19 Selection process

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OBJECTIVES

 

This module will enable the learners to

  • Understand the various steps in the selection process to meet its manpower needs
  • Describe the role of management in the process of selection

 

1. INTRODUCTION

 

Once the list of applicant’s is prepared, the next step for the human resource department is to implement the predetermined selection process in order to select the best candidates to the existing vacant positions in the organisation. The aim of this process is to finally end up with candidates best suited for the vacant jobs. The organization must be able to distinguish the applicants who are most likely to perform well and possess multi skilling.

 

Selecting the most suitable candidate for a job is never an easy task for an organization but it becomes all the more difficult when the organization has to screen candidates to fill vacancies that are critical to the organization. It may be concluded that selection is a systematic process of identifying suitable candidates for the job available in the organization from the available applicant pool. “Selection is the process by which candidates for the employment are divided into two classes those who will be offered employment and those who will not”.

 

“Selection is the process of choosing from among the candidates, from within the organization or from the outside, the most suitable person for the current position or for the future position”.

  1. DIFFERENCES BETWEEN RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

Though the term recruitment and selection are often treated as interchangeable there are differences between recruitment and selection.

 

  1. PHASES OF SELECTION PROCESS

As there is no commonly accepted selection process available, organizations may have to adopt different selection process for different jobs, depending upon their nature and recruitments. The aim of the selection process is to gather relevant and critical information about an applicant to every stage of the process in order to determine his or her suitability for the job offered. The selection process broadly involves measurement, decision making and evaluation.

 

A good selection process must be able to distinguish applicants who are likely to perform well in the job from those who are not. An organization adopts various steps in selection.

The steps for the selection of the process are

 

Employment application forms/ blanks: This refers to the standardized format to collect the necessary information about an applicant to determine his suitability of the job.

 

Selection test: This is a psychological test for comparing and contrasting the behavior of two or more persons on the basis of a standardized measure in order to predict their likely job performance.

 

Selection interview:This is a face to face conversation with the candidate to collect the required information that could not be collected through other selection tools to determine his suitability for a job.

 

Reference check: This is a process of cross checking information provided by the candidates in different stages of the selection process with the references cited by the candidates themselves.

 

Physical examination: This is a medical test to ensure that the candidates selected meet the physical requirement of the job.

 

Job offer:A job offer is a formal communication from the employee to the selected candidate that specifies the details of an job offer. The job offer generally provides information about job description, reporting authority, pay particulars and leave eligibility.

 

Some organisations use weighted application blanks to gather relevant information and also to predict the chance of success for a candidate in the job. This is possible when the organization is aware of the statistical significance of the relationship between the bio-data characteristics and the chances of success in the job.

Application forms normally solicit the following information from the candidate;

 

a) Biological information includes the name of the applicant , fathers name, date of birth, age, gender, nationality, physical features, marital status, identification marks and family details.

 

b) Educational qualification such as courses completed, year of passing, subjects studied and percentage of marks secured, division of rank obtained, name of the educational institution and scholarship awarded.

 

c) Work experience like positions held, tenure in each position, nature of the job, pay and other benefits, details about the present and previous employers, explanation for break in employment.

 

d) Pay and other perquisites such as information about candidate’s expectation about salary and other benefits.

 

e) Additional information like participation in sports, games, cultural activities, nation building activities such as NSS, NCC and honors obtained.

 

f) References Names and addresses of a few references that have knowledge about the applicant and who may be contacted by the organization if required.

 

4.  GUIDELINES FOR EVALUATING THE APPLICATION FORM

 

The HR department should follow the following guidelines for evaluating the application form

  • Assessing the applicants educational background
  • Examining the application to assess his self-reliance
  • Determining whether the applicant exhibits adequate intelligence while responding to the questions.
  • Looking for the clues regarding the applicants attitude and behavior
  • Evaluating the applicants employment records
  • Ascertaining the quality of applicants writing
  • Making use of the application details to decide on the nature and content of the interview.
  • Finding in why the applicant left the last job
  1. SELECTION TEST

Since there are differences in the abilities, aptitudes, interest and personality traits of individuals, it is essential to measure these differences effectively and accurately to determine their suitability for the jobs. This may be done with the help of selection test, also called psychological tests. The term test is used here as a standardized measure of behavior of the applicants.

 

5.1 DEFINITION

  • “A psychological test is a standardization measure of behavior”.
  • “A test is a systematic procedure for comparing the behavior of two or more persons”.

