The application

Selection is the process of collecting systematic information about applicants and using that information to decide which applicants to hire. The major purpose of the various devices of selection - application form, interviews, testing, and reference checking - is to gather information about the applicants’ job-related skills. A very important principle used in developing selection devices is that the content of the questions should reflect the activities of the job to be filled.

Traditional application forms ask information about educational and work history, avocational interests, and honours. However, such forms have limitations. In the majority of cases, they have limited space, so the applicant can supply only basic information such as the names of schools attended, major, dates of attendance, and previous job titles and dates of employment. Such superficiality of information often does not give the manager sufficient details to make sound judgements about the applicant’s skills and abilities. A second limitation is that a large percentage of respondents falsify the information that they report. Such falsification is easy because often all that is requested is brief information such as job title and major. A company can use one of several devices in addition to or instead of application form to minimize these limitations.

One device that has been used successfully is a training and experience form, which presents a small number, for example five, of the important tasks of the job. The form asks applicants to indicate whether they have ever performed or been trained in each of the activities. If they answer yes, they are then asked to describe briefly how to perform the activity. Thus, the questions relate directly to the major tasks of the job, satisfying the principle that the content of the questions should reflect the activities of the job to be filled. It is also more difficult to falsify answers because it is necessary to have some knowledge of the activity to respond to these questions; inaccurate answers can usually be easily detected.

2. Comprehension check.

Are the following statements true or false? Correct the false ones.

1. To collect information about the applicants’ professional skills, the manager has to employ a number of methods.

2. The major advantage of usual application forms is that they ask only basic information about the applicant’s skills and abilities.

3. Many applicants falsify the information that they report because it is difficult to check it.

4. The questions of a training and experience form reflect the important activities of the vacancy.

5. To answer the questions of a training and experience form, an applicant must have some knowledge of the activities of the job to be filled.

3. Read the text once again. Find words in the text that mean the same as the following.

a. to reply	g. restricted	n. to provide	u. instrument
b. creating	h. in place of	o. opinion	v. award
c. essential	i. gathering	p. to employ	w. to occupy
d. to discover	j. disadvantage	q. preceding	x. enough
e. proportion	k. reasonable	r. usual	y. examining
f. professional (2 words)	l. to do	s. short	z. recommendation
	m. room	t. to point out

Role-play 1

Work in pairs.

Student A

You are a human resource manager in a food processing company who selects both management and non-management employees. You are expected to help an intern who has come to the company to get experience in human resource management.

Student B

You are an intern who has come to the above company to get experience in human resource management. You want to know the differences in the selection instruments that are used for the two types of positions, including what information about the applicants is required.

Have a talk with a human resource manager.