Any employer wants to see in his staff workers exclusively intelligent, hardworking, responsible and prudent people. Successful completion of various tasks requires the presence of not only specific skills, but also special personal qualities. However, in order to find out such a volume of information about a candidate for a vacant position, it is necessary to observe him for a long time. For these purposes, for beginners establish a trial period. And yet, despite the employer's ability, in case of disappointment in the employee, to say goodbye to him in a matter of months, most managers want to create a stable staff with minimal staff turnover. To conduct a competent and successful personnel policy, many bosses have in their arsenal such weapons as psychological techniques when hiring. Consider what their essence is, what information they will help to reveal about the candidate and in what forms they exist.
Leaders' wishes
To begin with, we’ll clarify the wishes of employers regarding the composition of their staff, namely, we will determine what qualities they use psychological methods for hiring. Firstly, this, of course, is the competence of the individual, his professional relevance to the vacancy. Despite the fact that the availability of diplomas of the corresponding education is indispensable for occupying individual posts, employers want to know both the level of quick wit and the possibility of applying the obtained theoretical bases in their activities.
Secondly, the correct personal characteristics of the applicants are important. These include qualities such as hard work, accuracy, sociability, stress tolerance, determination, rationalism, honesty and courtesy. Thus, the employer, using a variety of psychological techniques when applying for a job, reveals both the professional and personal qualities of his potential workers.
The main types of exposure
In order to better know the candidate for the vacancy, many methods are used. Competent selection of personnel is handled by specially formed departments or centers in organizations. The main techniques employed by staff workers are a variety of questionnaires, tests offered for passing to applicants, interviews. It is necessary to consider each of them in detail.
A little bit about the questionnaire
There are a number of questions that the candidate is invited to answer on their own. As a rule, the questionnaire is a fixed list of questions about the main characteristics of the applicant. These include the date and place of birth of the potential worker, his education, attitude to military duty, address, contact phone numbers, marital status, citizenship. Questioning is a salvation for the personnel service due to the convenience of its use and the completeness of the information received. However, not only the above questions, the employer wants to ask candidates for vacancies.
Professional questions
Information about the education received by the applicant, as well as other information related to the level of competence of the potential employee, are established first. If the candidate does not possess the necessary knowledge, and in some cases, the relevant experience, then, despite his perhaps outstanding social qualities, the employer will not be interested in cooperating with such a person. In order to be able to assess the professional compliance of an individual with a vacant position, a number of questions are prescribed in the questionnaires.
First, the employer is interested in learning about the education received by the applicant. The questions that are present in the questionnaires of almost all organizations concern the place, time and form of training, the name of the specialty, qualification, topic of the diploma, academic degrees and titles, additional education, knowledge of foreign languages.
Secondly, it is important to determine the experience of the candidate. In order to receive relevant information, the questionnaires indicate the periods of work, positions held, duties, salary level, reasons for leaving the company. The answers to this circle of questions clarify for the employer how often and for what reason a person left his previous job, how his responsibilities changed.
Thirdly, the employer is certainly interested in versatile and easily trained people, so questions often include the presence of not only narrow-profile skills, but also other professional skills. These include, for example, the degree of ownership of a PC and other office equipment, the presence of a driver’s license.
Help with questionnaires in establishing psychological qualities
In order to have a complete and diverse opinion about a candidate for a vacancy, the questionnaires ask psychological questions when hiring. They relate, firstly, to the motivation and incentives that move a person when placed in a specific organization. What exactly influenced the person’s choice of the company: a good team or the prestige of the company, the level of remuneration, the possibility of self-realization, new knowledge or career prospects, stability, proximity to the place of residence? What goals does the candidate set for the coming years? All this information will certainly be appreciated by the employer.
Secondly, the psychological questionnaire when applying for a job contains a number of questions about the hobbies of applicants. At first glance, the employer's desire to know how a person prefers to spend his free time seems strange. However, it is the answer to this question that clarifies the activity of the individual, his versatile development, thirst for life and the ability to relax.
Thirdly, psychological methods in hiring are designed to determine information about a person’s self-esteem. At present, it is not uncommon to find in profiles a request to indicate your best and worst characteristics, your main personality traits. The answers to all these questions are subsequently necessarily evaluated by the head of the enterprise.
