People-focused knowledge management

Business Expansion Requires Hiring of 
Competent Staff
As a result of expanded business, Sally Struve, the human
resources director of Holly Corporation, a public relations (PR)
firm, was spearheading the hiring of 20 experienced PR spe-
cialists, advertising professionals, copy writers, and graphics
designers. She assembled several hundred résumés for likely can-
didates. With her staff, Sally summarized the résumés and used
a candidate evaluation software system to apply company cri-
teria to screen and select about 60 candidates whom she and
the department heads would interview in person.
To expedite the process, standard background checks were
performed in parallel with inviting candidates for interviews,
resulting in the disqualification of a few candidates. The remain-
ing candidates were invited in for interviews by Sally and rep-
resentatives of the departments involved. Eight were such
obvious hires that they were given employment offers while still
present.
Sally convened meetings with the department heads to staff
the remaining 12 positions. They reviewed the interview results
and ranked candidates according to Holly’s proficiency, salary,
and personality criteria. Based on these rankings, employment
offers were extended to fill the remaining positions. However,
since only 17 candidates accepted the employment offers, Sally,
in followup efforts, was able to quickly extend offers to other
candidates. In the end, all 20 positions were filled.
Comments: Holly had adopted a streamlined hiring proce-
dure, with established criteria that allowed the company to
make effective hiring decisions.
The primary knowledge-related aspects of this case included
Holly’s intellectual capital, which provided for an ordered hiring pro-
cedure with established criteria and pre-formatted employment offers
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and contracts. These structural IC assets constituted enterprise ref-
erence models for hiring. By following the hiring procedure, Sally and
her coworkers were able to perform the hiring as a routine group
decision.