Biblio

This study examines the challenges facing recruitment and selection of personnel into the Nigerian federal civil service and determines the extent to which job description and job specifications were utilized with the objective of remodeling the process for improvedperformance in the civil service. The Federal Civil Service Commission serves as employment agent for the Federal civil service in Nigeria. The commission also delegates powers to ministries and extra ministerial departments to recruit and select junior staffs to posts graded GL. 01-06. In recruiting and selecting competent applicants for the civil service, the civil service system emphasizes uniformity, standardization and transparency (Babaru, 2003). Despite these emphases, it is perceived that recruitment and selection lack equity, transparency, adequate and valid standards, making it difficult, if not impossible to recruit and select the best qualified applicants for available jobs in the civil service. Stratified random sampling method was used to draw a sample of 380 from federal ministries grouped into the four major categories of grade levels. Descriptive survey design was utilized and the analysis was done using descriptive statistics. The study identified factors such as increasing pressures for employment, utilization of informal sources of recruitment, long military era, federal character principle, lack of independence of the Federal Civil Service Commission and delegation of recruitment and selection functions as the prevalent challenges facing the entire process in Nigerian Federal Civil Service. Due to these problems, job description and job specification were not adequately used in the recruitment and selection process, especially at the lowest hierarchy. The paper therefore recommends that the federal government should promulgate a law that will protect employees in the private sector in order to reduce consistent pressures for employment in the public sector. Subjective and informal sources of recruitmet and selection should be de-emphasized, and instead sources from educational institutions should be increased; while the zonal and state offices of the Commission should be established. The paper finally recommends that the Federal Civil Service Commission and other authorities responsible for recruitment and selection should apply job description and job specification in the appointment of qualified and competent applicants for available jobs in the civil service.