SELECTION

Dr. Jayalaxmi Samal

Assistant Professor,
Department of Humanities, KIIT DU
 Nature of selection
• Selection is the process of picking individuals (out of the pool of job
applicants) with requisite qualifications and competence to fill jobs in
the organization.
• Recruitment and selection are two crucial steps in the HR process and
are often used interchangeably. There is, however, a fine distinction
between the two steps. While recruitment refers to the process of
identifying and encouraging prospective employees to apply for jobs,
selection is concerned with picking the right candidates from a pool
of applicants.
• Mostly the term recruitment is widely used to refer to the whole
process of employee hiring.
Selection as a source of competitive advantage
• The role of selection in an organization’s effectiveness is crucial for at
least, two reasons.
• First, work performance depends on individuals. The best way to
improve performance is to hire people who have the competence and
the willingness to work.
• Second, cost incurred in recruiting and hiring personnel speaks
volumes about the role of selection.
• Eg: Pepsi has gone for crash recruitment drive. 6 people from the
company took over the entire Oberoi business center in Mumbai for 6
days; 3000 applications in response to an advertisement issued earlier
were scanned; applicants were asked to respond by fax within 100 hrs:
finally, the shortlisted persons were flown in and interviewed. Quite an
expensive affair by any standard!!!!! Is not it?
• Person- Job Fit: Person-job (PJ) fit is defined as
the compatibility between individuals and the
job or tasks that they perform at work.
• Person-Organization Fit
Companies like Indian Airlines, Infosys, Merck,
and Starbucks place a high priority on selecting
individuals who match the value and culture of
the organization.
Selection process
 Environmental factors affecting selection
• External factors
➢Supply and demand of specific skills in the labour market
➢Unemployment rate
➢Labour market condition
➢Legal and political consideration
• Internal factors
➢Company’s image
➢Company’s policy
➢HRP
➢Cost of hiring
 Preliminary interview
• The basic objective of preliminary interview is to eliminate
unqualified applicants.
• Preliminary interview is often called as ‘courtesy interview’ and is a
good public relations exercise.
 Selection tests
• Ability test also called as achievement tests assist in determining how
well an individual can perform tasks related to the job.
• An aptitude test helps determine a person’s potential to learn in a
given area.
• Personality tests are given to measure a prospective employee’s
motivation to function in a particular working environment. For
example Bernsenter Personality Inventory measures one’s self-
sufficiency, neurotic tendency, sociability, introversion and
extroversion, locus of control, and self-confidence. The Thematic
Apperception Test (TAT) assesses an individual’s achievement and
motivational levels.
Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
 Selection tests
• Interest tests are used to measure an individual’s activity preference.
• Graphology test is designed to analyse the handwriting of an
individual.
• Polygraph tests are designed to ensure accuracy of the information
given in the applications.
• Medical tests reveal physical fitness of a candidate.
➢Drug tests help measure the presence of illegal or performance-
affecting drugs.
➢Genetic screening identifies genetic predispositions to specific
medical problems.
 Employment interview
• Interview is a formal, in-depth conversation conducted to evaluate
the applicant’s acceptability. It allows a two-way exchange of
information, the interviewers learn about the applicant, and the
applicants learns about the employer.
• The prime objectives of interview are:
➢Help additional information from the applicants;
➢Facilitates giving general information to the applicant such as
company policies, job, products manufactured and the like; and
➢Helps build the company’s image among the applicants.
Types of Interview
 Types of Interview
Based on the interaction with the candidate, interview may be:
➢One-to-one interview
Same as preliminary interview. There are only two participants- interviewer and
the interviewee.
➢Sequential interview
Takes the one-to-one step further and involves a series of interviews.
➢Panel interview
Consists of two or more interviewers and the number may go up to as many as
fifteen.
Some other types of interviews are telephone, computer and video interviews.
 Common interview problems
• Halo effect
• Ignoring applicants information dimensions needed for successful job
performance
• Making snap judgement early in the interview
• Having a tendency to be swayed by negative information about the
applicants
• Pressure to favour a candidate
• Problem related to worth recollecting
• Favourable evaluation
 Reference and Background checks
• Many employers request names, addresses, and telephone numbers or references
for the purpose of verifying information and, perhaps, gaining additional background
information on an applicants.
• Reference checks cover the following:
✓Criminal record checks
✓Previous employment checks
✓Educational record checks
✓Credit record checks
✓Civil record checks
✓Union affiliation checks
✓Character reference checks
✓Neighbourhood reference check
Background checks and fraud detection have become easy as there are agencies which
specialize in the task. KPMG India, for example, has a 130 strong team to detect
frauds. Similarly, PWC has a 12 member team and E&Y has a 40 member team.
Hiring process of Wipro
 Selection decision
• The most critical of all the steps.
• Here the final decision has to be made from the pool of individuals
who pass the tests, interviews and reference checks.
• The final decision indeed becomes a daunting task when there are a
large number of job-seekers lined up for final selection, as has
happened to HR people in Infosys. In 2003, the Bangalore based
software giant received one million applications of which only 10,000
were finally hired.
 Physical Examination
• There are several objectives behind physical test.
✓Detect if the individual carries any infectious disease,
✓Physical fitness to perform the work,
✓Identify differences in physical capabilities,
✓Protect applicants with health defects,
✓Protect employer from worker’s invalid compensation claims.
 Job Offer
• Job offer is made through a letter of
appointment. Such a letter generally
contains a date by which the appointee
must report on duty.
 Contracts of Employment
• After the job offers have been made and the candidates accept the
offers, certain documents need to be executed by the employers and the
candidates. One such document is the attestation form.
• The basic information that should be included in a written contract of
employment will vary according to the level of the job, but the following
checklist sets out the typical headings:
• Job title
• Duties
• Date when continuous employment starts and the basis for calculating
service,
• Rate of pay, allowances, overtime and shift rates, method of payments
 Contracts of Employment
• Hours of work including lunch break and overtime and shift arrangements
• Holiday arrangement
• Sickness
• Length of notice due to and from employee
• Grievance procedure
• Disciplinary procedure
• Work rules
• Arrangements for terminating employment
• Arrangements for union membership
• Special terms relating to rights patents and designs, confidential
information and restraints on trade after termination of employment
• Employer’s right to vary terms of the contract subject to proper notification
being given.
 Evaluation of selection process
• Selection is said to be right when right people are hired for right jobs
and at the right time. Four crietria have been used by organizations to
ensure that selection meets the three ‘R’:
• Cost Per Hire (CPH)
• Time to Hire (TTH)
• Quality of hire
• Selection programme audit
Thank You