SG Cowen Case Study: HRM, Leadership and Recruitment

This case study examines SG Cowen's recruitment and leadership practices, focusing on key decision points in the hiring process. It analyzes the company's strategies, including informational interviews, on-campus placements, and Super Saturday events, evaluating their effectiveness. The study assesses candidate selection criteria, highlighting the importance of loyalty, communication, and technical skills. It also addresses negative hiring experiences, such as lack of commitment and poor work ethics, and proposes strategies to overcome resistance to change. Recommendations include structured interviews, broadening recruitment sources, and utilizing assessment tools like psychometric tests. The conclusion emphasizes the need for stronger and more consistent hiring processes to ensure the selection of suitable candidates. The document explores the significance of leadership, HRM, and recruitment challenges, providing insights and solutions for students and professionals alike.

Running Head: SG Cowen Case Study 0
Case study
SG Cowen

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Table of Contents
LO3 Role of Leaders in Management to Change and Strategies to Overcome Resistance to Change.........2
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Key decision Points used by SG Cowen in Recruitment.............................................................................2
Evaluation of Decision points in Recruitment Process................................................................................3
Selecting Candidates...................................................................................................................................3
Negative Hiring Experience in SG Cowen..................................................................................................5
Strategies to Overcome Resistance to Change.............................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................6
References...................................................................................................................................................6

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LO3 Role of Leaders in Management to Change and Strategies to Overcome Resistance to
Change
Introduction
In the given case study the themes and concepts of leadership and human resource practice are
applied. An analysis of HRM and organizational behavior is done under the case study. Various
situations are being studies and on the basis of such situations a set of recommendations has been
prepared to achieve the main goal of hiring process to get the best fit for the organization.
Key decision Points used by SG Cowen in Recruitment
The key decision points used by SG Cowen while taking decisions in recruitment of candidates
and those decision points are as follows:

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 Informational interviews are taken through which candidate’s interest and seriousness is
tested and they were given an opportunity to gather as much information regarding
organization. This key decision does not play a final role in hiring process but shape up
the perceptions about candidates. The candidates are given a chance to explore the area of
work and how well they can fit into such organization and quality for the job.
 One of the recruiting strategy of SG Cowen is ON-campus placements, director has
appointed team captains to make bonds with business schools. The interviews taken on-
campus allow organizations to evaluate qualification, interpersonal and communication
skills, the whole thing gives a general idea to the organization of the candidate’s ability to
work for them or how well he/she fit into organization. According to SG Cowen the
selection of candidates by allowing open and closed channels provides a richer base for
potential candidates.
 The final phase of selection process named by the SG Cowen is Super Saturday in which
successful candidates are given offers. In the case study, Rae has invited many candidates
more than required in order to meet the targets to Super Saturday. In this strategy it is
evaluated that whether the candidates are capable enough to approach new technologies
and demonstrate well the pattern of success.
 Later they are being evaluated that they can be team players or not, the leadership
qualities at the same time with all stage of hiring process.
Evaluation of Decision points in Recruitment Process
The current strategy of SG Cowen for hiring process contains three stages in which they have
given presentation in the college regarding their bank as in what they do and the advantages one
can get of being a part of the bank. They carry informational interviews where candidates are
invited to the bank and interest with other bankers and the purpose behind such activity is to see
if candidate is actually interested or not. On-campus rounds are carried on where interviews are
taken to check the eligibility for further round. In the given case study 30 students were selected
for Super Saturday where they were called to office and being interviewed by supervisors.
Finally assessment and evaluation was done and decision was taken to finalize the selection of
desirable candidates (Breaugh, 2013).

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There are few suggestion changes that can be made to the current decision points and recruitment
process and these are as follows:
 A backup must be prepared for student because there can be a situation where candidate
do not join and an alternative must be there who can be put up in waiting list where they
can be considered in the place which was supposed to join by other candidate (Gibbs,
MacDonald, and MacKay, 2015).
 Generally interview process are perceived to be a tiring process and time consuming so it
is suggested that it can be of very short time but covers significant part of screening a
candidate. Stress should not be put on candidate unnecessarily.
 After the selection process, SG Cowen should analyze the performance of students by
setting up an assessment center it will help both to match up with the goals of
organization and satisfaction of joining the organization (Sinha, and Thaly, 2013).
 To save time and energy consume in selection procedure, students should be considered
who come for internship but must be hired for long term later so that no more time and
energy will be consumed hiring new candidates in future. Many candidate can be hired
from big chunk of eligible and non-eligible candidates (Eriksson, Johansson, and
Langenskiöld, 2017).
Selecting Candidates
Being a member of hiring committee, the valuation of candidates can be done by setting few
parameters and on the basis of these parameters candidates will be judged:
 Loyalty and commitment of candidates towards organization.
 Decision power and judgment maturity will be tested.
 The interpersonal and communication skills.
 Leadership qualities of being an initiator and motivator.
 Technical skills are tested by way of judging creativity level, flexibility in adapting
updated technology and keen knowledge of accounts and finance.
 Work ethics of a candidate.
 Must be a good team player and adjustable in such a work environment where pressure
can be feel at times so a positive attitude in such situation is required at highest priority
(Breaugh, 2017).