 

5.2 USES OF PSYCOLOGICAL TEST

 

Psychological tests are useful for HR manager in several ways. These tests are essential for;

  • Selecting and placing employees
  • Determining their career plan
  • Assessing their job performance and potential
  • Counselling them in conflicting situations

5.3 TYPES OF PSYCOLOGICAL TEST

 

5.3.1 ABILITY TEST

 

Ability refers to the capacity of a person to do a particular job. The ability of a person commonly denotes the combination of mental ability, physical ability and motor ability. To measure these abilities, an organization may resort to any one of the following test:

 

5.3.1.1 INTELLIGENCE (IQ) TEST

 

The aim of an intelligence test is to measure the general intellectual abilities of a person. This test assesses the memory, vocabulary, verbal comprehension, thought fluency, inductive reasoning and numerical skills of the candidate. The uniqueness of this test is that it measures several abilities of the candidate and derives the intelligence scores. This score is then compared with the average intelligence score of the organization to determine whether the candidate is above or below the average. To know the intelligence Quotient of a child the equation is

   5.3.1.2 APTITUDE TEST

 

An aptitude test measures the latent talents of a person that mat be crucial to performing the jobs successfully. This test is normally given to those applicants who have no previous experience in that field. Hence, aptitude tests are appropriate for predicting the future ability and performance of the candidates. These tests are found to be more effective for jobs requiring mechanical and spatial relationships like those of engineers, designers and machinists.

 

5.3.1.3 ACHIEVEMENT TEST

 

The aim of the achievement of an achievement test is to measure the knowledge gained by a person in his/her job. It evaluates the claims made by the job holders regarding their performance and skills acquired in the job. It is also called proficiency test, performance test or trade test. A typing test is an example of achievement test as it intends to measure the speed and accuracy of a typist in his job. The test that measures the subject knowledge of pupils at schools and colleges are also examples of an achievement test. Similarly, organizations test the job knowledge of their employees to determine the suitability for future promotion and also for salary fixation.

 

5.3.2 PERSONALITY TEST

 

Personality refers to the sum of the characteristics of a person which reflect on his/her response to a particular situation. The characteristics may include, among other things, introversion, inter personal skills, motivation, ability, self-belief, courage, attitude and temperament. A personality test proposes to assess and predict this basic candidate. Projective tests are ideal for evaluating the intangible characteristics that make up the personality. Though these, the psychologists measure the response or reaction of the candidates, for example, to confusing stimuli in the form of a distorted picture, incomplete information or even a simple ink dot. The response reveals the candidate’s inner qualities, which are then correlated with the job requirements.

 

5.3.3 INTEREST TEST

 

A person’s mental and physical abilities are not sufficient to achieve a desirable job performance. Apart from these, the person must have a strong and inherent interest for that job. The aim of the interest is to know the interest, attitude and preference of a person towards the job offered. Its purpose is to identify the interest of a person, say in marketing, accounting, mechanical, computational and clerical activities to determine the job best suited for him.

 

5.3.4 HONESTY OR INTEGRITY TEST

 

Organization may feel a need to ascertain the honesty of the candidates to ensure that they have not furnished any false information in the application form and also to safeguard themselves from frauds and misappropriation. In an honesty or integrity test, the questions are asked in such a way that the attitude and actual behavior of the candidates can be found out.

 

6. OBJECTIVES OF AN INTERVIEW

 

Though the primary purpose of an interview is to predict an applicant’s likely performance in the job, it helps the organization in several ways. Some of the main objectives of the interview are;

  • It fills the information gap in the personnel selection process. In other words, it can supplement application forms and selection tests effectively by gathering additional information necessary for determining necessary for determining the suitability of a candidate for the job.
  • It enables an organization to establish a direct and personal contact with the applicant to verify the information obtained through other sources.
  • It facilitates a two way communication process. The organization can mutually exchange information with the candidate to reach a better understanding and an enduring relationship.
  • It provides a platform for the organization to create goodwill in the labor market by offering good hospitality, courtesy and personal care to the applicants.

 

6.1 TYPES OF INTERVIEW

 

Interviews have the capacity to severe different purpose of different persons. For instance, they are useful not only for selecting an employee but also for knowing the reason for an employee leaving the organization. The common forms of selection interview are

 

6.1.1 STRUCTURED INTERVIEW

 

Structured interview also called as directive or patterned interview; is a popular form of interview technique. In this method, the interviewer predetermines the questions to be asked. He merely follows the same template to ask interview a series of questions with little or no deviation. This method ensures uniformity in the interview process and facilitates easy comparisons among the candidates. It also enjoys better reliability and validity.

 

6.1.2 UNSTRUCTURED INTERVIEW

 

This method is also known as non-directive or free interview. In this type of interview, the interviewer does not pre-plan the questions to be asked. In fact, he decides on the question as the interview proceeds. The purpose of this method is to allow a free discussion on any topic as it emerges. Interviewers generally avoid asking the same or similar questions. Qualities like analytical skills, presence of mind and motivation are tested.

 

6.1.3 INDEPTH INTERVIEW

 

As implied by the term in-depth, the purpose of this interview is to discuss the information concerning the candidate in detail. The intention of this exhaustive is to ensure that no information vital to decision making is missed out. This method normally covers the subjects of mutual interest like specialization, motivation, qualification and career plan of the candidates on one hand, and the firms offer on the nature of job, pay and perquisites, career opportunities on the other. The method is more appropriate for executive cadres.

