Human Resource Selection

Human Resource Management (HRM) is a set of decisions systems that organizations can design and implement to increase the performance and productivity of their workforce. The major activities in HRM are recruitment, selection, training, measuring performance, and compensating workers for their performance. The first two of these, recruitment and selection, focus on bringing high-ability individuals into the organization and placing them in the appropriate jobs. Everyone agrees that having high-ability employees is essential to a successful organization. Recruitment activities inform appropriately skilled applicants external to the organization about available positions within the organization. Successful recruitment presents information about the organization and the job to people in such a way that they become interested in possible employment. Recruitment should result in applications from people who have the appropriate abilities for the available job. Selection is the set of activities that gathers systematic information from the applicants and identifies those with the highest ability levels in order to offer employment. Training encompasses the activities that both the new employees and existing employees complete in order to further develop the most important abilities for the job. In the present global, competitive economy, excellent and frequent training is necessary to make sure that employees can continue high performance. Measuring performance and compensating workers are the two fundamental principles for motivating employees. Measuring performance clearly specifies to workers the main outcomes of their work. It also makes goal setting possible, which research has found to be highly motivating in itself. Compensation should be designed so that employees are rewarded at levels reflective of their performance. Think of this as the application of the psychological principle of reward/reinforcement.

About the Author :
Robert Gatewood had an uneven start to his career. Specifically, he attended three different universities for his undergraduate degree. During this transitory time in his life, Bob had four majors, starting in engineering and ending in psychology. The last was the only one in which he was really interested. He then went to Purdue University for graduate school, not only because of its excellence, but also because it had good sports teams to watch and occupy his time-Bob thought that taking only three courses a semester in his favorite subject would not be too time consuming. Once in grad school, Bob learned that taking just three courses a semester actually consumed him and he really didn't have the time to avidly follow all the sports. After completing his Ph.D. in industrial psychology, he worked as a consultant and then joined academia. His first position was as a member of the Department of Management at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. Thinking he might stay 5 years, Bob left 34 years later. During these years, Bob climbed the academic ranks from assistant to full professor and then pursued an administrative career at Terry as a department chair and associate dean in the College of Business. An indication of how well he did these jobs is contained on a plaque that he received when he retired that thanked him for his creative solutions to problems and unfailing sense of humor-no mention, however, of how good these solutions were. Bob was also elected to five executive positions, including President, within the Human Resources Division of the Academy of Management. Remarkably, the Human Resources Division is still a viable part of the Academy. HUBERT S. FEILD (he prefers Junior, or Jr.) There are four things that you need to know about Feild to understand him completely. First, he has lived in the same house in Auburn, Alabama, for 46 years. Second, in the year 2000, he threw out all clothing except for jeans, shorts, t-shirts, and tennis shoes because he never wore anything else. Third, he refuses to go to professional meetings or to serve on academic journal review boards because these take too much of his time. Fourth, when he was in high school, a girl gave him a baseball signed by the 1927 New York Yankees team. He said thank you but did not ask why she gave it to him or how she got it. Even worse, he took it home, went off to college, and never saw it again. He never even asked his mother what happened to it. Jr. received his Ph.D. in industrial psychology from the University of Georgia. While there, he met Bob Gatewood, another author on this book. They have been good friends for over 40 years, mainly because they have seen each other only four times during that time. Jr. has been both an impactful and influential faculty member during his time at Auburn. He has published consistently in the leading research journals in both management and psychology in a number of the major areas of human resource management, but especially in selection. In doing this, he has been xx Human Resource Selection 9e very successful as a mentor and friend of his many Ph.D. students who have gone on to be successful themselves. He has remained a true friend and a strong support network for all of these former students. Jr. is also an excellent teacher. Most of his classes are in selection or in other HR topics. His usual strategy is to develop in-class exercises to demonstrate principles in the text. (He'll do anything to avoid lectures and keep students awake.) He has shared these exercises with his two coauthors of this book, who have equally experienced success with them. Both of his coauthors attribute Jr.'s success to the fact that he thinks like 19- to 21-year-olds, especially immature ones. It's adults that he has trouble dealing with. Of his many fine attributes, perhaps Jr.'s most significant strength is that once a friend, always a very good friend. This means that he is fun to be with, laughs at jokes about himself (which are numerous), does what he says he is going to do, and treats others with respect and emotional understanding. He could be the most popular person in the United States if he would ever leave Auburn and meet people.