Job Interview – A Way of Selecting Suitable Workers in Industries

JOB INTERVIEW – A WAY OF SELECTING SUITABLE WORKERS IN INDUSTRIES (A CASE STUDY OF EMENITE ASBESTOR NIGERIA LIMITED, EMENE ENUGU)

Management thought can be described as interlocking, chain of three distinct philosophies.  At one time or another, each link of the chain has received the overwhelming share of emphasis over the year, however, the evolution of management thought has established all three links as interdependent necessities.

The first link in production.  Many hours of careful investigation and methods refinement made American production methods almost legendary.  For years the time and motion men ruled the roast.  Charles Babbage (1961) applied scientific inquiry to production problems as early as 1800.  Frederick W. Taylor (1903) earned the name of “father of scientific management for his exhaustive studies and detailed findings on things like pig iron Harding and optimum shovel sizes.  Henry L.Gant (1948), a colleague of Taylor’s, we also a production smoother but lended to take a more humanistic viewpoint.  Frank and Lillian Gilbert (1948) were leading industrial efficiency consultants of their time.  Like Grant, the Gilberts seemed to give a little more consideration to the human factor in production, foreshadowing the shifting emphasis of management.

The human relations link of the management chain has received growing emphasis through the centuries.  Robber Owen recognized the made adjustment for his employees (whom he called “vital machines”) early in the 1800’s. Dr Hugo Muster berg, America’s turn-of-the century expert on everything, founded the new field of industrial psychology, which investigated worker aptitudes and needs.  Elton Mayo (1927) earned the title “father of human relations” for his landmark experiments at the Hawthorne plant of western Electric.  His famous “Hawthorne effects demonstrated the significance of the human component as a major variable of management planning.

The administration link of the management chain has received much emphasis and, to some extent, trees the other two link together.  Henri Faglo (1919) a French, mining engineer, published fourteen principles of management, eight of which are directed toward the administration the organization.  Many parker Follett (1920) was a famed political philosopher and social critic whose advance came to be treasured by management.  She described people centered, idea organizational patterns for businessmen.

 

2.3.    DEFINITION AND FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT

Management is the process of planning organizing leading and controlling the effort of organization members and of using all other organizational resources to achieve stated organizational goals.

A process I mean is a systematic way of doing things.  We define management as a because all managers regardless of their particular aptitudes or skills engage in certain interrelated activities in order to achieve their described goals.

Umoh (1996) defined management as a process by which people (manager) create, direct, maintain and operate purpose organization through systematic co-operative human efforts. The process of management begins with problem definition and recognition which is referred to as perception.

 

FUNCTIONS OF MANAGEMENT

Henry Fagrol laid the functional approach which forms the foundation on which the management function is base today.  He outline than as follows¸

  1. Planning¸ Planning involve establishing organizational goals and estranges for their achievement. It is the most important of all management functions, since every other function rest on what has been planned.
  2. Organizing¸ This is concern with the division of work allocation of duties authorities and responsibility once organization goals are formulated organizing makes things happen.
  3. Direction¸ This involves centralizing authority and leadership, guiding and supervising subordinate it implies communicating with the analogies.
  4. Controlling¸ This involves of monitory function sees to ensure that plan has been carryout as suppose. They measure actual performance and guide it toward some predetermined goal.
  5. Co-ordinating¸ This sees to ensure that the efforts of the organization are properly set for the achievement of set goals.

 

2.4     PERSONAL MANAGEMENT POLICY IN MANAGEMENT

The emergence of modern personnel management was attributed to many factors. Some of these areas a result of governmental personnel practices growing out of establishment of civil service commission, scientific management movement and early industrial psychology, to name a few .

Personnel management is the recruitment, selection development, utilization of, and accommodation to human resources by organization.   It is part of the general management function and is a central pervasive subsystem of all organizations. The effectiveness of personnel management needs to be assessed in terms of organizational effectiveness, which includes organizational goal attainment and organizational health and viability.

 

As a field, contemporary personnel management is faced with many challenging problems centering around social responsibility, job de4sign, staffing, style of leadership and supervision, organizational justice, performance appraisal, compensation and rewards, collective bargaining employee training and development, and organization development.

 

2.5     THE EMPLOYEE SELECTION PROCESS

Selection refers to a collection of familiar items or things or persons from which some are taken or accepted. It is one of the most single determining factor in the continuing of any business since selection determines the quality of workers.

Popoola (1985) look at selection, interview and placement as the care of the personnel managers responsibilities.  From a system point of view, the process of selection test and placement are related to take management system.  Specifically, enterprise plan become the basis of organization plans which are necessary to achieve enterprise objective.  The present and projected organizational structure determines the number and kinds if personnel required. These demand for personnel are compared with available talent through the manpower inventory.  The process of selecting employees is an important sub process of the broader staffing process.  System designed for the management of this sub process almost universally includes application blanks and interview, in addition to these devices, psychological tests, references checks and physical examination are often used.

