INTRODUCTION

TO SELECTION PROCESS OVERVIEW

Selection is the process of identifying individuals who have relevant qualifications/ experience/ skills and competencies to fill in the jobs. Once there is a pool of applicants for a job, the next step is to select the best candidate for the job. Selecting the right employees is critical because:

By the end of this section you should be familiar with:

The organisations performance is dependent on its employees. Employees with the right skills and attributes will do a good job. It is costly to recruit and hire employees. Hiring and training a new employee costs a lot of money. Incompetent hiring could impact the organisation in a big way. The employee may commit a wrongful act that will impact the image of the organisation adversely.

Understand the Selection Process Get a Quick Overview of the Recruitment and Selection Process for Line Functions and Support Functions The Selection Framework: What do we assess when we select candidates? What do competencies, skills and experience mean in the selection context? Understand Behaviour Based Interviews and the STAR technique Understand the Interviewing Technique Funnelling Be aware of the various Selection Tools available

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 SELECTION PROCESS MAP

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 OVERVIEW OF THE SELECTION PROCESS FOR LINE FUNCTIONS Each step of the process is described below. 1. Workforce requisitioning: The Management or the Department Head in charge places a request for increasing manpower for a particular department with the HR Manager. 2. Recruitment Sources: The HR Manager, based on the requirement in terms of numbers & budget approved, selects the channel/s to be used to source the required candidates. 3. Resume Screening: The HR team screens candidate resumes for their profile in terms of educational qualification, years of experience etc. & shortlists the candidates. 4. Test: The test which checks for job specific skills & competencies is administered and scores tabulated for all short listed candidates. If the candidate passes the test, he/she is short listed for the Preliminary Interview. Note: The candidate completes the Application Form before he/she appears for the Preliminary Interview. A Regret Letter needs to be sent all candidates rejected at any stage after the test or they should be informed that if they do not hear from the organization in a week, it means that they will not be invited for the next stage of the selection process 5. Preliminary Interview: All candidates go through at least 2 rounds of interviews. a. HR Round: Candidates undergo a preliminary HR interview in which the HR Team assesses them for general skills & behavioural attributes. b. Functional Round: The candidate is assessed on functional skills by a functional interview panel. The panel for this round consists of the Department / Function head and / or a senior member of the specific function. Note: 6. Final Interview: Only Managerial Candidates (Area Managers and above) who clear the preliminary functional and HR interviews are called in for a final interview or a decision round with the Director of the specific function, the Head of HR and the CEO. This interview focuses on the validation of the functional skills of the individual and also probes into behavioural attributes. The decision to hire the candidate is made in this interview. 7. Selection and Offer: HR makes an offer to the selected candidate based on his/her experience and educational background. An Interview Assessment form is completed after the functional and HR round is completed. The HR and Functional round can be combined in one round in case of non- availability of time or panelists.

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 OVERVIEW OF THE SELECTION PROCESS FOR SUPPORT FUNCTIONS 1. Workforce requisitioning: The Management or the Department Head in charge places a request for increasing manpower for a particular department with the HR Manager. 2. Recruitment Sources: The HR Manager, based on the requirement in terms of numbers & budget approved, selects the channel/s to be used to source the required candidates. 3. Resume Screening: The HR team screens candidate resumes for their profile in terms of educational qualification, years of experience etc. & shortlists the candidates. 4. Test: This is optional and usually not conducted for Support functions, except for IT. If there is a test, it checks for job specific skills & competencies and scores are tabulated for all short listed candidates. If the candidate passes the test, he/she is short listed for the Preliminary Interview. Note: The candidate completes the Application Form before he/she appears for the Preliminary Interview. A Regret Letter needs to be sent all candidates rejected at any stage after the test or they should be informed that if they do not hear from the organization in a week, it means that they will not be invited for the next stage of the selection process

5. Preliminary Interview: All candidates go through at least 2 rounds of interviews. a. Functional Round: The candidate is assessed on functional skills by a functional interview panel. The panel for this round consists of the Department / Function head and / or a senior member of the specific function. Her/his behavioural attributes and cultural fit may also be checked at this stage, if its for an HR role. b. HR Round: for support positions other than HR, an HR round is held to assess behavioural attributes and culture fit. Note: 6. Final Interview: Only Managerial Candidates (Assistant Managers and above) who clear the preliminary functional and HR interviews are called in for a final interview or a decision round with the Director of the specific function, the Head of HR and the CEO. This interview focuses on the validation of the functional skills of the individual and also probes into behavioural attributes. The decision to hire the candidate is made in this interview. 7. Selection and Offer: HR makes an offer to the selected candidate based on his/her experience and educational background. An Interview Assessment form is completed after the functional and HR round is completed. The HR and Functional round can be combined in one round in case of non- availability of time or panelists.

