HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management

Part C

Part 1

On a worldwide base, there are many methods and stages of selecting people for a job but the interview remains the most commonly used method. It is considered a very popular selection tool despite the fact that 'psychologists and management researchers have demonstrated that interviews are both unreliable and invalid as predictors of future performance.' (Johnson Devins Hamblett 2000 pp.78-82) It can be described as a "controlled conversation with a purpose" (Johnson Devins Hamblett 2000 pp.78-82). It is usually conducted face-to-face and it includes analyzing Applications Forms and CVs. There are several patterns of mistakes that interviewers can run into when they allow biases to get in the way of selecting the optimal candidates. This is the result of the fact that the interviewer can be sometimes mislaid by his own experience, motivation or personality, and fail to identify the real potential and capability of the candidate. The most important perceptual errors that can cause many problems in the selection interview process are listed below:

Halo - Horn Effect

This is a very common error and it can take place frequently in interviewing process. The hallo effect occurs when a candidate has a particularly good attribute that overshadows other factors of his or her personality. For example, if a candidate studied in a famous university or already had worked in a big company, the interviewer may ignore some of the negative aspects of the candidate's profile. The opposite of the halo effect is the horn effect. This takes place when an interviewer allows a derogative, in his opinion, point to influence the decision process.

Stereotyping

Forming an opinion about how people of a given gender, religion, race, appearance, age, disability, or other characteristic, think, act, respond, or would carry out the job - without any evidence that this is the case. It can occur in a positive or negative manner. In the case of positive stereotyping, candidates of a certain age or experience are considered to be suitable candidates(Stredwick 2005 pp.89-109). On a different level, it is possible during a selection interview that a candidate, who deserves to take the position, will not be selected because of his or her physical characteristics. For instance, black people or people, who wear extreme clothes, can be part of such superficial categorization.

Although Interview is a very common selection tool, it is not a perfect method because of the mistakes that can be held during this process. Since the employees are the company's backbone, making a wrong decision in hiring a person unsuitable for the job can dramatically influence the productivity of the business. In addition, the selection, and particularly the re-selection process requires an extended amount of money and time. In other words selecting the suitable persons is the key to lead a company to the success. Thus interviewers must be aware of the perceptual errors that can occur and be extremely cautious, during the selection process. Also a number of solutions are mentioned above, which can give the selection ...