THE ART OF SELECTION
Call it competency based or structured and systematic, call it scientific or data driven, and call it methodical or talent-based, in all probability the intuitive feeling takes over in the ultimate selection of a candidate.
Shortage of candidates with the right skills, talents and experience has created a fiercely competitive market for recruitment. Organizational success depends upon having the right people. An effective recruitment strategy that is integrated into the business strategy is critical. Understanding the need for a robust Recruitment and Selection practice is essential. Having a market savvy approach, keeping in touch with current trends, critiquing current practices and working on systemic changes (if considered necessary) are all an important component of the alert HR manager’s profile.
Instinct, judgment and gut feel are often major impediments in deciding the right person for the job. Selection of misfits and rejection of good fits is a common enough error.
Competency based selection predicts superior job performance and retention – both with significant economic value to the organization – without any bias.* Scientific selection using any number of tools to gather as much data as possible about the candidate, methodically and systematically done by a series of selection procedures ensures specificity. Interviewing techniques including many a time BEI’s etc provides rigor to the process.
But all said and done, the success in getting the right fit is more an art than a science. Human beings are very much controlled by human factors. A candidate not doing very well at the interview because he did not like the way in which questions were asked is very much akin to a child preparing exceedingly well for the exams but refusing to write the paper. Do you reject him for his misdemeanor for that day or pass him because you know he is intrinsically good? And how do you know or believe that he is intrinsically good. Is it because of his grades, his references, and the people who know and talk about him, the environment that he worked in before, your urgent need today, or the person whom he is going to work with? Ultimately it is not an either/or situation - it is the right combination of these factors in the right proportion that actually works. What matters is getting the right culture in the right place for the right purpose. Management is more fun, more creative, more personal, more political and more intuitive than any textbook. It is that special privilege of being human that we can go beyond theories and make our own rules.**
Organizations, like individuals have their own ways of doing things – some things work, some don’t. The pace of operation in both the individual and the organization has to match – and this has to be predicted. It is not easy, and the search is on… … for a scientific way in which this can be done right over and over again.
So finally, Selection is an Art…..
*Competence at Work by Spencer and Spencer
**Gods of Management by Charles Handy
