Selection methods in recruitment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Selection methods in recruitment - Essay Example This essay discusses that the selection of personnel and assessment activities are some of the integral parts of organizational existence. The economic climate and global business environment have witnessed a dynamic increase in the rates of staff turnovers and the consequent reorganization of organizational structures along with the eradication of the traditional concept of ‘job for life’. Consequently there has been an increase in pressure to fill up the vacant positions in the organization with the most appropriately skilled personnel. Additionally the quality of human resources recruited in organizations and their fitness with the structures and processes in the organization also account for the competitive strength of these organizations. The decisions about selecting a candidate and classifying applicants according to the predictions about their work behaviours in future are becoming increasingly critical. There are ample methods and procedures before a company for selecting candidates or making promotion decisions about their employees. Different kinds of assessment techniques are also at their disposal. However, these techniques are commonly seen to fail in the long run. It is seen that there is either a mismatch of skills, or work behaviours different from that expected or even an increase in the staff turnover, depicting a failure of the selection or assessments methods employed for recruiting them. Extensive research has been conducted to trace the reasons for such failures and the ways to eliminate them. However, it is seen that despite the low accuracy of such selection techniques in predicting job performance firms continue to employ them and they remain widely used in today’s organizational scenario. The present assignment seeks to bring forth the reasons why they continue to be popular modes of selection in organizations despite their high failures. It also presents an evaluation of the other selection methods used in organiz ations. Selection Methods in Recruitment The common modes of section in organizations are interviews, bio data, structured interviews, psychological tests, assessments centres etc. Along with skill testing to analyse the fitness of a personal in a particular job, personality tests are also conducted for evaluating heir behavioural fit into the culture of the organization. With the advent of technology and the wide use of the internet, organizations have been increasing undertaking online tests for evaluation of candidates. Interviews are the most common practice of validating tools and skills of candidates to examine how relevant they are and how well they can predict the subsequent performance of the candidate in the organization. Even though the job relatedness of the conventional selection techniques does not follow any particular pattern and are considered to be low they are widely used in organizations despite the fact they are considerably unreliable, subjective and invalid. W hile the necessity of interviews in some form or the other is accepted in organizations, there emerge questions over its validity and reliability when a firm relies on it completely. One explanation which had been forwarded by researchers is that different interviewers assess candidates different and such irrelevant aspects such as race, sex, appearance, age are given prominence which introduces biasness in the way interviewer evaluate the candidate. Structured interviews conventionally include questions which are developed though a form of job analysis which consequently limits the subjectivity of the assessment. Conducted through standardised procedures structured interviews brings a direct link between the content of the interview and success of the job. However, despite having a high degree of validity and relatedness structured interv