Personnel selection and choice
Part one
The hiring process is critical to acompany's success — the right employee helps the company
to reach its objectives but thewrong employee will cost the company a great deal in time,
money and energy. Furthermore, Arnold,Cooper and Robertson state ‘personnel selection
and assessment is probably the areawhere the biggest and most consistent contribution has
been made’ in work psychology.
To find the right person for aparticular occupation the employers have to formulate a job
description of such a job. In mostcircumstances, especially in the small companies, where
there is only one leader who managesthe process of personnel selection, this aspect is
apparently linked with the manager’spersonal qualities. In addition, from the job description
that the employer gives, we can makea brief description of the company’s profile, which
consecutively points to the managingbody’s personal qualities and characteristic.
‘An accountant’s, secretary’s orproduction manager’s job will vary considerably from one
organisation to another, perhaps inthe ways that are crucial’ (Arnold, Cooper and Robertson.
1998)
When considering how the director’spersonality characteristics influence the organisation’s
behaviour and accordingly the jobanalysis or opportunity offered, it should be stressed that
in the process of recruiting,employers try to attract individuals with the same qualities as
the whole group. However, Arnold,Cooper and Robertson (1998) state: ‘Job analysis
procedures are generally eitherworker-orientated or job-orientated’ According to this, it
is clear that for different jobpositions the managers have to implement different practices.
It emerged our experience ofrole-playing in the group that we all gave different job
descriptions for the same job withinthe same company, from which we can conclude that
different individuals perceive
the same team with slightdifferences and believe the company to be looking for different individuals
to fill their vacancies, accordingto their needs. In addition, from my point of view, these correlations
have a direct and indirect link withthe psychological preferences examined more detailed by Carl
Gustav Jung (1875-1961) and with thedifferent styles of the leadership considered by Michael
Argyle (1964) – Democratic leadershipand Aristocratic leadership.
Nevertheless, we all needindividuals who will fit in with our groups, as ‘effective teamwork is
essential when targets are to beachieved’ (Mullins 1999). Moreover, Mears and Voehl (1997) state
that ‘Teams and groups are anessential component of life, be that an organisational life or a personal
life. An individual cannot possiblyperform all tasks that are required of them. Therefore, groups
are essential in sharing theworkload and in gaining results.’ Accordingly, ‘groups have to work
together to become a cohesive unitthat combines individual’s strengths and weaknesses to achieve
an optimum working level’ (Mears andVoehl 1997). Therefore, if group is not organised well or
there is a missing link in the chainof the organisation, indicating that a person does not fit in, the
leader of the team and the team aswell might not achieve the expected results or even cause the
whole system to collapse. Belbin(1926) rightly states — ‘Teamwork does not of course, guarantee
in itself good results. As in sport,there can be good teams and poor teams. And as in sport, it all
depends on how the players playtogether.’
In conclusion it is necessary toindicate that team leaders, when trying to recruit staff consider
carefully who to employ in thatsense that the new personality may bring to the company prosperity,
or, conversely, have a destructiveinfluence on the whole organisation depending on how that person
‘fits in’. This all in all, seems tobe a fundamental part of the selection process not only for the
managing body, but for the wholeorganisation as well.
Part two
‘The character of socialorganisations, and of society as a whole, is greatly affected by the
way people are selected to filldifferent positions. If a firm starts to choose a different kind
of person to occupy the seniorposts, the whole atmosphere and character of the firm will
change in a few years’ (MichaelArgyle, 1964). Therefore, the entire process of selecting
new members for an organisation needto be quite sophisticated, as has been well defined
by Arnold, Cooper and Robertson(1998) beginning from the interviews and ending with
handwriting analysis. Sometimes asingle method is used in the process of personnel selection;
at other hand, depending on thecompany’s needs and on the seniority of the job position
available, a variety of methods areused. However, as Arnold, Cooper and Robertson (1998)
state, ‘Although a large variety ofpersonnel selection procedures have been developed and
used in organisational settings, therelevant research shows rather clearly that not all of the
methods are equally useful.’
