Magkänsla eller kompetens? : En kvalitativ studie om hur rekryterare upplever och motiverar urvalsbeslut i rekryteringsprocesser

Sammanfattning

Employees are one of the most important resources within an organisation. This means the recruitment process is crucial for ensuring that the organisation acquires the right competencies. During a recruitment process, recruiters are often faced with a complex balance between objectivity and subjectivity where candidates are assessed based on various criterias. This study aims to examine how recruiters perceive and justify selection decisions in recruitment processes, as well as how these assessments can be understood in relation to gut feeling. This study is based on semi-structured interviews with six recruiters from different organisations. The collected empirical material is analyzed through Bourdieu's theory of capital and the concept of bias. The findings of the study show that the use of gut feeling is often encouraged by others within the organization, while recruiters themselves legitimize gut feeling by framing it as an experience-based interpretation. At the same time, the recruiters express an unwillingness to rely on gut feeling and attempt to avoid being influenced by personal interpretations. However, in order to ensure that a candidate will “fit into the team”, recruiters are required to evaluate candidates through personal interpretations of their personal characteristics.