Organizational psychology Methods of employees selection Essay

Introduction
The problem of employees selection is particularly important in market conditions, due to the changes in
social status of employees, the nature of their relation to work and their important role in the effectiveness of any work. And among the important activities in HR management are employees recruitment and selection. The main task of recruitment is to find such human resources, whose abilities fit the requirement and the nature of the work. Recruitment is necessary to create a reserve of candidates for all positions, from which will be selected the most “suitable” employees. And then the main task of employees selection is to choose the most suitable candidates, for that are used multiple forms and methods of selection. (Tyson 2006)
In this work it is necessary to consider the various assessment tests and methods, which are used for employee selection, their effectiveness and their ability to predict future job performance of employees.
Methods of employees selection
Selection is an essential part of HR management, which includes a comparison of the requirements of the employer and the qualifications of the candidate. Because the employer offers a place and guarantee a certain fee, it is necessary that the candidate meets certain requirements; and if the requirements and demands of the organization match with those of the candidate, they are compared. At the stage of selection an organization chooses from several candidates one or more people that are most relevant to the existing criteria for the vacant position. (Tyson 2006)
The selection process usually consists of a series of stages (various methods), where employees go through special tests and interviews, designed to determine whether they meet the requirements of the employing organization, whether they are suitable to perform the work for which they are hired. (Salgado J. et al.,2001)
Selection system may include the following methods:
analysis of information about the candidate from his application form and letter, resume and evaluation of the pre-selection interviews;
gathering information about the candidate from personality questionnaires, tests: intelligence, special abilities, interests, etc.,
group selection methods ;
expert assessment;
interview.
The use of different methods for the selection is based on the fact that none of them provide complete information to make the right decision about recruitment; and the use of variety of methods gives more guarantees that the selected employees meets the established criteria and is the best candidate for the job. To be effective, the selection program should include clear criteria about the required qualities of workers needed for certain types of work. The criteria should be designed so that they fully characterize the employee’s required education, experience, skills and personal
characteristics. “Standard” requirements for each criterion can be developed based on the characteristics of the employees, who are already working in the organization and cope well with their responsibilities. The selection can
be impossible if the list of requirements for the future position is too large. The selection process is often necessary to solve the problem of choosing the best employees, but also to weed out those who do not meet requirements for a specific post. (Tyson 2006)
Pre-Selection interview
This stage is designed to get acquainted with candidates. The pre-selection conversation is usually conducted by HR specialist or line manager, usually in the form of questions and answers, who find out the most general information about the candidate (for example, education, appearance, defining personal qualities. The interview first of all is intended to clarify some of the qualifications of candidates, but above his knowledge of the field of work, which is determined by the description of the job, and whether the applicant understands its features, technology. (Tyson 2006)
Some general recommendations for effective interviews are as follows:
– to create a friendly atmosphere during the conversation with the candidate and allow him to feel free.
– The focus during the entire interview must be made on the requirements of the future job.
– It is right to judge the candidate only for the first impression and it is important to obtaining all the information about the person.
– to prepare a set of structured questions that will be given to the candidate. (Tyson 2006)
It is possible to distinguish formal conversation (strictly according to the scheme), and informal, which is held in more free and friendly manner. The purpose of almost any kind of conversation is acquaintance with the applicant. If the interview is successful, the candidate is directed to the following stages of selection.
Personality questionnaires
Personality questionnaires are used to assess if candidates personal qualities match the requirements of the job, and which help to assess such personality traits as: self-esteem, communication skills, the level of personal maturity, anxiety, risk tolerance, self-control, emotional stability, the presence of psychological abnormalities and a tendency to leadership, etc. The most popular and widely used in the total and differential psychodiagnostics of employees are: a 16-factor test of R. Cattell, MMR1, Eysenck personality test, T. Leary test. (Farr & Nancy, 2010)
Information obtained through personal questionnaires, requires a competent interpretation that can be done only by qualified professionals. At the same time, the predictive validity of personality questionnaires (the ability to predict future professional success of candidates) is not too high. However, personality questionnaires are quite useful in those cases when you need to determine, for example, sociable people, if the job requires a large number of social contacts, or “disturbing” if the job requires a high degree of emotional stability.
Tests of general abilities
Tests currently have broad applications in various professional fields, where they help to make selection of employees for industrial enterprises, public institutions, commercial organizations, assessing the level of knowledge of candidates. In assessment of the abilities are used tests for univariate and multivariate skills study. (Farr & Nancy, 2010)
Multivariate tests are a set of techniques aimed at comprehensive evaluation of abilities of candidates for a number of indicators: assessment of general awareness, nonverbal (spatial) intelligence, verbal intelligence, mathematical ability, etc. It should be noted that multivariate methods can help to evaluate not all abilities and skills of employees required to perform the work. In each case it is necessary to identify the specific situation that should be taken into account in the testing process. Recently, the tests are not so widely used, because in many cases they do not answer the crucial question to be decided during the selection: that is to forecast the future professional effectiveness and success of the candidate. (Farr & Nancy, 2010)
Simulation tests
Tests that simulate some form of professional activity that will be are carried out by the candidate, allow to predict the future professional success. When using simulation tests the candidates are proposed to perform a task, similar in content to the activities that they will have to perform at work. These tests have sufficiently high reliability and validity, as they measure the skills that are directly related to the proposed work. (Farr & Nancy, 2010)
Group methods of selection
Group selection methods are used if it is possible to make a group of candidates and assess their strengths and weaknesses with the use of different assessment procedures: it can be discussions, role-playing, exercises in problem solving and case studies. Group assessment methods are widely used in the practice of assessment centers. The use of group methods presupposes the existence of clear criteria, and to identify with the help of these indicators to determine the benefits of the candidates (for example, leadership skills, analytical ability, persuasiveness, ability to cooperate and to work in teams with other group members, etc.).
It should be said that it is better to use a combination and parison of results of several alternative methods of selection (for example, test and interview) to improve the reliability of selection. If results are similar or identical, it can be considered as correct. In addition to the reliability of estimates it is necessary to consider the validity of the accepted criteria of selection, that is, with what degree of accuracy this result, method or criterion can predict the future efficiency of the tested person. (Salgado J. et al.,2001)
Conclusion
Employees selection is an important part of the human resource management, since from it largely depends the further activities of the organizations, because only qualified staff is able to get the best results and achieve goals. The are different methods of selection of employees, which are designed to evaluate the professional and personal qualities of candidates, their knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as to predict their work performance in the future. Different methods have different validity of results, so the best way is to use combination of methods of employees selection, which can guarantee the right decision about the candidates.