On a bright sunny morning, sometime in the ‘80s an engineer who had just passed out of college went to attend an interview. One of the questions that the interview panel asked was, “How many steps did you have to step on, while coming up to the interview room?”
Hey, does it sound like you have heard it before? Maybe!
And you know what, another question was, “Why is it that some animals have tails while some others don’t?”
Its an entirely different matter altogether that a fresher passing out of college today would probably respond to the first question, saying, “As many steps as I would have to step on when I climb down!” and might as well respond to the second question, saying, “Just because some people know what they are asking while some others don’t!”
Several questions administered in written tests a few years ago used to be unrelated to job requirements, and used to be picked up from various books on brain teasers or puzzles, which probably had little or no relevance to the set of Knowledge, Skills and Abilities required for performing on the job.
Also, HR heads had to depend on subjective evaluation of candidates for selection. The perception of most of the candidates, including a segment of the HR personnel themselves was that a majority of the steps involved in the Selection process are meant for filtering out people, rather than selecting the right candidate.
Things have changed a lot today, and with that, the perceptions also have changed. There has been a conscious effort by the HR community in the country to ensure that the selection process really helps them in identifying the right candidate for the job.
If we look at the possible outcomes of any Selection Process, there are usually four possibilities:
a. Selecting the Right Candidate
b. Rejecting the Right Candidate
c. Selecting the Wrong Candidate
d. Rejecting the Wrong Candidate
And of course, it is the options “a” and “d” that are the desirable outcomes. Rejecting the right candidate is far worse than selecting a wrong candidate, because you have the option of getting rid of the wrong candidate any point of time, but you don’t have the option of getting back onboard the right candidate, once you have rejected.
So, being able to reliably assess the candidates’ suitability for the position / job is the dire need of the hour, which has been widely accepted through out the industry.
Its been found that often, when recruitment is done for the position of Police Constables, there are a lot of Postgraduates also who apply for the position, though the required educational qualification is only graduation. And, earlier, the preference used to be to select the Postgraduates given an opportunity, with the belief that you are getting a better qualified person for the job. But, you know what, over a period of time, it has been found that most of the postgraduates who were selected ultimately moved on to some other jobs, because they had better options.
So, recruitment and selection is not about getting the highest qualified person for the job, but zeroing in on the most “appropriate” person for the job!
It is similar to how we make a buying decision when we want to get a new mobile. If just plain talking is what you plan to do over the mobile, does it really make sense getting a mobile with all the latest features like video camera, GPRS, Blue Tooth, etc? Wouldn’t the basic model suffice? Ah, yes, if you have the need, you have to obviously go for a higher end model.
Likewise, we need to recruit and select through the use of a reliable assessment process, that would help us to ensure that we select the appropriate set of candidates, and not get tempted to select the highest qualified set or the lesser able ones.
But, how do we ensure that this assessment is reliable? Is there a way out? Is there a tested and proven approach that would makes our job as Recruitment professionals easier?
“Oh, yes!” is the answer that an expert in the field of assessments would give.
In the next blog, I will be discussing how can make our recruitment and selection processes more effective and efficient.
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