Outline the psychometric approach to recruitment and selection. In what ways has this been challenged - Essay Example

This paper gives an overview and description of the recruitment and selection process along with a description of the psychometric approach, its benefits and challenges. Main Body Recruitment and Selection Hiring a competent workforce has become quintessential in the midst of uncertainty in external environment, particularly changing customer expectations. Because of this, psychosocial considerations, which includes differences regarding the abilities, motivations, personality and emotions of individuals, are being taken into account while finding the correct fit for the organisation.

Torrington, Hall & Taylor (2007) define recruitment as being either internal ( that is hiring of people from within the organisation ) or external (which involves advertising, approaching recruitment agencies, developing corporate websites that accept applications, using newspapers and trade press and various other methods). Furthermore, Newell defines recruitment as being a process that attracts people who possess the attributes that are necessary to perform the job (Newell 2005). Generally, promotion, retirement, transfer, redundancy and technological or customer changes drive the recruitment process (Watson 1994).

While recruitment generates the pool of capable applicants that may apply to the organisation, selection involves determining the “right piece that fits correctly in the jigsaw puzzle”. Herriot (1984) defines the selection process as a social exchange whereby mutual exchange of information takes place between the company and its candidates. Organisations are, therefore, required to shape their expectations depending on the candidate’s personal experience rather than the other way round (Herriot 1984).

Selection methods have further been defined as consisting of application forms, interviews as well as tests of which psychometric tests are a part. Traditionally, the recruitment process would be a three-step process involving the development of job description, job analysis and finally job specification (Torrington, Hall & Taylor, 2007). The last stage would require determining the human attributes that are necessary to perform the job (Marchington & Wilkinson 2000). Frameworks such as the Seven-Point Plan developed by Roger and the fivefold system of grading laid down by Munro-Fraser comprised of assessing the individual’s impact on others along with his/her qualifications, abilities, motivation and emotional strength (Taylor 2000).

Both these models increasingly relied on human judgment which could be highly subjective and prone to bias. This led to the development of a competency-based approach to recruitment whereby the focus shifted on individual qualities to competencies required on the job (Newell 2005) (Redman & Wilkinson 2009). Furthermore, it was realised that traditional approaches assumed fixed personalities which was a self-defeating assumption as far as the candidate’s fit with the organisation was concerned.

This led to the shift towards the psychometric approach whereby individual differences were recognised. The term psychometrics is merely an abbreviated version of “psychological measurement”. In other words, it attempts to measure psychological traits of individuals such as their intelligence, attitudes, personality and attributes. According to a research conducted by CIPD, approximately 45% of