Selecting Employees

The American Industrialist J. Paul Getty said "If business always made the right decisions business wouldn't be business." 3(How to be Rich, 1965) However, when it comes to employee selection, making the right decisions can play a major part in the effectiveness of an organization. An organization can be defined as a social arrangement striving to achieve controlled performance in pursuit of collective goals and when we talk of organizational effectiveness (definition) we are talking about a concept defined differently by different stakeholders, and which includes a range of quantitative and qualitative measures.4 (Huczynski et al 2007) The importance of organizations implementing the most efficient employee selection techniques cannot be exaggerated. Selecting the best candidates can increase productivity, reduce the degree of training required and diminish high staff turnover. Added to this are the indirect costs of inadequate employee selection, including within the commercial setting where an organization may lose customers as a result of competitive organizations securing a more able and productive workforce.5 (Robertson et al 2002) However, while choosing which employee selection technique to implement can be crucial, there are various methods available to employing organisations to achieve this. These methods are diverse and as the author will demonstrate, each displays their own strengths and weaknesses, with some more popular with organizations than others. The aim of this essay is to explore the various methods of selection, including Interviews, Assessment Centres, Psychometric Testing and Internet Recruitment, and by looking at a sample of empirical studies, research findings and the results of interviews by the author; the essay will firstly discuss ways in which they differ and try to assess their overall effectiveness.

As well as the more informal methods of finding employees such as 'word of mouth' referrals favoured by some of the smaller organizations, 11 Scholarios & Lockyer (1999) the interview remains one of the most popular methods of personnel selection. An interview is designed to allow an interviewer or interviewing panel to use their own judgement to decide which of the applicants best fit the role. Roberts (2000). Interviews are usually carried out in two ways, structured and unstructured, with unstructured interviews being the most common type. Roberts (2002) Structured interviews can be either 'situational' or 'behavioural'. Roberts (2000) Situational interviews usually involve the candidate being asked to respond to hypothetical questioning involving work related issues. The response of the candidate is measured against the skills of the top performing employees in the organisation, with skills such as communication skills, judgement and emotional control being assessed. Huczynski & Buchanan (2007). In behavioural interviews, the interviewer uses the candidates past employment experiences as a guide to how they will perform in the future. The candidates are asked to describe a problem from work and how they overcame it, and assessed on their response. Roberts (2000). Unstructured interviews are usually more in the way of conversational, with the applicant being allowed to express themselves freely, through the use of open questions. These questions may centred around the applicants CV, or may be a list of the interviewers favourite questions. Roberts (2000). Assessment centres are another method of choosing employees. These centres usually assess the applicants over one to three days. Assessment Centres use a variety of tailor made methods that fit with the employing organization, such as team building exercises, ability tests, interviews and exercises. Roberts (2000) Web recruitment, although not a selection method, appears to be becoming more popular with employing organizations, and this different approach to employee selection appears to fit more with job seekers. Robertson et al (2002) cites figures showing 3 million people registered with the internet job site Monster.com in 1999. These job seekers were, the authors state, receiving regular information on available jobs offered by 60,000 employers. Psychometric testing is another popular tool with many employing organizations. Psychometrics (definition) is the systematic testing, measurement and assessment of intelligence, aptitudes and personality. Candidates can be tested on either ability or personality through a process of completing questionnaires, numerical tests or statements where the candidate agrees or disagrees. Roberts (2000) This method differs from the others in that it is a very formal way of building an employee profile with little or no and unlike the interview approach, it uses a measurement scale to calculate a personality type. Huczynski & Buchanan (2007). Other more unusual selection techniques include methods such as Graphology, (definition) the art of determining personality through hand writing. While graphologists may advocate this method as an effective way of choosing employees Hogenesch (2004) this author would suggest that this method may be of more value as an adjunct to more traditional methods, while others would doubt its use as an effective selection method altogether. Edwards (1997)

When it comes to deciding which selection method is best, it is clear from the vast research, that each of the above methods has its own strengths and weaknesses.

As stated above interviews are still the most popular form of choosing employees with 7Gedaliahu and Anat (2003) citing one study where 56 percent of those taking part claimed that the interview is the most important factor when selecting employees, adding that over 90 percent stated that they had more trust in the interview process than any of the other selection methods It has been claimed that interviews are a good yardstick for determining employee performance, with behaviour based interviews providing the best likelihood of soliciting the most valid employee responses. 8 Moscoso (2000) However, 11 Barclay (1997) would argue that interviews which are unstructured are poor predictors of employee performance or fit, with this author citing problems including, stereotyping of candidates; primacy effects; similarity effects; and negative information weighting bias. Given that unstructured interviews are not only the most common, but also reported as being far less effective than structured interviews, Roberts (2002) Edwards (1997) poses the question of whether to use 'closed' or 'open' questions when interviewing candidates, as the former can have limitations