Recruitment and Selection

Evidence will be presented of the impact of the assessment and selection techniques used in a management development program in a major UK financial services organization. The assessment techniques involved are situational interviews and two different assessment centers. Drawing on a questionnaire study of 141 managers, data are presented concerning the impact of such techniques on organizational commitment and job and career withdrawal cognitions. The results suggest that assessment procedures and decisions have some impact on candidates' post-assessment attitude to the organization and their intention to leave their jobs and careers. The article also presents data on the reactions of the participants to the selection and assessment process. A preliminary theoretical view of the impact process is presented and discussed.

The article deals with the problem of the role of ‘social’ devices at the
time of producing and reproducing organizational behavior, taking the
case of recruitment and selection processes in financial services organizations
in Chile and the UK. Based on 42 in-depth interviews in Santiago,
London and Edinburgh, and building on science and technology studies
and the concept of device the article aims to understand how recruitment
and selection mechanisms are adopted and legitimated in organizations.
Analysis suggests that recruitment and selection mechanisms connect
technical and moral elements, allowing managers to deal with uncertainty
and carry out organizational reproduction. However, devices in Chile and
the UK differ in the modes that connect technical and moral elements.

CONTEXT Socially accountable medical schools aim
to reduce health inequalities by training workforces
responsive to the priority health needs of underserved
communities. One key strategy involves recruiting students
from underserved and unequally represented communities
on the basis that they may be more likely to
return and address local health priorities. This study
describes the impacts of different selection strategies of
medical schools that aspire to social accountability on
the presence of students from underserved communities
in their medical education programmes and on student
practice intentions.
METHODS A cross-sectional questionnaire was administered
to students starting medical education in five institutions
with a social accountability mandate in five
different countries. The questionnaire assessed students’
background characteristics, rurality of background, and
practice intentions (location, discipline of practice and
population to be served). The results were compared with
the characteristics of students entering medical education
in schools with standard selection procedures, and with
publicly available socio-economic data.
RESULTS The selection processes of all five schools
included strategies that extended beyond the assessment
of academic achievement. Four distinct strategies were
identified: the quota system; selection based on personal
attributes; community involvement, and school marketing
strategies. Questionnaire data from 944 students
showed that students at the five schools were more likely
to be of non-urban origin, of lower socio-economic status
and to come from underserved groups. A total of
407 of 810 (50.2%) students indicated an intention to
practise in a non-urban area after graduation and the
likelihood of this increased with increasing rurality of
primary schooling (p = 0.000). Those of rural origin
were statistically less likely to express an intention to
work abroad (p = 0.003).
CONCLUSIONS Selection strategies to ensure that
members of underserved communities can pursue medical
careers can be effective in achieving a fair and equitable
representation of underserved communities within
the student body. Such strategies may contribute to a
diverse medical student body with strong intentions to
work with underserved populations.

This article examines how macro-discourses of internationalisation and excellence shape formal and applied selection criteria for early-career researcher positions at the meso-organisational and micro-individual levels, demonstrating how tensions between the various levels produce inequalities in staff evaluation. In this way, this article contributes to the literature on academic staff evaluation by showing that Selection Committee members do not operate in a vacuum, and that their actions are inextricably linked to the meso-and macro-context. This study draws on qualitative multi-level data that comprise institutional-level policies, recruitment and staff protocols, job postings and individual-level interviews and focus groups with Selection Committee members. Findings show that a majority of Selection Committee members consent to university policies and macro-discourses when evaluating early-career researchers, but a smaller group questions and resists these criteria. Furthermore, the analysis revealed four inequalities that emerge in the application of criteria and reflect on disciplinary differences between the Natural and Social Sciences. The article concludes that with only a few Committee members to critically question and resist formal selection criteria, they limit the pool of acceptable candidates to those who fit the narrow definition of the internationally mobile and excellent early-career researcher, which may exclude talented scholars.

