Chapter 4: Recruitment and Selection

Chapter 4: Recruitment and Selection

To be effective, an agency’s human resources program must be able to identify, recruit, and acquire people who are well qualified at entry, responsive to available incentives, and able to develop new skills and abilities. Highly qualified candidates are more often than not willing to accept lower pay than they could get in the private sector because of the status and authority that comes with public service careers.

There are methods, issues and problems with selecting people for public service jobs. Its intensive concentration on both initial selection and promotion was a direct result of the movement’s effort to eliminate patronage or spoils as an organizing principle of public personnel administration. Thus, traditional merit systems emphasize political neutrality and objectivity at every stage of the selection process. To achieve this goal, the selection process had to be designed and controlled by personnel specialists housed in central personnel agencies or independent commissions.

The purpose of selection tests is to provide the employer with a reasonably accurate prediction of how applicants are likely to perfume in specific jobs.
Validation methods generally accepted by specialists in testing
Criterion-related validity
Requires that test scores be correlated with a criterion accepted as a reasonable indicator of job ability
Construct validity
Requires that tests be designed to measure certain general traits or constructs, such as intelligence or creativity, that are presumed or demonstrated to be associated with satisfactory job performance
Content validity
Established when the content of a test closely matches the content of a job

The most recent developments in the area of electronic recruitment and examination are becoming increasingly important. They may make it possible to maximize efficiency while ensuring adequate levels of centralized oversight and control.