Question #14
Five Key reasons Companies don’t hire the Right Person for the Job
There are many reasons why organizations are not successful in hiring the right person for the job.
First, organizations do not provide candidates with a true description of the job and the culture of the
organization which leads to poor job choice. Also, there is a conflict between the organization
attempting to attract a pool of applicants and the individual’s choice of jobs. The conflict is enhanced
when organizations use the flypaper approach to recruitment.
Companies need to advertise realistic job previews that accurately communicate the good and not so
good aspects of the organization so applicants can make informed job choice decisions.
Second, many times candidates provide the organization too little or inaccurate information about
themselves and their qualifications. The conflict is enhanced when the organization utilizes selection
methods that are not good predicators of future job performance.
Third, organizations tend to utilize selection methods weighted heavily on the poorest predicators of job
success; resumes/applications, unstructured interviews and reference checks. According to the Schmidt
and Hunter article, the best predicators of job performance are general mental ability tests (general
cognitive ability or intelligence), work sample test, integrity tests and structured interviews.
Fourth, the best predicators of future job performance are only moderately effective. Predicators of
job performance tell us the applicant’s potential or ability to the job. According to the Schmidt and
Hunter, the most important property of a personnel assessment method is predictive validity: the ability
to predict future job performance, job related learning such as amount of learning in training and
development programs and other criteria.
Fifth, too little emphasize on person organization fit and too much emphasize on person job fit.
Selecting individuals that are a good fit for the organization has an impact on job satisfaction and
retention. The new selection model for hiring the person organization fit has the following potential
benefits; (1) more favorable employee attitudes such as greater job satisfaction, organizational
commitment and team spirit (2) more desirable individual behavior such as job performance and lower
absenteeism (3) reinforcement of organizational design such as support for work design and
organizational culture.
First, provide candidates with sufficient information for which to make good job choices which impact
employee retention. Second, use selection techniques that are better predicators of of future job
performance. Third, add a person organization fit component into the selection process. Fourth,
selection of employees is one of the biggest challenges to a HR professional. Even the best predicators
of future job performance are only moderately effective. Recruiting internal candidates is one of the
most reliable ways to assess an employee’s potential or ability to perform the job.