To remain viable in today’s highly competitive business environments, it is crucial for organizations to attract and retain top candidates. Hence, interviewers have the goal not only of identifying promising applicants, but also of representing their organization. Although it has been proposed that interviewers’ deliberate signaling behaviors are a key factor for attracting applicants and thus for ensuring organizations’ success, no conceptual model about impression management (IM) exists from the viewpoint of the interviewer as separate from the applicant. To develop such a conceptual model on how and why interviewers use IM, our qualitative study elaborates signaling theory in the interview context by identifying the broad range of impressions that interviewers intend to create for applicants, what kinds of signals interviewers deliberately use to create their intended impressions, and what outcomes they pursue. Following a grounded theory approach, multiple raters analyzed in-depth interviews with interviewers and applicants. We also observed actual employment interviews and analyzed memos and image brochures to generate a conceptual model of interviewer IM. Results showed that the spectrum of interviewers’ IM intentions goes well beyond what has been proposed in past research. Furthermore, interviewers apply a broad range of IM behaviors, including verbal and nonverbal as well as paraverbal, artifactual, and administrative behaviors. An extensive taxonomy of interviewer IM intentions, behaviors, and intended outcomes is developed, interrelationships between these elements are presented, and avenues for future research are derived.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of work-from-home (WFH) human resource (HR) practices on the performance of faculty under the drastic circumstances of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The population of the study included faculty members of the higher education institutions in Sialkot, Pakistan. The study filled the gap of scarce literature on the impact of various HR practices by HR officials while working from home during lockdown observed to reduce the spread of COVID-19. Based on reinforcement theory, this article proves that there is a significant relationship between HR practices (including training, performance appraisal, career planning, employee participation, job definition, compensation, and selection) and faculty performance. It also proves that there is a strong positive relationship between the two variables. The findings of this study provide a blueprint to improve HR practices for high performance by faculty in the higher education sector during WFH settings.

This experiment with 119 adult females examined the effect of a rival’s attractiveness on jealousy and career advancement
expectations in a simulated work setting where individuals had to compete for a job promotion. We hypothesized that an
attractive rival would evoke relatively more jealousy and lower career advancement expectations, especially in individuals
high in Intrasexual Competitiveness (ISC). In addition, we examined the moderating effects of characteristics attributed to
the rival in terms of popularity, professionalism, and unfriendliness. The results showed that, overall, an attractive rival induced more jealousy and lower career advancement expectations than an unattractive rival. Especially among women who attributed unfriendliness to their rival, the attractiveness of the rival induced higher levels of jealousy and lower career advancement expectations. Among women high in ISC, the rival’s attractiveness induced lower career advancement expectations. It is recommended that managers and human resource officials pay particular attention to how physical attractiveness may interfere with female employees’ professional development, and to the important role of emotions in the workplace.

Background: Medical schools try to implement selection procedures that will allow them to select the most motivated students for their programs. Though there is a general feeling that selection stimulates student motivation, conclusive evidence for this is lacking. The current study aims to use the perspective of Self-determination Theory (SDT) of motivation as a lens to examine how medical students' motivation differs in relation to different selection procedures. The hypotheses were that 1) selected students report higher strength and autonomous motivation than non-selected students, and 2) recently selected students report higher strength and autonomous motivation than non-selected students and students who were selected longer ago. Methods: First-(Y1) and fourth-year (Y4) medical students in the six-year regular programme and first-year students in the four-year graduate entry programme (GE) completed questionnaires measuring motivation strength and type (autonomous-AM, controlled-CM). Scores were compared between students admitted based on selection, lottery or top pre-university GPA (top GPA) using ANCOVAs. Selected students' answers on open-ended questions were analysed using inductive thematic analysis to identify reasons for changes in motivation. Results: The response rate was 61.4 % (n = 357). Selected students (Y1, Y4 and GE) reported a significantly higher strength of motivation than non-selected students (Y1 and Y4 lottery and top GPA) (p < 0.01). Recently selected students (Y1 and GE) reported significantly higher strength (p < 0.01) and higher AM (p < 0.01) and CM (p < 0.05) than non-selected students (lottery and top GPA) and Y4 students who were selected three years ago. Students described that being selected enhanced their motivation as they felt autonomous, competent and that they belonged to a special group. These reported reasons are in alignment with the basic psychological needs described by Self-Determination Theory as important in enhancing autonomous motivation.