Job testing is an important concept in the discipline of Human Resource Management in job selection process, especially in hiring candidates for specific job descriptions. Getting the right individuals for employment is critical to achievement of an organization’s goals.
Thus, this reflective treatise attempts to explicitly identify critical testing process involved in hiring potential employees as indicated in the articles, Psychological Tests used in Employee Selection by Schieltz and Types of Employment Tests by the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology. Besides, the treatise identifies stages involved in recruitment testing process.
As opined by Schieltz (2009), selection processes are not only reliable but also valid devices for hiring management assistants in an organization. For instance, it is right to give keyboarding test to an applicant who seeks to work in a field requiring critical management skills. Reflectively, the desired skill must be displayed by potential candidates.
Thus, Thus, “the skills that are needed by an employer can easily be quantified through the use of specific tests that measure those abilities in a potential employee” (Schieltz, 2009, par. 3). Furthermore, the article suggests that selection is focused to evaluate resumes of applicants for essential requirements which in this case include possession of management and analytical skills besides academic credentials.
Moreover, testing is a procedure of eliminating unqualified applicants while identifying most preferred applicant. In this case, the process is systematic, and through aptitude test, elimination of those lacking analytical skills is possible within minimal prejudice or biasness. The main idea of a selection procedure is to assess information about applicants in order to determine their fitness for employment.
The article identifies factors that affect stages involved in testing procedure as numbers of applicants who are present for the selection process. For instance, when the number of applicant is huge, filtering points should be increased in order to minimize this number. Nevertheless, when the number of candidates is small, reduced filtering points would be required to regulate the number of applicants.
Reflectively, the article, Types of Employment Tests, identifies screening system as an important part of employee testing and is meant to disqualify unsuitable applicants at any step of selection procedure. Nevertheless, there is no absolute criterion for selection process adopted in all professions or organizations.
The article opines that during screening stage, essential information is obtained from applicants about their salary expectation, experience, education qualifications, and skills since administrative assistant post has management roles. Besides, it offers an opportunity for testing cognitive ability. “Cognitive ability tests typically use questions or problems to measure ability to learn quickly, logic, reasoning, reading comprehension and other enduring mental abilities that are fundamental to success in many different jobs” (“Types of Employment Tests”, 2012, par. 4). In addition, test of legitimacy for applicant’s certificate is carried out. Actually, it is an important step that asses applicants’ competence.
Another aspect of employee testing includes the psychological test. Psychological test may be adopted in employees’ selection procedures. It is focused on certain aspects of applicant’s performance, behavior, and attitude in different situations. Psychological test is important when the number of candidates is large in order to reduce it.
Psychological test can “identify applicants who scored above a certain fixed mark and assumption is made that they are possibly good performers than those candidates who attained below the mark limit” (“Types of Employment Tests”, 2012, par. 4). Moreover, Interview testing is an essential step of selection process since it is where applicants demonstrate their strength and competence in reference to their academic qualifications.
Interviews perform three functions. First, interview process seeks to get information about work experience, interest, training, education, and background of applicants. Secondly, interview testing process provides information to applicants about the nature of the organization, policies and regulations of the organization and job description. Thirdly, interview testing process creates a friendly relationship between applicants and employer in order to motivate the triumphant candidates to work for the company.
As indicated by the two articles, comprehensive and unprejudiced details of applicants’ competence and behavior would be an important value in the testing for selection procedure, especially to employers who provide job description to applicants. In fact, the employee would be in a position to “assess attitudes and experiences related to a person’s honesty, dependability, trustworthiness, reliability, and pro-social behavior” (“Types of Employment Tests”, 2012, par. 7).
Features that employers seek for employment are persons who are thirsty for success and who are able to take risk in life, people who are innovative and open minded, people who know how to handle psychological stress, and people who are team players and hardworking. Organizations are focused to get dedicated people who are ready to fulfill companies’ objectives. These objectives can be achieved by balancing psychological testing with actual professional testing during recruitment process.
In conclusion, the main aim for testing procedure is to employ applicants who have high possibility to work successfully. This kind of selection procedure is meant for choosing employees who posses analytical skills besides academic qualification. Testing process has multiple stages which include interviews, pre-employment inquiries, background investigation, aptitude test, and screening interview.
References
Schieltz, M. (2009). Psychological Tests used in Employee Selection. eHow Journal, 3(9), 1-5.
Types of Employment Tests. (2012, June 12). Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.siop.org/