Human Resources Management

Analysis of the recruitment and

selection processes of Philip Morris
Romania

Coordinateur Teacher: Ramona Cantaragiu

Students: Apostolie Eduard

Gabor Ciprian

Group 134
Introduction
Out of all Human Resource Management functions, Recruitment and selection seems to be the
one who takes the leading role in the HR department. It is the function that impacti directly and critically
the performance and activity in the organization through the quality of the employees. The job market
is becomeng more and more competitive in terms of qualified persons, suitable skills and diverse
knowledge so, the recruitment process should provide the company with those candidates which fit best
with the company’s needs and finnaly, to hire the most appropiate person for the company.
„Recriutment starts with the HR departament’intention of developing a viable pool of applicant
from which hiring and promotion decisions are made, and it end wih the efiicient receivin of the
resumes”i
The recruitment process compose a job analysis, meaning the comprehensive analysis of the
tasks to be performed, the duties and the skills required for a job, written in the job description and a
job specifications which comprises the „requisite education, skills; a list of a job’s human
requirements”( Dessler, G., 2005).
After proboting the disponibility of the job, the next step is the Selection of the best candidates.
It is the process of choosing individuals who have relevant qualifications to fill vacant positions. In order
to perform an effective selection and to recuce costs, companies are outsourcing this process using
specialised firms. Interviewing is often carried out by supervisors, departmental managers or by experts
and they are the final point of the process. It can vary in time but is the most essential point in which the
company meets the candidate and figures out if it is the future employee.

Description of the company

Philip Morris International Inc. (PMI) is an Americant multinational cigarette and tobacco
manufacturing company, with products sold in over 180 countries having the best selling product the
Marlboro cigarettes.
Starting as a sole London tobacconist, Philip Morris oppende in 1857 a small tobacco shop. The
shop and the tradition kept on growing and now the company ownt 7 of the top 15 tobacco brands in the
world. The company kept its headquarter in New York City and has over 82000 employees worldwide
and has annual revenues of over $80 billion.
In 1997, PMI establishes a local subsidiary and starts the construction of a modern factory in
Otopeni. At present, PMI sells 40 products variant and has around 800 employees across Romania.
PMI contributes to the charitable and cultural programs in Romania and works with local
nonprofit organisation to support edicational, social and artistic actions. PMI’most important brands in
Romania are: Marlboro, Parliament, Virginia Slims, Philip Morris, L&M, IQOS, HEETS.
Philip Morris International is an important investor for Romania through the fact it will open a
new factory for the IQOS tobacco heating product, the HEETS tablets. The nvestment worth of 490
million euros is to be completet in 2020, according to the company’s representatives.What Philip Morris
did in Romania seems to be a start-up poit for new investment and an example for other firms. 390 new
employess and a local turnover of over 500 million euros make from this firm an atractive employer.

i
Ghinea V.M.(2011), Conducting the company Human Resource Management, Bucharest, BREN Publishing
How is it done at Philip Morris?