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While judging Natalya Godlewaska, the first candidate it has been observed that she is best in
technical skills includes accounting and finance. The loyalty and commitment towards firm are
found high and she reveals quite commendable leadership skills. The parameters which were not
found in her was communication and interpersonal skills.
The second candidate in the case study Martin Street, has shown his skills in communication and
interpersonal but he was lacking in commitment towards the organization.
The third candidate named Ken Goldstein, seems to be best in leadership and technical skills but
found out to be bad in work ethics which does not comes out to be a good sign as work ethics is
counted as one of the important parameter for the organization in order to maintain the integrity.
Andy Sanchez, the fourth candidate demonstrated in technical skill parameter an average result
whereas in other parameters he seems best candidate.
Being a member of hiring committee, we can select two candidates out of them four and that
would be Natalya Godlewaska and Andy Sanchez. The reasons behind the decision are their
overall achievement in parameters. Natalya is best in technical skills but her communications
skills are not up to the mark but she can work on the same by being in organization which is not
a major concern. Whereas Andy the second candidate has performed well enough in all the
parameters but lacking in technical skills which can be improved if proper training is provided at
a right time. Being a desirable candidate the improvement can be seen gradually so it is wise to
choose these two candidates (Humburg, and Van der Velden, 2015).
Negative Hiring Experience in SG Cowen
SG Cowen has experienced few negative hiring, there were few signs which were highlighting
the fact and they are as follows:
 The new hires have started to ask for incentives, flexibility in working hours and due
special consideration.
 Seriousness towards attendance was found out to be lacking as they arrive late and leave
quite early.
 The idle time was noted down to be of maximum as they were wasting most of their time
in no productive activities.
 This shows a pure lack of interest they put in work.

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 It was also found out that they pound on more of easy work rather taking up challenges
and left difficult one for others.
 They showed a poor attitude toward other workers with their slack behavior.
 In office timings it was found out that they are indulge in making phone calls and use of
social sites while working.
Strategies to Overcome Resistance to Change
The current hiring process of SG Cowen proves to be of less beneficiary in context with hired
candidates and the procedure of hiring. The structured interviews can be more of systematic to
enhance the consistency internally in the organization. There should be a certain set of questions
that are being asked from the candidates while interviewing so that a base is formed to judge all
candidates on the same level and decision can be made on the basis of results come out from
those set of questions. It is suggested that those questions must be in relation to past behavioural,
situational and job knowledge. As these questions will help in enhancing the consistency and
ease the process of decision making on a fair basis (Miles, and Sadler-Smith, 2014).
SG Cowen has focused mainly on top 10 business schools for hiring with a purpose to get most
of the talent from renowned schools only. But candidates hired from such schools have
disappointed by their slack behavior and performing bad even after having skills and training in
the field they are working in. so it is suggested that instead of hiring from top 10 schools,
organization can go for campus placements in some less renowned business schools as they have
also a pool of talented candidates who will work with more integrity and discipline (Verma,
2017).
Various assessment tools can affect the decision process of recruitment for example a
psychometric test can help in getting personal characteristics of the candidate which is of great
significance in the process of selection. The ratio of reliability and efficiency is high in this
method of testing in the whole process of recruitment but such tests is all about the mental well-
being of the candidate. The information must be thoroughly checked to see if it is completed
because absence of information required by organization can generate issues later. An
implementation of integrating the technology in the hiring system can help getting all documents
checked and it is one cost effective method with more reliability than human work (Shenoy, and
Aithal, 2016).

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Conclusion
It is concluded that in the case study SG Cowen has strong HRM practices with main focus on
best suitable candidate which proves to be a profitable strategy but few issues occurred and it
comes out as negative hiring process as few signs were observed where hired candidate did not
perform well and up to the expectations (Swider, Zimmerman, and Barrick, 2015). The
recommendations have been given to sort out the issues that they may not happen in future while
conducting a hiring process. And how they can improve their procedures and processes, making
them more of stronger and consistent with the help of forming a certain set of questions on which
basis the candidates will be compared and he best one get selected (Melanthiou, Pavlou, and
Constantinou, 2015).
References
Breaugh, J. A. (2013). Employee recruitment. Annual review of psychology, 64, 389-416.
Breaugh, J. A. (2017). Recruitment. The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of
Recruitment, Selection and Employee Retention, 12.
Eriksson, S., Johansson, P., & Langenskiöld, S. (2017). What is the right profile for getting a
job? A stated choice experiment of the recruitment process. Empirical Economics, 53(2),
803-826.

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Gibbs, C., MacDonald, F., & MacKay, K. (2015). Social media usage in hotel human resources:
recruitment, hiring and communication. International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, 27(2), 170-184.
Humburg, M., & Van der Velden, R. (2015). Skills and the graduate recruitment process:
Evidence from two discrete choice experiments. Economics of Education Review, 49, 24-
41.
Melanthiou, Y., Pavlou, F., & Constantinou, E. (2015). The use of social network sites as an e-
recruitment tool. Journal of Transnational Management, 20(1), 31-49.
Miles, A., & Sadler-Smith, E. (2014). “With recruitment I always feel I need to listen to my gut”:
the role of intuition in employee selection. Personnel Review, 43(4), 606-627.
Shenoy, V., & Aithal, P. S. (2016). Changing Approaches in Campus Placements-A new
futuristic Model.
Sinha, V., & Thaly, P. (2013). A review on changing trend of recruitment practice to enhance the
quality of hiring in global organizations. Management: Journal of Contemporary
Management Issues, 18(2), 141-156.
Swider, B. W., Zimmerman, R. D., & Barrick, M. R. (2015). Searching for the right fit:
Development of applicant person-organization fit perceptions during the recruitment
process. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100(3), 880.
Verma, M. (2017). Cluster based Ranking Index for Enhancing Recruitment Process using Text
Mining and Machine Learning. International Journal of Computer Applications, 157(9).