HRM

The Employee Selection Process

Graphics courtesy of The Wall Street JournalOpens in new window Ideally, the recruiting effortsOpens in new window have been broad enough and equitable enough to meet the standard of equal opportunity and provide a pool of applicants who meet basic qualifications.

Leaders and others in the organization then need to find out whether each applicant is qualified for the position and likely to be a good performer. If more than one applicant meets these two conditions, leaders for example, must further determine which applicants are likely to be better performers than others.

Employee selection can range from a very simple process to a very complicated process depending on the organization and the position. Certain employment laws such as antidiscrimination lawsOpens in new window must be obeyed during employee selection.

It is important for leaders to understand that selection is much more than just choosing the best available person. Selecting the appropriate set KSAs—which come packaged in a human being—is an attempt to get a “fit” between what the applicant can and wants to do, and what the organization needs.

Besides needing to obey relevant laws, the task is made more difficult because it is not always possible to tell exactly what the applicant really can and wants to do. Fit between the applicant and the organization affects both the employer’s willingness to make a job offer and an applicant’s willingness to accept a job. Fitting or matching a person to the right job is called placement.

Good selection and placement decisions are an important part of successful HRM management. Some would argue that these decisions are the most important part. Productivity improvement for an organization may come from changes in incentive pay plans, improved L&D, or better job design; but unless the employer has the necessary people with the appropriate KSAs in place, those changes may not have much impact.

The very best L&DOpens in new window will not enable someone with little aptitude for a certain job to do that job well and enjoy it. Again, thus the importance of striving for the best fit or match between the applicant and the organization.

How well an employee is matched to a job is very important because it directly affects the amount and quality of an employee’s work.

Any mismatches in this regard can cost an organization a great deal of money, time, and trouble, especially, in terms of L&D and operating costs.

In the course of time, the employee may find the job distasteful and leave in frustration. They may even circulate “hot news” and juicy bits of negative information about the organization, causing incalculable harm to the organization in the long run. Effective selection, therefore, demands constant monitoring of the “fit” between people and the job.

There are a variety of selection tools to help increase the likelihood of a fit or match between an applicant and the organization. These selection tools help sort out the relative qualifications of job applicants and appraise their potential for being good performers in a particular job. These tools include:

1. background information,
2. interview,
3. paper-and-pencil tests,
4. physical ability test,
5. performance tests, and
6. references.

1.     Background Information

To aid in the selection process, organizations obtain background information might include the highest levels of education obtained, college majors and minors, type of college or university attended, years and type of work experience, and mastery of foreign languages.

Background information can be helpful both to screen out applicants who are lacking key qualifications (such as a college degree) and to determine which qualified applicants are more promising than others.

2.     Interviews

Virtually all organizations use interviews during the selection process. Interviews may be structured or unstructured. In a structured interview, leaders ask each applicant the same standard questions (such as “What are your unique qualifications for this position?” and “What characteristics of a job are most important to you?”).

Particularly informative questions may be those that prompt an interviewee to demonstrate skills and abilities needed for the job by answering the question. Sometimes called situational interview questionsOpens in new window, these often present interviewees with a scenario they would likely encounter on the job and ask them to indicate how they would handle it.

An unstructured interview proceeds more like an ordinary conversation. The interviewer feels free to ask probing questions to discover what the applicant is like and does not ask a fixed set of questions determined in advance.

In general, structured interviews are superior to unstructured interviews because they are more likely to yield information that will help identify qualified candidates, are less subjective, and may be less influenced by the interviewer’s biases.

Even when structured interviews are used, however, the potential exists for the interviewer’s biases to influence his or her judgment. Interviewers must be trained to avoid various biases and sources of inaccurate perceptions as much as possible.

3.     Paper-and-Pencil Tests

The two main kinds of paper-and-pencil tests used for selection purposes are ability tests and personality tests; both kinds of tests can be administered in hard copy or electronic form.

The use of personality tests (including honesty tests) for hiring purposes is controversial. Before using any paper-and-pencil tests for selection purposes, leaders for example, must have sound evidence that the tests are actually good predictors of performance on the job in question. Organizations who use tests without such evidence may be subject to costly discrimination lawsuits.

4.     Physical Ability Tests

For jobs requiring physical abilities, such as firefighting, garbage collecting, and package delivery, organizations use physical ability tests that measure physical strength and stamina as selection tools. Autoworkers are typically tested for mechanical dexterity because this physical ability is an important skill for high job performance in many auto plants.

5.     Performance Tests

Performance tests measure a job applicants’ performance on actual job tasks. Applicants for secretarial positions, for example, typically are required to complete a keyboarding test that measures how quickly and accurately they type. Applicants for middle and top management positions are sometimes given short-term projects to complete—projects that mirror the kinds of situations that arise in the job being filled—to assess their knowledge and problem-solving capabilities.

6.     References

Applicants for many jobs are required to provide references from former employers or other knowledgeable sources (such as a college instructor or adviser) who know the applicant’s skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics. These individuals are asked to provide candid information about the applicant.

References are often used at the end of the selection process to confirm a decision to hire. Yet the fact that many former employers are reluctant to provide negative information in references sometimes make it difficult to interpret what a reference is really saying about an applicant.

Several recent lawsuits filed by applicants who felt that they were unfairly denigrated or had their privacy invaded by unfavorable references from former employers have caused organizations to be increasingly wary of providing any negative information in a reference, even if it is accurate.

For jobs in which the jobholder is responsible for the safety and lives of other people, however, failing to provide accurate negative information in a reference does not just mean that the wrong person might get hired; it may also mean that other people’s lives will be at stake.

An important final takeaway for leaders is that they and their organizations have an ethical and legal obligations to use reliable and valid selection tools. Yet, reliability and validity are matters of degree rather than all-or-nothing.

Thus, leaders and their organizations should strive to use selection tools in such a way that they can achieve the greatest degree of reliability and validity. For ability tests of a particular skill, organizations should keep up to date on the latest advances in the development of valide paper-and-pencil tests and us the test with the highest reliability and valid ratings for their purpose. Regarding interviews, leaders can improve reliability by having more than one person interview job candidates.