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After an employee has been recruited he is provided with basic background information about the employer, working conditions and the information necessary to perform his job satisfactorily. The new employee’s initial orientation helps him perform better by providing him information of the company rules, and practices.

According to Pigors and Myers, “Placement consists in matching what the supervisor has reason to think the new employee can do with what the job demands (job requirements), imposes (in strain, working conditions, etc.), and offers (in the form of pay rate, interest, companionship with other, promotional possibilities, etc.)” They further state that it is not easy to match all these factors for a new worker who is still in many ways an unknown quantity. For this reason, the first placement usually carries with it the status of probationer.

A few basic principles should be followed at the time of placement of an employee on the job.

These may be enumerated as below:

• The job should be offered to the man according to his qualifications. The placement should neither be higher nor lower than the qualifications. 
• While introducing the job to the new employee, an effort should be made to develop a sense of loyalty and cooperation in him so that he may realise his responsibilities better towards the job and the organisation. 
• The employee should be made conversant with the working conditions prevailing in the industry and all things relating to the job. He should also be made aware of the penalties if he commits a wrong. 
• Man should be placed on the job according to the requirements of the job. The job should not be adjusted according to the qualifications or requirements of the man. Job first; man next, should be the principle of placement. 
• The placement should be ready before the joining date of the newly selected person. 
• The placement in the initial period may be temporary as changes are likely after the completion of training. The employee may be later transferred to the job where he can do better justice.

In the words of John M. Ivancevich, “Orientation orients, directs, and guides employees to understand the work, firm, colleagues, and mission. It introduces new employees to the organisation, and to his new tasks, managers, and work groups.”

According to John Bernardin, “Orientation is a term used for the organizationally sponsored, formalized activities associated with an employee’s socialisation into the organisation.

Billimoria has defined orientation as, “Induction (orientation) is a technique by which a new employee is rehabilitated into the changed surroundings and introduced to the practices, policies, and purposes of the organisation.”

Orientation is one component of the new employee socialization process. Socialization is the ongoing process of instilling in all new employees prevailing attitudes, standards, values, patterns of behaviour that are expected by the organisation and its departments.

Thus, orientation is a process through which a new employee is introduced to the organisation. It is the process wherein an employee is made to feel comfortable and at home in the organisation. The new employee is handed over a rulebook, company booklets, policy manuals, progress reports and documents containing company information which are informational in nature. It is responsibility of the human resource department to execute the orientation programme.

Difference between recruitment and selection has been described by Flippo as, “Recruitment is a process of searching for prospective employees and stimulating and encouraging them to apply for jobs in an organisation. It is often termed positive as is stimulates people to apply for jobs, selection on the other hand tends to be negative because it rejects a good number of those who apply, leaving only the best to be hired.”

Recruitment and selection differs in following manner:

1. Difference in Objective: The basic objective of recruitment is to attract maximum number of candidates so that more options are available. The basic objective of selection is to choose best out of the available candidates.

2. Difference is Process: Recruitment adopts the process of creating application pool as large as possible and therefore. It is known as positive process. Selection adopts the process through which more and more candidates are rejected and fewer candidates are selected or sometimes even not a single candidate is selected. Therefore, it is known as negative process or rejection process.

3. Technical Differences: Recruitment techniques are not very intensive, and not require high skills. As against this, in selection process, highly specialised techniques are required. Therefore, in the selection process, only personnel with specific skills like expertise in using selection tests, conducting interviews, etc., are involved.

4. Difference in Outcomes: The outcome of recruitment is application pool which becomes input for selection process. The outcome of selection process is in the form of finalising candidates who will be offered jobs.