropriate candidates for the vacant position have been discussed
in this report. Apart from this, identification of best practices has also been discussed to mitigate
the challenges and issues in accordance with recruitment and selection procedure. Apart from
this, suggestions and recommendations have been given to the HR managers of Amazon to
improve organizational performance by appointing talented employees.

Human Resource Management 9
References
Amazon Inc. (2018). Our Communities. [Online]. Retrieved from:
https://www.aboutamazon.com/?utm_source=gateway&utm_medium=footer.
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Bratton, J., & Gold, J. (2017). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave.
Brewster, C., Chung, C., & Sparrow, P. (2016). Globalizing human resource management.
Routledge.
Carpenter, M. J., & Charon, L. C. (2014). Mitigating multigenerational conflict and attracting,
motivating, and retaining millennial employees by changing the organizational culture: A
theoretical model. Journal of Psychological Issues in Organizational Culture, 5(3), 68-
84.
Cascio, W. (2018). Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill Education.
Chaneta, I. (2014). Recruitment and selection. International Journal of Management, IT and
Engineering, 4(2), 289.
Chiang, J. K. H., & Suen, H. Y. (2015). Self-presentation and hiring recommendations in online
communities: Lessons from LinkedIn. Computers in Human Behavior, 48, 516-524.
Craig, M. (2015). Cost effectiveness of retaining top internal talent in contrast to recruiting top
talent. In Competition Forum (Vol. 13, No. 2, p. 203). American Society for
Competitiveness.
Kavanagh, M. J., & Johnson, R. D. (Eds.). (2017). Human resource information systems: Basics,
applications, and future directions. Sage Publications.
Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning,
scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Human Resource Management 10
Kurtz, J., & William, A. (2017). Influential Role of Employee Perception of Recruitment and
Selection on Performance. Australian Journal of Economics and Management
Sciences, 7(5).
Kuvaas, B., Dysvik, A., & Buch, R. (2014). Antecedents and employee outcomes of line
managers' perceptions of enabling HR practices. Journal of Management Studies, 51(6),
845-868.
N. Theriou, G., & Chatzoglou, P. (2014). The impact of best HRM practices on performance–
identifying enabling factors. Employee Relations, 36(5), 535-561.
Shackleton, V. (2015). Recruitment and Selection. Elements of Applied Psychology, 153.
Stone, D. L., & Deadrick, D. L. (2015). Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of
human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), 139-145.
Taylor, S. (2014). Recruitment and selection. Strategic Human Resource Management: An
International Perspective, 10(6), 139-14.
Tracey, W. R. (2016). The human resources glossary: The complete desk reference for HR
executives, managers, and practitioners. CRC Press.
Veloso, A., Tzafrir, S., & Enosh, G. (2015). How employees perceive HRM practices:
Differences between public and private organizations. Human resource management
challenges and changes, 19-36.
Veth, K. N., Korzilius, H. P., Van der Heijden, B. I., Emans, B. J., & De Lange, A. H. (2017).
Which HRM practices enhance employee outcomes at work across the life-span?. The
International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1-32.
Woodrow, C., & Guest, D. E. (2014). When good HR gets bad results: Exploring the challenge
of HR implementation in the case of workplace bullying. Human Resource Management
Journal, 24(1), 38-56.