Selection & Process of Selection

1 Mark Question

1. What is meant by selection of employees? (All India 2011)

Ans. Selection is the process of identifying and choosing the best person out of a number of prospective candidates for a job.

3 Marks Question

1. Nishant, the director of a garment company, is planning to manufacture bags

for the utilisation of waste material from one of his garment units. He has decided that this manufacturing unit will be set-up in a rural area of Orissa where people have very few job opportunities and labour is available at very low rates. He also thought of giving equal opportunities to men and women.

For this, he wanted four different heads for sales, account, purchase and production. He gave an advertisement and shortlists ten candidates per post after conducting different selection tests.

1. Identify and state the next three steps for choosing the best candidate out of the candidates short-listed.
2. Also identify two values which Nishant wants to communicate to the society by setting up this manufacturing unit. (VBQ; Delhi 2013)

Ans. (i) Selection is done in the third step, in which a prospective candidate is chosen from the pool of candidates. It ensures that the organisation gets the best among the available and it also enhances the morale of the selected candidate. Preliminary screening and selection tests have been conducted. The next three steps in the process of selection are:

• Employment interview All applicants who qualify in selection tests are called for an interview. Interview is formal face to face oral conversation between the employer and the applicant.
• Reference and background checks A candidate who is successful in the interview is required to give name and address of some references. The organisation checks the credibility of the candidate through reference checks
• Selection decision A final decision has to be made about the selection among the candidates who have cleared the interviews and reference checks.
• (ii) By setting up a manufacturing unit in the rural area of Orissa, Nishant wants to communicate following values to the society:
• Manufacturing bags from the waste material, will help in reducing pollutants from the environment and will also reduce wastage.
• Giving equal opportunities to men and women, will increase the standard of living of rural area labourers.

6 Marks Questions

3. Explain the process of selection of employees. (Delhi 2010,2009c; All India 2010,2009)

Ans. Following are the main steps of selection process adopted by large organisations

1. Preliminary screening It helps the manager to eliminate those applications who are not suitable for the current job. Such screening helps in rejecting unfit job seekers by analysing the information supplied in the application form.
2. Selection tests Through various tests, ability and skill of the candidates are evaluated. These tests are divided into the following three categories:

• Psychological tests Some selection tests are of psychological nature. Objectives of psychological tests is to examine the mental ability, interest in work, maturity, etc of the candidates.
• Proficiency tests In this test, candidate's ability and skill manifested in an examination are verified. Here, special attention is paid to see the correctness of the ability and skill as emphasised by the applicant.
• Other tests Main objective of this test is to know the understanding of the candidates, his communication ability, his mental maturity, writing ability, alertness, etc.

1. Employment interview Having successfully cleared all the tests related to

employment by the candidate, he is called for final interview. The objective is to judge the personality of the candidate, his way of talking, his conduct and temperament, his interest, presence of mind and maturity, etc.

1. Selection decision Applicants who clear selection tests, employment interview and reference checks are selected. Prior taking final selection decision, the opinion of concerned manager is sought.
2. Job offer After successfully clearing, the job offer is given to the selected candidates for job. A date is mentioned in the appointment letter, from which one has to report for the duty.

1. Contract of employment After the acceptance of job offer by a selected candidate,

he becomes an employee of the organisation. In this phase, appointee signs various documents. Main document among them is the attestation form in which the detailed description of the employee is provided, which he himself attests. This can be used at the time of need in future.

Apart from this, a written contract of employment is framed in which, the following information is provided:

• Job title