The Employee Selection Process

The survival and success of an organisation is dependent on its people. Employers must be able to recruit and select potential employees that are most suited for the job. Every organization has their own requirements in recruiting employees as it shapes the organization’s effectiveness and performance. Hence, the employee selection process and assessment plays an important role maintaining an organisation. Employee selection is defined as the process in which executives and managers employ the use of specific instruments to choose a person most likely to succeed in the job from a pool of applicants (Ofori & Aryeetey, 2011). This paper will discuss employee selection and assessment, its implications and how industrial-organisational psychologists

For example, some organisations make use of structured interviews in their selection process. Research strongly supports the use of structured interviews to evaluate applicants (Highhouse & Kostek, 2010). However, some supervisors and managers prefer to use unstructured and intuition-based approaches to evaluating and selecting applicants (Boatman & Erker, 2012). Regardless of the approach preference, it is essential that the methods chosen are well-design to curb costs and increase efficiency in the selection process. I-O psychologists examine how organisations can ensure effective, efficient and fair employee selection and assessment system. A research found that assessment methods that had non-standardized formats were perceived to be more useful in evaluating person-organisation fit (Nolan, Langhammer, & Salter, 2016). This would include resumes and cover letters. However, it was found that personality inventories would more useful for evaluating person-organisation fit. On the other hand, resumes, cover letters, reference checks and unstructured interviews are more useful in evaluating person-job fit. Hence, as an I-O psychologist, one can design an employee selection process by incorporating a mixture of non-structured and structured formats of assessments. This will allow the employer to evaluate the applicant’s person-job and person-environment fit and thus, select a more suitable applicant for the job. Another way that I-O psychologists can ensure a fair and efficient employee selection and assessment system would be to design a suitable assessment centre for a job. Assessment centres is a method of selection where the candidates are placed in a simulated job situation to evaluate behaviour under stress (Schultz & Schultz, 2010). Assessment centres are good for employee selection because it predicts job success and succession planning (Panc, 2015). It also reduces