Being a leading international tobacco company with a dynamic evolution since the IQOS
reached the Romanian market, Philip Morris has as objective is looking for suitable candidates that can
occupy the vacant positions. Moreover, considering the significant investment that was made in
Romania, Philip Morris will employee in mass. But in order to do so, the candidates have to go through
the recruitment and the selection processes.
There are different modalities that the multinational company use in order to bring more people
into the company and occupy specific strategic positions. Through these methods, there are: the
„Inkompass program”, online platforms for jobs where there are uploaded different job descriptions, the
company’s website and advancing on the career ladder inside the company.
First of all, considering the “Inkompass Program”, it is a 2-cycle paid internship program at
Philip Morris which enables the candidates to discover themselves through challenges that they will
have to face during the internship and through cultural diversity. In order to be accepted at the internship,
the first step is represented by an online application, where the students have to upload their CVs, after
which a screening of CVs will be digitally realised. After a candidate passed this step, a numerical test
and a situational judgement test have to be completed. The first test, the numerical test, will “assess the
ability to manage and analyse data”, while the second one, the situational judgement test, will assess the
decision-making abilities on a wide variety of simulated scenario”. After completing the test, if the
criteria is meet, the candidate have to participate at a short phone interview, in which the candidate has
to respond to some questions, eventually, participating in an on-ground assessment/ assessment centre,
representing the final stage of the recruitment process. The final step represents an opportunity for
networking, meeting the employees from the companies for the first time, while they are assessing the
candidates. This final step is split into 4 parts: 2 team business cases, one individual project and a final
interview with 3 employees from the company. The most sought after candidate is a dynamic person,
willing to challenge the status quo and to take part of a creative team.
After the job description is created, together with the job profile, the position is promoted mostly
on digital platforms and on Philip Morris’s website. Therefore, one of the main tools of advertising is
represented online recruitment. Such platforms are represented by www.bestjobs.ro or www.hipo.ro,
where candidates apply with their CV or in different cases with a personalised CV generated by the
website platform. A Philip Morris’s job description can be seen bellow, in the Appendix chapter
(Appendix 1).
The recruitment process realised by the job application on the digital platforms is followed by
the selection process. Thus, all the CVs are now automatically verified, accepted just those that meet the
criteria impose by the HR team through the job description. After the screening of the application forms,
the candidates are invited to the company to take a test which sustains in practical exercises, especially
excel and another one consisting of economic notions (depending on the vacant position, the candidates
either take a test, or they are invited straight to the interview with the manager). The next step is
represented by an interview with the direct manager and in some cases with the department manager,
followed by the evaluation, decision and offer.
Besides these methods of employing people, Philip Morris also promotes internal candidates on
the career ladder. This method is used only if a superior employee, a manager, for example, is leaving
the company, promoted or, for some reasons, is fired, the position becoming vacant. The company
prefers to promote internal employees, the biggest advantage being represented by the fact that the
employee is already familiar with the organization culture and the policies of the company. The
promoted employee will not take part in the same selection as the outside candidates because he/she
already has enough experience in the company and the adaptation level is high.
 One last method of employing is by recommendation. This is a special case that is not usually
seen in a multinational company. As long as there is a vacant position and there are not applicants or the
position is just for the employees within the company, different managers can make recommendation of
people from the company with a specific expertise or not.

Error! Main Document Only..Job description

Analysis of Philip Morris recruitment process

While speaking about vacancy there are two options: when an existing occupant leaves the firm
and when a new position is created through expansion of the firm. In our case we are in the situation of
vacancy appeared because of the expansion of the organization. For that, the firm had to follow several
steps of the recruitment, but also personalized the system.
The first step that Philip Morris had to follow was to develop the job analysis of vacant positions.
The job description together with the job specification determine the duties of the job, what the job entail
and the characteristics of the people who should be hired for the job. This step was made by the middle
and first-line managers which are involved in the recruitment process and who are aware of the inside
situation and know what they need in their teams. After that, the hiring announcement was posted online
on job platforms and on the company’s website, the candidates applying and becoming part of the
selection process through their CVs.
Considering the method used for recruiting employees, Philip Morris chose an Informal
method of recruitment, employing people through an internship program. The advantage of this method
is represented by the fact that it is one of the most efficient ways, from the time and costs points of
views. Considering the processes that the candidates have to go through in order to be accepted as interns
in the company, in long term, it will pay off for the company, because the majority of those that pass all
the challenges from the assessment centre, becoming interns, will remain in the company as full time
employees. Therefore, it reduces time for the company in looking for other potential employees, cutting
the integration costs. Moreover, on the employees’ side, the incentive to apply is increasing
considerably, taking into consideration that the internship is paid, while working in a dynamic
environment, having the opportunity to develop themselves personally and professionally.
Another part of the recruitment process is representing by testing the candidates. Therefore, in
order to come up with the best candidate for a post, the companies take the potential employees through
different challenges. In this way, Philip Morris manages to define the characteristics of the candidates
and chooses for the next step the ones which fit the best in the company. The final part of the recruitment
process is not usually applied by many firms. The 2 team business cases and the project are giving the
candidate an “inside„ look into the organisation and the recruitment team sees how the candidate reacts
in a reality based situation. The final interview is challenging compared to other employers because the
candidate is facing their possible future bosses. In this way the employer has a clear image of “how my
team would look”.
The selection in Philip Morris is done internally, not by other recruitment agencies and the
criteria are very strict, the candidates must comply with the needs of the companies. An important factor
in the selection process is represented by objectivity. While selecting the most suitable candidate from
the entire pool of people that applied for the job, if the recruiter does not pay attention to the details and
lose sight of objectivity, in long term, the company will have nothing but a bad influence in the company.
In conclusion, the purpose of recruitment is to allocate the most appropriate human resources to a
specific position in the company in a way in which it can create value for the company and this is what
Philip Morris does: it is constantly growing. Because at the core of the business are situated the people
that help growing the company, a high attention have to be allocated in these processes.
Moreover, coming to the differences between these processes, recruitment is a positive act (it is
attempting to attract a pool of suitable candidates for a position), whilst selection is a negative process,
that is, reducing the likely candidates down to a number that are to be successful (Dowling, O., Schuler,
R., 1990). While maybe there is a big “pool” of candidates that apply for the job vacant, a lot of them
are losing their way to the final step, at the end remaining just the ones that proved they have all the
qualities that the company is looking for.
Personal recommendations