 

PROCEDURE OF TESTING METHODS

Wendell and French (1973) position that an organization decides whether or not to make a job offer and how attractive the offer should be.  A candidate decides whether such a job should meet his needs and goals. If the balance is struck, the selection process begins.  The procedures are as follows¸

  1. COMPLETED APPLICATION FORM¸ In the selection process this serves three purposes; it shows that the applicant is interested in a position, provides the interviewer with the base information he needs to conduct an interviewer, and it becomes a part of the company’s personnel information if the applicant is employed.

 

  1. INITIAL SCREENING INTERVIEW¸ this is the second step, which forms the base on which the selection should continue or not.  It evaluates the applicant’s suitability for a particular job.  The job seeker may be asked questions his experience, salary expectation.

 

  1. TESTING ¸ Here, the organization attempts to know how well the candidate will perform on the job for operative worker, test usually focus on mechanical aptitudes and skills but in selecting managers, a variety of personality and psychological tests are used.  for tests to be effective, they have to be reliable and valid.  It is reliable when roughly shows the same result, and valid when performance on the test is closely associated with performance on the job.
  2. BACKGROUND INVESTIGATION¸ In this process the truthfulness of the applicant’s resumes or application form is checked.  Also further information is sought from one or more of the candidates reference or previous employers.

 

  1. IN-DEPT SELECTION INTERVIEW¸ here comes the real job interview.  It is designed to fill the gaps on the candidate’s   application from or resume, find out more about the applicant as a person and general obtain information of interest to the interviewer so that the person’s suitability for the job and in the organization is known.  The4 other steps are usually done by staff of the personnel department, but  this step is usually conducted by the manager to whom the applicants would report if employed.
  2. PHYSICAL EXAMINATION¸ Unless the job involves heavy physical labour or stress, this is one of the last steps in selection process.  It is designed to;
  3. Ensure that the applicant can perform effectively in the position he is applying for,
  4. Protect other employees against a contagious disease,

iii.      Establish a health record for the applicant, and

  1. Protect the organization agency the unjust workman’s compensation claims.
  2. JOB OFFER¸ If the candidate is successful in stages above and still shows the desire for employment he is offered the job.  The salary given should be comparable with the salaries in similar jobs in order organizations. It should also be in line with the company salary structure.

2.6     JOB INTERVIEW DEFINED

Job interview has been defined by many people in different perspective as they use it.

J.M.Franser (1966) see it as a process of select5ing people for indiocducel jobs in individual companies.

In this definition, Fraser considers each job to be a situation by itself, carried out under particular condition by among a certain group of people.  Each person has a unique pattern of knowledge and abilities, strength and weaknesses.  Judgment and insight are called for, so that each case can be understood on its own and the base decision taken in the light of all the information available.  Collection and interpretation of this information is the task of the interviewer.

 

Interviewing must therefore be understood as an occasion.  It is not a particular difficult skill, once a systematic approach has been used, and when it is hoped that the methods put forward will make sense in these terms.  Where most of the problems arise is in the actual interview itself, for in the limited period of face to face contact, great things must happen.  A relationship must be establisher with the applicant so that he will tack freely, and tack about what the interviewer wants to hear.  Information must be drawn from him on which an assessment can be made, and this information must be evaluated as the interview develops.  In 1961, Scott, clothier and Spiegel define interview as the purposeful exchange of ideals, the answering of question and communicating between two or more persons.

In the above definition Scott and others sees interview as the communication of ideals which has a purpose of it being done

Another researcher to job interview, Bruce (1941) defined interview as a conversation with a purpose.   Many other researchers has given their own definitions which has a similar view.  From all indications, interview is seen to be a face-to-face communication, where fitness or unfitness of a particular position is determined.

Bruce, in his research, went further to say that the interview is the most widely used selection method.   Although many employers do not use test to act in reading an employment decision, there are hardly any who do not interview the applicant I order to help make a definite assessment.

2.7     SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW

As pointed out in the review of job interview, it has remained for long among the major economic forces that are yet to be fully utilized by business in Nigeria in the process of selection process.

Interviewing involves asking the applicant series of questions. It is either in the structured form that is where the questions are process and are asked in a fixed order or the unstructured interview. Interviews are very popular and widely used.  But the problem is that focusing on the occasion a times makes the interviewer loose the whole information.

Since interview is universally used, in getting information, it is therefore significance in the staffing process and thus in all managerial processes.

It therefore becomes advisable for individual firms to conduce both extensive training and research with the objective of improving the validity of interviewing practices. At the present time, the patterned interview appears to have the most promise for high validity.

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