 

6.1.4 STRESS INTERVIEW

 

The purpose of the stress interview is to put the candidate in an uncomfortable situation to see his/her ability to handle stress. The intention of the interviewer here is to identify the area of weakness of the applicant in advance and repeatedly questioning him about it. This may annoy or frighten the applicant, forcing him/her to lose his patience. The other ways of creating stressful situations are asking rude questions, criticizing the interviewee for his/her answers unreasonably, disturbing the candidates with frequent interruptions and asking the applicant impolitely and repeatedly to pick up the objects placed on the floor. However the success of a stress interview depends upon the skillful handling of the situation by the experienced interviewers.

 

6.1.5 PANEL INTERVIEW

 

In this method, the applicant is interviewed by more than one interviewer. A panel of two or more interviewers is formed to interview the candidate. The interviewers are generally drawn from different fields. They ask questions from their respective fields and award marks. These marks are finally consolidated into a panel score. Panel interviewers are normally comprehensive in nature. They are considered more reliable than individual interviewers as the personal bias and prejudice would have less effect on the panel score.

 

6.1.6 COMPUTERIZED INTERVIEW

 

Computerized interview are slowly gaining momentum in India. Many organizations are resorting to this kind of interview to choose suitable candidates. In this method, the applicant is asked computerized oral questions and his oral or computerized replies are recorded. Computerized interviews are often used as preliminary interviewers. Those who are successful in the computerized are considered for face to face interview. This kind of interview can spare the HR and other line managers from interviewing too many candidates, thereby saving the precious time.

    6.1.7 STRATERGIES FOR AN EFFECTIVE INTERVIEW

 

A successful interview requires meticulous planning on the part of the interviewer. The following steps can enhance the effectiveness of an interview process;

 

BECOMING FAMILIAR WITH THE INFORMATION AVAILABLE

 

The first step in the interview process is that the interviewer acquaints himself with the information already collected about the applicant. This will help the interviewer gather from the interviewee only what is further required. The interview will also be more productive as duplication of work is avoided.

 

GETTING READY WITH AN INTERVIEW PLAN

 

Keeping requirements of the job in the background, the interviewer has to finalize the interview plan. The plan may include, among others, determining the interview method, the skills to be tested the questions to be asked and the clarification required. The interviewer should also decide on the criteria for evaluating the interviewee’s response.

 

CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW

 

This is an important phase in the interview process. All the plans regarding the interview are executed at this stage. The interview should be smooth and systematic from the beginning to the end to produce the desired outcome. Every effort must be made to gather the maximum.

 

ENDING THE INTERVIEW

 

It is the responsibility of the interviewer to properly finish the interview. At the end, the candidate should be given an opportunity to say or seek information, if he desires so. It will be fine if the interview ends on a positive way.

 

REVIEWING THE PERFORMANCE

 

Once the interview is over and the candidate leaves the room, the interviewer should begin the process of evaluating the performance of the candidate immediately. This will help the interviewer to recall and record his impression of the performance of the interview clearly and award the marks or grades objectively. After the interview is over for all the candidates the interviewer should rank the candidates on the basis of their overall performance.

 

6.1.8 LIMITATIONS OF THE INTERVIEW METHODS

 

Although interviews are used extensively as a selection tool, there has been a debate going on about the usefulness of the interview as the effective predictor of the applicant’s job performance. This is because the selection interviews suffer from the following limitations;

 

LACK OF OBJECTIVITY

 

In interviews, there is always a scope for personal bias and prejudice, and this may affect the objectivity of the whole exercise. The interviewer may tend to overemphasize the facts and characteristics with which he is familiar. He may also inadvertently favor those candidates who are similar to him in personality traits, qualities, gender and educational or social background.

 

HALO EFFECT

 

This problem arises when the interviewer attempts to judge the personality of the interviewee on the basis of a single or a few dominant characteristics. For instance, an interviewee’s age, qualification, experience and striking physical features may individually or collectively create a halo effect. The interviewer should be swayed away by a few traits and should assess the candidate in this entirely.

 

INADEQUACY OF TIME

 

Another criticism of interview is the lack of adequate time to evaluate the interviewee. It is definitely difficult to access the skills and traits of the candidate accurately within such a short duration. This may in turn affect the efficiency of the interview.

 

Conclusion

 

Since selection process involves screening the applicant pool to select the best of the available candidates for the employment at the organisation, this process should be done as similar to a valuable asset for a home. As man is the first and a valuable resource and asset to the organisation either small or large must meet the current and future demands of the organisation. Considering the current concept of multi skilling in the process of selection of man power is also vital for the employer.

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Web References

 

 

Book References

 

  • William J. Rothwell and H.C. Kazanas, 2006, Planning and Managing Human Resources, 2nd edition, Jaico Publishing house, Delhi
  • Aquinas P G, 2009, Human Resource Management Pricniples and Practice, Vikas Publishing House Pvt ltd, New Delhi
  • Pravin Durai, 2010, Human Resource Management, Pearson Publications, New Delhi
  • Jill Dyche, 2003, The CRM handbook, Pearson Publications, New Delhi