Describe scientific methods of selection of candidates and their merits and demerits? What is meant by reliability and validity of selection...

Companies use many different methods to select persons for recruitment from the many candidates who may apply for employment. These include the following:

• Evaluation based on educational background and other formal certifications from recognized organizations.


• Evaluation based on past experience. This includes the nature of work performed, duration of past experience and the organization.


• Physical fitness and skill tests. This method is used only for recruitment for positions requiring some minimum standards of physical fitness and high degree of physical skills.


• Selection tests. These test can be of a very wide variety in terms of testing techniques used as well as the attributes and capabilities tested.


• Group discussions.


• Personal interviews.

Typically a company uses a combination of more than one of the above methods to selection for any one position. There is no clear cut difference between scientific and un-scientific methods of selection. Any one of the above method can be labeled as scientific or un-scientific depending upon the extent of systematic planning, designing, and execution involved in the method used. The methods of selection can also be classified as subjective or objective depending upon the extent to which individual judgment plays a role in ultimate selection. Generally objective methods, with lower dependence on individual judgement, are considered to be more systematic or scientific as compared to the subjective methods.

Reliability of a selection test refers to the extent to which a test measures a given quality of candidates correctly or reliably. Validity refers to the extent to which scores on a selection test actually reflect the suitability of candidate for a given position. For example, reliability of an IQ test refers to the extent to which the score of the test really reflect the level of intelligence of candidate tested. The validity of the same test refers to the extent to which the IQ score reflect the suitability of a person for the given job.