How Employers Engage Suitable Employees During A Short Time Using Psychological Tests.
Psychology basically deals with the study of human mind. It mainly deals with the study of how the mind functions under different circumstances. It is usually related to several aspects that affect the way the human brain functions (Morrell, 2003). Therefore, psychology can be defined relative to certain a discipline mainly in the educational sector. This helps define psychology from an occupational perspective.
In the main case of study in our paper, the type of psychology mostly involved is the managerial psychology. In a much general definition, managerial psychology can be said to be the study of how an employer thinks and uses his mind in dealing with the business as a whole (Brian, 2002). Therefore, it can be defined as the study of a manager’s minds. Basically, this topic mainly deals with the different mentalities that are held by both the employee and the employer pertaining to the academic requirements of an employee in certain employment position as well as other factors to consider in contracting a company or employee (Armstrong, 2000).
In managerial psychology, one main category is the personnel psychology which deals with what a manager or employer has in mind about the task force to employ. This category of managerial psychology helps the employer hire the best operational team for his/her enterprise (Armstrong, 2000). So as to understand employer psychology well, let us look at several aspects that an employer considers when choosing potential employees.
Evaluating the employer’s psychology, most of the employers expect too high from the employees when it comes to academic excellence. Though a diploma is basically at per with many educational requirements of job opportunities, many employers will tend to overlook a diploma and consider hiring an employee with at least a higher diploma or degree for the position (Jerry, 1997). The main reason as to why this usually happens is because of some psychological reasons. One of the reasons facilitating this type of decision is the need for the employer to uphold a high reputation in hiring highly trained personnel. Another reason for such a decision is the personnel psychology.
According to this sector of human resource psychology, a firm tries to attract and hire the best trained personnel for its labor force. As a response to this requirement, the person in-charge (manager or employer in-charge of personnel or human resource sector) has to make choices that match the requirements of the firm.
For this reason, a firm requiring only diploma holders will advertise its job requesting the applicants to have a minimum of at least a higher diploma. This makes the advertisement appear appealing to all the interested parties thus highly trained personnel will find it admirable to apply for that job requirement.
A second reason that makes most of the employers require employees to have the best possible academic records is the business plan. This document acts a mirror to assess the performance and inner values of a business. It would appear professionally appealing for a company to be led by an expert even if the expert is not from the line of management than be led by a professionally middle level expert from the management line (Jerry, 1997). Due to this regard for titles instead of skills, most of the employees end up in the wrong profession due to some hidden incentives into the specific position.
Trying to evaluate the employee’s take on the same issue, most employees prefer a job that will fully utilize their potentials and excellence. This makes the employees think of ways of ensuring that they gain enough experience and expertise that the employer would like his/her employees to have. In this quest for full utilization of potentials, the employees end up pursuing higher educational levels making the trained labor force is full of highly trained people. Since the companies cannot absorb all the personnel out in the market, they opt to make the minimum academic requirement higher than the expected values. This locks out some professionals making it a survival for the fittest game (George, 2003).
In pursuit of the best potential employee from the shortlisted candidates, the interviewing personnel usually engages the interviewee in a sort of brain storming exercise that determines a person’s mode of reasoning when faced by urgent tough decision making processes and personal approaches on certain issues that the employee might encounter in the work place. The interviewees usually hold some attitudes towards these short brain storms and usually have different approaches to them. Some of the common altitudes are elaborated below.
Considering psychology as a social aspect or discipline, attitudes greatly affect the relation within an organization. It is usually dictated by certain factors some of which are intrinsic to the business and others are extrinsic. From definition of attitude, it is clear that it has a lot to do with the social relationships between parties. It is guided by several other aspects like opinion and belief (Stewart, 1980).
Moving to the influence of attitude to brain storms often done by employers to assess the decision making ability and speed of an interviewee, several attitudes are evident. Some of them are discussed in the paragraphs below. The main focus of our study in this section is the work-attitudes which are mainly focused on by the organizational behavior, a component of employer’s psychology and factors to consider when hiring staff.
One of the main factors to consider trying to engage a new employee in a company is the job satisfaction of the interviewee. If the interviewee has high job satisfaction, then the interviewee is viable for that position thus should be considered more. If the job satisfaction is low, this means that the probability of contracting that person and then losing him/her is very high. This is part of organizational behavior attitude that is vital importance during an interview (Stewart, 1980).
Another attitude to consider alongside academic excellence is the job involvement of the employee. If the job is very demanding, is the employee in a position to deliver even under pressure? Is it possible for the employee to work independently in such a demanding job without supervision? This is usually obtained as miscellaneous information about the attitude of the interviewee towards the scope of the job. If the interviewee is positive on this issue, then the company can contract that person but if the attitude is negative, the productivity of that person is questionable.
A third factor to consider organizational involvement. This factor is almost similar to job involvement but the difference comes in from the fact that job involvement exists between a person and his/her job requirements and goals while organizational involvement exists between a person and the organization’s goals and strategies (Jianchang, 2001). This attitude calls for the interviewee to have a word pertaining to the achievement of the organizational goals and the ways of enhancing it. If the interviewee has negative attitude towards the organizational involvement, then it will be difficult for the person to contribute positively towards the achievement of the goals.
Though these three attitudes seem to be the key leads to a better interviewee analysis, other factors have still to be considered by the company so as to come up with the best person for a certain task. Some of these other factors include:
1. Personal satisfaction and achievement. This aspect lets the employer know the personal ambition of the employee. With this information, the employer can easily assess the interviewee and know if the company is able to provide a good ground for the employee to achieve personal ambitions since this can have great influence on the personal performance and contribution of the employee towards the achievement of company goals.
2. Motivation and promotion. It is common for employees to be eager to achieve recognition and promotion for excellent work done. The employer should carefully consider the interviewee’s approach and take of this since it might cause the company to contract a person who might not be satisfied with the way the company tackles the issue. If the interviewee is satisfied with the conditions surrounding this issue, then it would be advisable to contract that person (Steven, 2008).
With this in mind, it is easy for the interviewing panel to come up with a prospective employee of good quality and goal oriented without entirely relying on the educational level of the interviewee. It would also help the company or manager concerned have the best out of the many prospective interviewees who have qualified for the job position.
In conclusion, this paper has clearly and elaborately reflected on how use of a short interview can help a company come up with a sample of the best employees who are goal oriented. It also shows how the questions should be framed and arranged so as to achieve the best in the interview. In the process of the interview, the manager is also able to assess the interpersonal skills of the interviewee which is a very important element in the working or operations environment of the company. This paper also emphasizes on use of non-academic interview of getting the best employee. This helps eliminate the chances of a company contracting an academician who cannot solve problems on his/her own. In my opinion, this is one of the best interview techniques that should be employed to reduce the probability of a company contracting a title in academics without the necessary knowledge and skills to deliver effectively to the company’s expectations.
References
Steven T, Berg V and Jack R. 2008. Interdisciplinary Journal of Study abroad: Employer Attitudes Towards Study Abroad. Volume 15.
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Armstrong M. 2000. Strategic human resource management a guide to action. London: Kogan Pag. ISBN-10: 0749433310(pp120 - 148)
George A. 2003. The cognitive revolution: a historical perspective, Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Prentice-Hall inc. Volume 7, no3. (pp141 – 145).
Brain C. 2002. Advanced psychology: applications, issues and perspectives. Cheltenham: Nelson Thorne’s. ISBN: 0174900589
Stewart J. 1980. Leadership and organization development. United Kingdom: Emerald group publishing limited. ISSN: 0143-7739
Jerry J. 1997. Employee evaluation. New York: Grantsmanship center. (pp 1-7)
