Introduction

In todays fast paced society employers are trying all they can to ensure they hire the right person for the job. After all time is money and turnover consumes a lot of time. Interview has been the primary selection tool used in recruitment for centuries. The interview is a significant step in the selection process because it is the point at which a decision will be made concerning an applicants suitability for a particular position. There are three general objectives to the interview; one being to obtain additional specific information, secondly to give the applicant information about the job, the company, co-workers, and benefits, and the third objective is to create a positive feeling toward the prospective employer. When conducting employment interviews there are several different methods adhered to: -

Formal Interviews, where a panel of people rather than on a one-to-

one basis usually carries out interviews. Guidelines are usually strict in these interviews to ensure that applicants are chosen in the fairest way possible. This method could be time consuming and costly because of the amount of personnel that is away from their jobs to be an interviewer for a position that may not even be in their department.

Informal Interviews where interviews are carried out on a one-to-

one basis and the interviewer asks general questions. Minimal preparation is needed for this type of interview. The questions during either interview may also be structured or unstructured. Structured interview test an applicants ability on a certain job sequence while an un-structured interview involves a procedure where different questions may be asked of different applicants.

Interview is a selection procedure designed to appraise a candidate

on the basis of his verbal responses to questions posted by the interviewer. A face-to-face session is deemed useful for determining if the applicant has requisite communicative or social skills, which may be necessary for the job. The interviewer can obtain supplementary information used to gauge candidates' verbal fluency and assess the applicant's job knowledge. An interview session also allows the applicant to ask questions that may reveal additional information useful for making a selection decision. However subjective evaluations and decisions tend to be made within the first few minutes of the interview with the remainder of the interview used to validate or justify the original decision. Interviewers may form stereotypes concerning the

characteristics required for success on the job and negative information seems to be given more weight at the point of interview. These leave little evidence of validity and reliability of the selection procedure in the absence of other process and reliable selection tests.

Recommendations to improve the interview process.

5 In general, the disadvantage in interviews is that they rely only on

verbal skills. These are great for jobs where verbal convincing and presentation skills are needed, but virtually useless where you need problems solved and spatial skill, since these are almost impossible to exhibit under interview the following ways are recommended to analyze a candidates overall ability in addition to his in personal presentation: -

 Situational Interview where candidates are interviewed about what actions they would take in various job-related situations. This gives an in-depth assessment of candidates job knowledge.

Behavior Description Interviews where candidates are asked what actions they have taken in prior job situations that are similar to situations they may encounter on the job.

Comprehensive Structured Interviews where Candidates are asked questions pertaining to how they would handle job-related situations, job knowledge, worker requirements, and how the candidate would perform various job simulations. Interviews tapping job knowledge offer a way to assess a candidate's current level of knowledge related to relevant implicit dimensions of job performance related to a specific job position.

Structured Behavioral Interview technique involves asking all interviewees standardized questions about how they handled past situations that were similar to situations they may encounter on the job. The interviewer may also ask discretionary probing questions for details of the situations, the interviewee's behavior in the situation and the outcome.

Oral Interview Boards This technique entails the job candidate giving oral responses to job-related questions asked by a single or panel of interviewers. Each member of the panel then rates each interviewee on such dimensions as work history, motivation, creative thinking, and presentation. This may help to eliminate the assumption of biasness in a one to one interview situation.

Additional Selection Tools.

6 The above process of interview, tests the individual candidates

ability in relation to the specific job. I now seek to introduce some other tools that could be incorporated into the selection process, which would help to improve the overall decision-making.

A method that can be applied to find the right employee is using These tests use a series of

the pre-employment personality test.

questions to determine what a prospective hires personality is like; which in turn, allows an employer to determine if the person would work well in their institution. The purpose of a personality test is to determine if an applicants personality is congruent with they type of job being applied for.

Pre-employment personality tests have grown in popularity over

the years. Their popularity has been fueled by companys desires to keep costs down.

Some of the commonly used pre-employment tests are categorized

as psychometric and cognitive test. Psychometric testing is now used by over 80% of the Fortune 500 companies in the USA and by over 75% of the Times Top 100 companies in the UK. Information technology companies, financial institutions, management consultancies, local authorities, the civil service, police forces, fire services and the armed forces all make extensive use of use psychometric testing.

y Intelligence Test: These are mental ability tests, which measures the learning ability and also the ability to understand instructions and make judgments. The objective is to pick up employees who are alert and quick at learning things so that they can be further trained and used for the benefit of the organization.

y Aptitude Test: It measures an individuals potential to learn certain skills- clerical, mechanical, mathematical, etc. These tests indicate whether or not an individual has the ability to learn a given job quickly and efficiently.

Personality Test: It is used to measure basic aspects of an applicants personality such as motivation, emotional balance, selfconfidence, interpersonal-behavior, introversion and extroversion.

y Achievement Test: They are designed to measure what an applicant can do on the job currently, i.e., whether the candidate actually knows what he or she claims to know. A typing test shows typing proficiency. Such proficiency tests are also known as work sampling tests.

y Simulation Test: Simulation exercise is a test, which duplicates many of the activities and problems an employee faces while at work. Such exercises are commonly used for hiring managers at various levels in an organization.

10

In conclusion, psychometric and cognitive test can provide some

critical personality information about applicants or employees, which could be a boost to the recruitment process of an organization. Using a personality tests are the beginning steps to finding the true personality and skills of a potential employee and should be considered as the backbone of the interviewing or evaluation process. A well-designed test can be an extremely valid and inexpensive selection tool. When applied with the enhanced interview techniques they would provide a convincing, reliable and valid recruitment process.

References
Human resource selection By Robert D. Gatewood, Hubert S. Feild, Murray R. Barrick 6th edition viewed October 19, 2011.

Title People resourcing, People and Organizations Series by Stephen Taylor Edition3, 2005 Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management by Michael Armstrong Edition 11, Kogan, 2009 Staffing the Contemporary Organization: A Guide to Planning, Recruiting, and Selecting for Human Resource Professionals by Donald L. Caruth, Gail D. Caruth, Stephanie S. Pane Edition 3, 2008 PHR/SPHR: Professional in Human Resources certification study guide by Anne M. Bogardus Edition 2, illustrated by John Wiley and Sons, 2007 Experiencing Recruitment and Selection by Jon Billsberry, Publisher John Wiley and Sons, 2008

http://www.hr-guide.com/data/G312.htm (Access: Oct 20, 2011) http://www.psychometric-success.com/psychometric-tests/psychometric-testsintroduction.htm (Access: October 20, 2011)