Human Resource Solutions

Selection

THE CHALLENGE OF SELECTION

Selection - that is the process of choosing the best possible candidate for a post - is facing a significant challenge. This comes mainly from the nature of the changes taking place within organisations themselves. Re-organisations, downsizing, delayering of management tiers etc. are all part of the current trend to be as lean and competitive as possible. This leads to a resulting increase in instability and uncertainty in relation to job roles and requirements. So how does this impact on selection?

Traditional selection looks at recruiting to a specific job, with a job description and person specification. Selection methodology then attempts to match applicants for that job with the requirements of the job as embodied in these documents. In the vast majority of cases, this involves the process of short-listing, interviewing and taking up references.

The problem of course is that as the organisation rapidly changes, the requirements of the job role are also likely to change, and the selection criteria used to fill the post may now be significantly changed. The consequences of this may be that the jobholder no longer has the skills / knowledge necessary for the role and at least significant re-training may be required, or at worse redundancy may be the only solution. So how can organisations ensure that they do not develop these misfits from what may have been perfectly sound appointments.

Modern selection decisions must place less emphasis on matching an individual employee to the fixed requirements of an individual job at a single point in time as in traditional selection methods. Organisations should look to identify the "core competencies" required of particular groups such as managers, supervisors and team-workers. These may be such things as: leadership ability, ability to use initiative, innovation, interpersonal skills, communication skills etc. and use these as the criteria to select against. These "core competencies" although influenced by organisational change, will tend to be much more stable than the skills required of a single job.

The most effective way to achieve this is to use a battery of selection methods which have been shown to be effective in assessing the competency you are looking at. Ideally we should use more than one method to look at each competency. An example matrix is outlined below.

Competency	Personality Questionnaire	Ability Tests	Structured Interview	Presen tation	Informal Meetings
Managing Change Skills			ü
Communication Skills	ü		ü	ü	ü
Numeracy and Analytical skills		ü	ü
Problem-solving Skills		ü	ü
Team-worker	ü		ü		ü
Understanding of Technical Issues			ü	ü
Understanding of Company			ü	ü

 

 

 

© Human Resource Solutions 2001

Selection is a tricky business, and many of the methods traditionally used are not effective. Click below to find out what methods are available, and how effective each is.

Effective Selection Methods