After 16 years in Human Resources, I have overseen many job hirings for employees. For companies, hiring the right people with the skill sets needed for the job are so important that it justifies spending valuable resources such as time, money and trained people. To look for, assess and choose suitable candidates to join the company is part of the employee selection process and is often under the care of people managers and HR personnel.

Step 1:

The process begins upon submission of the applicant’s resume or bio-data. This, together 
with other requirements as needed, can be sent via mail or directly given as hard copy to the HR.

Step 2:

This is followed by the HR fact-checking what was written on an applicant’s resume or bio-data. The goal is to confirm that the data are true. It is only when all the information has been verified that the applicants will receive the company’s data sheet.

The company data sheet is a formal document given by the company to the applicant to 
initiate a relationship. Any information that is not congruent to the verified resume or bio-data is 
considered misleading information. There is a possibility that the applicants will be dismissed 
once any misleading information in the company’s data sheet is discovered. To prevent honest

mistakes, the recruitment officer in-charge assists the applicants in filling out the company’s data 
sheet.

Step 3:

The third process is the administration of psychological tests. This can include time limited intelligence tests and no-time-limit personality tests. According to the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale or the Stanford-Binet test, an intelligence test is the measure of intellectual capacity or the potential ability of the person to learn.

As a rule in the administration of psychological tests, intelligence tests are administered to rank and file employees up to supervisory positions only. This is for the company to know the possibility and potential of the applicants to rise to higher posts in the company.

On the other hand, under the process of psychological testing, a personality test is administered to all applicants who pass the first and second process of selection. Psychologists define personality as:

“The particular pattern of behavior and thinking that prevails across time and contexts, and differentiates one person from another. It reveals the character of a person.”
— Psychometrics-success.com

Step 4:

This is the final interview. Here, candidates who have good test results are invited for an 
actual face-to-face interview or several interviews. During the final stages of interview, the test

results are verified. Sometimes a salary offer is discussed and agreed on by the candidate and the employer with the help of the HR.

Step 5:

The fifth process is the placement. Before placement, candidates for supervisory 
positions and higher are subject to background investigation to know the maximum truthfulness 
of the data gathered during the selection process. Sometimes, the result of background 
investigation is subjective due to crab mentality. Crab mentality is pulling someone down or 
giving them a bad name. Those who are against the person will provide negative perceptions 
about the person even if it is not true. On the other hand, those who like the person will give 
positive attributes just to help the person to be employed. It is expected that decision makers in 
the hiring of personnel should have a very strong sense of weighing the gathered information 
before making decisions.

This is the conventional process of selection.

The process for selecting the best applicants is time consuming because usually, it takes two to three months before a decision is made for the supervisory, managerial, and executive level posts.

However, a disadvantage of this is when a “misleading” report of the background investigation comes in late and the employee has already been hired and performing well. In this case, it is difficult to terminate the employment.

When the expertise needed is so rare, there are so few qualified applicants for the job, or the job required is urgent, decision makers also take the risk of considering the applicant even with the misleading background.

Some misleading information are considered acceptable, while some are not. Nonetheless, it is time consuming for the HR to reinvestigate the misleading information.

That is why I also suggest that in many situations, companies can already initiate the investigation process before choosing applicants for the final interview. The rationale here is that it is more efficient to sift any misleading information beforehand so that decision makers can already focus on choosing the right candidate in the final interview. This also lessens the risk of impediments in the selection process.