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 THE SELECTION FRAMEWORK The Objective of the Selection process is typically, to assess the following 3 key areas Competencies/ Behavioral Skills: Personal Characteristics Attitude, traits and behaviours Skills: Knowledge and expertise to do a job Stems from educational qualifications and experience Assessed against what is required skill-wise from the job Experience: Prior work that the individual has done, previous organizations worked with, challenges faced, work environments, etc. The selection interview is an integration of the assessment of the most appropriate competencies, skills and experience for the position. Competencies Competencies are personal characteristics (self-image, attitudes, values, traits, motives) that shape / contribute towards HOW a job is undertaken. They are demonstrable and observable behaviours that lead to superior performance The output of competency can only be observed for e.g. the approach used or the style used by a person in talking to a customer or dealing with a team member who has performed poorly in his/her job Skills Experience Skills are knowledge and expertise Experience is required for the job. They help the job about the type of holder contribute towards the WHAT of work that a person the job has performed, the Skills help the functional or the kinds of technical aspects of the job that he/she organizations the is hired to do. person has worked The output of a skill is tangible for e.g. in, the work a report created on excel environment and Skills are specific to the function one challenges that the belongs to for e.g. Operations need person has dealt product knowledge, Finance needs with. accounting and budgeting skills, IT needs to have knowledge of Software and hardware E.g. Adaptability, Initiative, Team Player, E.g. Computer Skills, Accounting Skills, Managing a Team Budgeting Skills, Product Knowledge

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 BEHAVIORAL INTERVIEWS The best predictor of future performance is past performance in a similar situation. Therefore, systematically gathering information about how a candidate has behaved in past situations will help to determine how he/she will react in a similar situation in the future. This process is called a behavior based interviews or competency based interviewing. STAR (Situation or Task, Action and Result) This approach can be used when probing and recording behavior in a selection interview. The idea here is to probe a situation in the past wherein the candidate would have demonstrated the competency being addressed and specifically understand the actions taken by the candidate in the situation and the result that the same yielded. The approach is explained below. Example for Assessing Ability to Manage a Team Situation or Task Action What was the context / situation / task in which the Tell me a situation when you had candidate had to perform? What were the tasks or to deal with a poor performing activities that were performed? member? What did the candidate do? What kind of behaviours What were some of the things did the candidate exhibit while doing the task? you did to manage the situation? What was the result or outcome of the behaviours What was outcome or the result demonstrated /actions taken in the situation? of your actions?

Result

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 INTERVIEWING TECHNIQUE THE FUNNEL APPROACH Here the intention is to systematically probe a skill in order to understand the extent to which the person has demonstrated the skill or competency under assessment. In this approach the interviewer would start with a very broad open-ended question and then probe further using a logical sequence of questions. This technique allows one to assess both breadth of skills and knowledge. For instance, if one wanted to understand the extent to which a candidate has skills in designing a performance management system, given below is a set of questions that one could use as a funnelling approach:

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 SELECTION TOOLS There are several selection tools which can be used in the selection process. Selection Tools Cognitive Tests Description Cognitive tests or general mental ability assessments differentiate candidates on mental ability that is required of the job. These tests are most commonly used for entry-level jobs and for applicants without professional training or advanced degrees. Structured interviews ensure that questions are job-related, thereby contributing to the correspondence between selection methods and suitability of the candidates selected. Validity High validity in assessing person-job fit.

Structured Interviews

High validity in assessing person-job fit Moderate High validity in assessing person group fit Moderate High validity in assessing person organization fit Low validity in assessing person-organisation fit. Low validity in assessing person-group fit.

Unstructured Interview

Unstructured interview involves little planning on the part of the interviewer. As such, interviews tend to vary greatly between interviewees. The prevalent use of unstructured interviews generally lies in the organisations lack of time and resources to conduct a more structured interview. A group discussion is a structured/ unstructured discussion amongst the applicants on a relevant issue. Can be used only when there is a large pool of applicants. It is used to screen applicants out and tests for communication , confidence, presence of mind Candidates attending an assessment centre participate in two to three days of and individual exercises, role-plays, managerial simulations, and psychometric tests that assess managerial potential, problem-solving and decision-making skills. The candidates are watched closely by trained observers who meet and reach a consensus rating of the candidates for a number of variables considered important for effective management. Assessment centres are most widely used for managerial and high level positions.

Group Discussion

High validity in assessing person-job fit

Assessment Centres

High validity in assessing person-job fit

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 Reference Checks Most organizations ask candidates for Checks lists of references that include previous supervisors or co-workers to check whether the candidate is a good worker. As the lists are generated by the candidates, it is important to be able to identify whether the reference being provided is truthful or not. Low predictive validity. Mainly used as a pre- employment check to ascertain the truthfulness of candidates.

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