Moreover, nowadays is increasinglypopular the interview within organisations trying to
recruit new candidates. It isevident that in most cases the interview process has priority
over all other ways of selection(from the small groups to large organisations) for the reason
that ‘If a person has to communicatesomething to another and recognises that his aim in
communication is not just to expresshimself but to give information in a way that the
receiver is most likely tounderstand he is likely to do it more effectively.’ Peter R. Day
(1977)
Before the process of the interview,some factors must be considered: Where to interview,
when to interview, group orindividual interviewing? – These can be quite critical, but
different situation requiredifferent approaches. From our role playing experience it was
clear that, when interviewing out ofearshot of an audience, individuals were more likely
to discuss freely than in groups. Asa result, Confidentiality is an important element in a
successful interview and in findingout more about a person.
Turning to the advantages anddisadvantages of the interview, I would like to stress some
frequently encountered issues.Employment decisions have traditionally been regarded as
a privilege exclusive to management.Torrington and Hall, (1991) describe this process in
terms of 'hurdles over whichprospective employees have to try to leap to avoid rejection'.
Clearly, it is evident that in theinterviewing procedure, a candidate sometimes tries to adapt
himself/herself to theinterviewer(s) and may not react honestly. For this reason, there are
‘Psychometric tests’ (Arnold, Cooperand Robertson, 1998), where the candidate may be
low certain which answer is suitablefor the employer.
Furthermore, interviews frequentlyhave another element, well described in one sentence
by Keenan (1977) — ‘interviewersassess candidates more favourably if they hold similar
attitudes’. This is good because ithelps the interviewer to decide whether that person will
fit in the team, on the other handnot all people with the same attitudes can define the
requisite competencies (knowledge,skills, aptitudes and personal characteristics). Equally,
friendliness and likeability may bepleasant characteristics, but may not be important to
success in some jobs. Returning tothe experience from the role-play it was obvious that
some of us would select the individualswho had the same attitudes and interests despite the
fact that these people may have hadinappropriate skills. This may possibly affect in a
negative way a successful outcome ofthe interview, which has a key purpose to distinguish
the individual who can success thejob.
In continuation, perhaps it isnecessary to devote some attention to the types of the interviews:
Structured and Unstructured. Both havepriorities and deficiencies between them. If to
considerate the unstructured type ofthe interviews, which is wide used in the organization’s
recruitingpractice, moreover was also evident from the role-play experienced, possibly we
maystate that it has inevitable tendencies to deviate from the planned way ofinterviewing.
Inaddition, it is also good to affirm that perhaps these tendencies are mainadvantages of
theinterview processes, as the interviewed persons may communicate usefulinformation
forthe
employer,which sometimes, cannot possibly be done so by the structured types of theinterviews
or byother types of the selection described by Arnold, Cooper and Robertson (1998).
Anotherpoint that may be stressed, relating perhaps to one of the disadvantages of theinterviews
isthe stereotyping and discrimination, which persist to be presentin the people’s psychology and
oftencould bring to the company ineffective outcome of the interview if these arereflected quite
strongin the interviewer, as people have the ability to make an impression of theperson from the
firstsight, which sometimes may be wrong.
Furthermore,quoting Michael Argyle (1964) ‘Selection for management and leadership was
traditionallydone by interview, together with study of previous performance’ and subscribingto
thisopinion, based on our experience of role-play where was obvious that questionsformulated by
theinterviewers were less or more tangible with finding out the previousexperience of candidates,
itcould be stated that the interview processes are a crucial element in theselection of a candidate.
Moreover,interviews possibly in comparison to the other ways of selection may have thehighest
predictionpercent in detection which person will ‘fit in’.
1510words
Bibliography
Arnold,J., Cooper, C.L. and Robertson, I. T., (1998): Work Psychology-Understanding Human
Behaviourin the Workplace. FT/Pitman Publishing.
Mears,P. and Voehl, F., (1997): Team Building – A Structured Learning Approach.St. Lucie Press.
MichaelArgyle, (1964). Psychology and Social Problems. Methuen & Co LTD,London.
PeterR. Day, (1977). Methods of Learning Communication Skills. PergamonPress, Oxford.
Torrington,D. and Hall, L., (1991): Personnel Management — A New Approach. London:Prentice
Hall.