Recruitment and Selection Practices of Construction Employers in Rwanda

Abstract

Human resources play a key role in the achievement of construction projects. This study investigated the recruitment practices of construction employers in Rwanda. The problem of the study is the lack of empirical evidence to support the recruitment and selection practices of construction employers in Rwanda. Similar studies are abundant in other sectors of the economy but very scarce in the construction industry. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for the study. A closed-ended questionnaire was used for data collection. The population of the study are the construction organisations that employ construction workers in Rwanda. Hence, the population of the study is the 580 construction organisations that are officially working in Rwanda. A sample of 80 firms used for the study were determined with the use of Slovin’s formula. The findings of the study indicated that requests for the curriculum vitae, cover letter, face-to-face interview, submission of applications with key information of education/work experience and knowledge test to measure job specific knowledge are the prevalent strategies of recruiting and selecting staff in the construction industry. The prominent sources of recruitment and selection are internship performance, internal advertisement, and local newspaper advertisement. Based on the findings of the study, it was recommended that construction organizations should study and adopt the recruitment and selection strategies that have given them the most effective results. It was also recommended that the organisation should stick to the most effective sources of recruitment and selection for their organisations