ISSUES IN STAFF SELECTION

Selection criteriaRecep Maz

MSB 734: International Human Resources Management

Instructor: Dr. Thomas D'Arrigo

Selection

Selection is the process of picking individuals who have relevant qualifications to fill jobs in an organization.

Purpose of selectionThe basic purpose is to choose the

individual who can most successfully perform the job from a pool of qualified candidates.

The purpose of selection is to pick up the most suitable candidate who would meet the requirements of the job and the organization best and to find out which job applicant will be successful if hired

To meet this goalTo meet this goal, the company obtains

and assesses information about the applications in terms of age, qualifications, skills, experience, etc. the needs of the job are matched with the profile of the candidates.

The most suitable person is then picked up after eliminating the unsuitable applicants through successive stages of selection process.

Mismatch in this condition

How well an employee is matched to a job is very important because it directly affects the amount and quality of employee’s work. Any mismatch in this regard can cost an organization a great deal of money, time and trouble, especially, in terms of training and operating costs.

Selection criteria

Formal education Experience and past

performance Technical competency Physical characteristics Personal characteristics

and personality type Ability to cope with

environment variables

Selection criteria

Family situation Country-specific

requirements Company-specific

requirements Language

Formal education An employer selecting from

a pool of job applicants wants to find person who has the right abilities and attitudes to be successful.

. A large number of cognitive, physical, and interpersonal attributes are present because of genetic predispositions and because they were learned at home, at school, on the job, and so on.

Formal educationOne of the more common cost effective ways

to screen for many of these abilities is by using educational accomplishment as a summary of the measures of those abilities.

It usually is safe to assume that anyone who has successfully completed high school or university has basic reading, writing, arithmetic, and interpersonal skills.

Formal educationFor certain jobs, the employer may stipulate

that the education is in a particular area of expertise, such as accounting or management.

The employer might also prefer that the degree be from certain institutions, that certain honors have been achieved, etc. To be legal, educational standards such as these must be related to successful performance of the job.

Experience and past performanceMany selection specialists believe that

past performance on a similar job might be one of the best indicators of future performance.

In addition , employers often consider experience to be a good indicator of ability and work-related attitudes. Their reasoning is that a prospective employee who has performed the job before and is applying for a similar job must like the work and must be able to do the job well. Research supports these assumptions.

Technical competencyThis criterion is one of

the significant ones for selecting a manager for a foreign assignment, since the expatriates have to operate in a foreign environment and have to take full accountability for his/her decisions.

Physical characteristics

In the past, many employers consciously used physical characteristics as a criterion. Studies found that employers were more likely to hire and pay better wages to taller men, and airlines chose flight attendants and companies hire receptionists on the basis of beauty (or their definition of it).

Physical characteristicsMany times, such practices discriminated against

ethnic groups, women and handicapped people. For this reason, they are now illegal unless it can be shown that a physical characteristics is directly related to effectiveness at work.

For example, visual acuity(eyesight) would be a physical characteristics that could be used to hire commercial airline pilots. It might not however, be legally used for hiring a telephone reservations agent for an airline.

Candidates for a job cannot be screened out by arbitrary height, weight, or similar requirements. These can be used as selection criteria only when the job involves tasks that require them.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSONALITY TYPE

Personal characteristics include marital status, sex, age and so on.

Some employers have, for example, preferred “stable” married employees over single people because they have assumed that married people for some jobs have a lower turnover rate.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSONALITY TYPE

On the other hand, other employers might seek out single people for some jobs, since a single person might be more likely to accept a transfer or a lengthy overseas assignment.

Age, too, has sometimes been used as a criterion. While it is illegal to discriminate against people who are over the age of 40, there is no federal law that specifically addresses this issue for younger people.

PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS AND PERSONALITY TYPE

Many employers also prefer to hire people with certain personality types. Some jobs, such as being a lifeguard, may require essentially no consideration of an applicant’s personality. Many jobs fall between these extremes. For example, one particular aspect of personality-such as being outgoing-may be useful for salespeople, caseworkers, or others who work extensively with the public.

ABILITY TO COPE WITH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

Environmental factors, such as, government policies, unions’ participation, competitors profile and operation method , customer behavior become significant influencing factors on expatriates’ performance in a foreign country. Many a time, the issues related with such factors cannot be predicted and thus, the expatriates have to cope with certain unplanned changes in their business environment.

FAMILY SITUATIONAn expatriate manager’s

success in a foreign country largely depends on the informal and formal support from his/her spouse and family (both at home and foreign country).

The degree of willingness of the family to provide support varies in the context of fear of the unknown, apprehension about children’s education,

COUNTRY- SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTSSome regions and

countries may be considered as ‘hardship postings’, in terms of distance between the home and host country’ culture, geographical location, environment, religion, culture, and ethical orientation.

COMPANY-SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTSCompany- specific requirements are also

needed to be considered in the expatriate selection process. Some of the factors are:

Operation method of the MNC Duration of the assignment The nature and degree of responsibility

required in terms of control and coordination with the headquarters

LanguageDifferences in

language are recognized as major barrier to effective cross-cultural communication.

The ability to speak foreign language acts as an added advantage in an international assignments, especially the language spoken in the host country

References

Raymond A Noe, John R Hollenbeck, Barry Gerhart and Patrick M Wright , Human Resource Management- Gaining A Competitive Advantage, 5th edition, Tata Mc-Graw Hill

John M. Ivancevich, Human Resource Management, 10th, Tata Mc-Graw Hill Publishing Company Limited, New Delhi

Dr. Nilangan Sengupta and Dr. Mousumi S. Bhattacharya, International Human Resource Management, Excel Books

V.S.P Rao and V Hari Krishna, Management text and cases, Excel Books Black,J.S Mendenhall (1991), Towards a Comprehensive Model of

International Adjustment: An Integration of Multiple Theoretical Perspectives. Academy of Management review

Shaffer (1999). Dimensions, Determinants and Differences in the Expatriate Adjustment Process. Journal of International Business Studies.

T.G. Abram(August 1979), “Overview of Uniform Selection Guidelines: Pitfalls for the Unwary Employer,” Labor Law Journal