We have seen that the recruitment process in Philip Morris is a complex one with several steps,
but like any other process it can be improved constantly. Being familiarized with this recruitment
process, we thought of a few recommendations.
A starting point is the salary. During the recruitment process the intern salary was mentioned,
but the one for a full-time job was not. A good strategy for the company to attract the best candidates is
to lure them with something and in this case, the salary is the key. When coming up with the job
description, the company should have mentioned the salary. Being a company in a position to offer a lot
of benefits, Philip Morris should have considered that this will help in the long run, attracting the best
candidates and having the options to choose the best for the firm.
Another recommendation is to test the candidates. Even if the employer is likely to believe that
what is written in the resume is absolutely correct, the fact is that many candidates exaggerate the truth.
Therefore, the only way to find out if the candidate is lying or not in their application is through a written
test. In this way, an employer can see if what is written in the resume corresponds with the facts
highlighted in the written test and can decide more quickly about hiring or not a certain person.
During our interaction with the recruitment process of Philip Morris we discovered that the
flexibility in what it concerns recruitment is missing. As we wished to move the date of the interview,
this thing could not be done and other personal thing had to be cancelled. This was not a big problem in
our case, but being flexible from the time point of view can bring advantages to the company. It can be
lost a very good potential employee by not letting him to choose its own time for an interview. Who
know? It can be exactly what you are looking for the firm.
Looking for references in a recruitment process can prove to be very efficient. As an employer,
it is mandatory to see all the sides of the employee, even if there are bad or not, but this is not provided
by the candidates (Ex. A bad feedback from the previous employer). It is possible that they will speak
badly about the employee and the candidate can skip writing about the previous job. So, as a
recommendation, it is good to decide whom you want as a reference and ask it in the interview. This
will help the employer to study the behaviour of the employee in any circumstances. A bad feedback
from an employee can save the recruiters from investing time in a bad candidate. Also, you can speak
to former colleagues or professors to find out solid information about what kind of person is the
candidate, what is his social behaviour, if he can fit in a team or if he is suitable for the job.
Even if it would be more efficient, from the time point of view, to implement a digital solution
for the recruitment and selection processes, the truth is that, without a personal touch, the processes will
be too rigid to select the suitable employees for the job. Nevertheless, all of these being said, we would
recommend the implementation of an AI system through which all the qualities of the candidates are
identified during the assessment centre

References
Ghinea, V. M., Conducting the company, Bren Publishing House, Bucharest
https://www.inkompass.global/romania-internship-program

https://content.wisestep.com/how-to-improve-your-hiring-recruitment-and-selection-process/

https://www.yourerc.com/blog/post/6-Ways-to-Improve-Your-Hiring-Process.aspx

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Morris_International
https://www.pmi.com/markets/romania/ro