Question

State the first four steps involved in the process of choosing the best candidate out of a number of prospective candidates for a job.

Answer 1

Selection Process:

1. Preliminary Screening: Preliminary screening helps the manager eliminate unqualified or unfit job seekers based on the information supplied in the application forms. Preliminary interviews help reject misfits for reasons, which did not appear in the application forms.
2. Selection Tests: An employment test is a mechanism (either a paper and pencil test or an exercise) that attempts to measure certain characteristics of individuals. These characteristics range from aptitudes, such as manual dexterity, to intelligence to personality.
   1. Intelligence Tests: This is one of the important psychological tests used to measure the level of intelligence quotient of an individual. It is an indicator of a person’s learning ability or the ability to make decisions and judgments.
   2. Aptitude Test: It is a measure of individuals potential for learning new skills. It indicates the person’s capacity to develop. Such tests are good indices of a person’s future success score.
   3. Personality Tests: Personality tests provide clues to a person’s emotions, her reactions, maturity and value system etc. These tests probe the overall personality. Hence, these are difficult to design and implement.
   4. Trade Test: These tests measure the existing skills of the individual. They measure the level of knowledge and proficiency in the area of professions or technical training. The difference between aptitude test and trade test is that the former measures the potential to acquire skills and the later the actual skills possessed.
   5. Interest Tests: Every individual has fascination for some job than the other. Interest tests are used to know the pattern of interests or involvement of a person.
3. Employment Interview: Interview is a formal, in-depth conversation conducted to evaluate the applicant’s suitability for the job. The role of the interviewer is to seek information and that of the interviewee is to provide the same. Though, in present times, the interviewee also seeks information from interviewer.
4. Reference and Background Checks: Many employers request names, addresses, and telephone numbers of references for the purpose of verifying information and, gaining additional information on an applicant. Previous employers, known persons, teachers and university professors can act as references.