Pros and cons of questioning
Questioning is the most common technique that employers use to get to know their potential workers. Its undoubted advantages are simplicity, the ability to specify many diverse issues in the questionnaire, speed, ease of use, as well as the completeness of the information reflected in it. However, there are serious drawbacks to this technique. So, when filling out the questionnaire, the easiest way for a candidate to deceive a potential employer is to indicate only positive information about his personality that the employer wants to see. In addition, compiling a list of issues is a responsible matter. In order to get complete information about the applicant and to avoid a possible double interpretation of the answers of the candidates to the questions posed, firms have to involve a wide circle of specialists — lawyers, psychologists, and sociologists — in compiling the questionnaires.
Psychological tests when applying for a job
The answers to the questions contained in the questionnaires, a person gives consciously. This means that the reliability of the information received cannot be defined as unconditional, because there is always the opportunity to embellish the true state of things. Therefore, in order to obtain a valid characterization of candidates, firms use psychological tests when hiring. A person performs their tasks unconsciously, which means that the results obtained can be interpreted as corresponding to reality. In addition to psychological tests, tests can be used to determine the level of intelligence and assess the professional qualities of a person.
IQ test
Nowadays, it is very common for candidates for vacancies to complete tasks that will indicate the degree of development of logical and spatial thinking, the ability to remember several facts at the same time, the ability to compare and generalize certain knowledge. The most famous and well-written is the IQ test, which was compiled by Eysenck. The result of such tasks will give a more detailed answer about the quick wit of the candidate, in particular compared to the questionnaire, where the subject describes himself.
Personality Tests
Not only the level of intelligence of a potential employee want to know the employers. Currently used and psychological testing for employment. Representatives of the personnel service offer applicants to perform certain diverse tasks in which there is no correct answer in its traditional sense. In this case, the subjects act unconsciously, so that the percentage of deception is extremely low. Here are some examples of a psychological test when applying for a job.
The first of these is the definition of a favorite color. A potential employee is offered to lay out 8 multi-colored cards in order from the most pleasant shade to the most disliked. To pass the psychological test when hiring competently and please the head of the company, you need to know the essence of this experiment. Here, colors mean the specific needs of a person. As a rule, red is activity, thirst for action. The yellow card symbolizes determination and hope. Green indicates self-fulfillment needs. Blue is liked by regular and often attached people. Gray color describes the state of fatigue and desire for peace. The purple color of the card indicates a desire to escape from reality. Brown color symbolizes the desire to feel protected. And finally, the choice of a black card indicates that the applicant is in a state of depression. Of course, the first 4 colors are the most favorable, and therefore they are at the beginning.
The second test example is drawing. On a piece of paper, applicants are asked to depict a house (a symbol of the need for security), a person (the degree of obsession with their personality) and a tree (characterizes the person’s vital energy). It should be remembered that the elements of the picture must be proportional. Do not forget about such elements of the composition as the path to the house (sociability), the roots of the tree (spiritual connection with people, the team), the fruits (practicality).
Advantages and disadvantages of testing
The advantages of this technique in determining the personal, as well as professional qualities of the applicant are surprise, interest, the possibility of obtaining the right result. But not everything is so simple. It should be remembered that when passing this kind of tests, the mood of a person can affect the results. In addition, each differently evaluates the elements of reality. For example, for one, the black color certainly indicates depression, and for the other, superiority, sophistication, and courage.
Psychological job interview
Direct communication of the head of the company with a potential worker is also an important stage in assessing the identity of a candidate for a vacancy. During the conversation, you can ask clarifying questions, also evaluate the interviewee's speech skills, his composure, self-confidence, and also reaction. In the process of communication, you can find out information about both the personal and professional characteristics of potential employees.
Interview: Pros and Cons
Of course, such a way of meeting the candidate for the vacancy is to the liking of employers, because they can thus evaluate not only the internal qualities of a person, but also his appearance. Unfortunately, there is a lot of subjectivity here, because managers often have stereotypical ideas about the ideal employee, and if the candidate’s appearance was not appreciated by the employer, he will not want to learn about his inner qualities.
Impact beyond recruitment
Psychological techniques in addition to the initial stage of communication with potential workers are used by employers in the process of joint work. In addition, not only company executives use them, but also other categories of workers in their professional activities. For example, there are various psychological techniques for working with children. A child is not always honest with his parents and teachers, so sometimes different tests or questionnaires are used to determine the reasons for his unethical behavior. Employers, in turn, also use psychological methods of working with discipline violations. As various sociological polls testify , people and their productivity are more influenced by rewards and favorable relationships, but not by any censure on the part of superiors.