- Psychometric testing
- Presentations
- Group Exercise
- Assessment centres
- Role Playing
- Applications Forms
Application forms
An application form is a form filled in by candidates to reply to a chosen job vacancy. When candidates are filling out an application form, they included details about their pervious work experience including job title and main responsibilities applicants are responsible for. Candidates also needed to include their qualifications to date, including place of study were qualification was achieved. Other sections in an application form is the key skills section, where applicants state key skills they are fully competent in. Interests and hobbies are usually requested in applicants form along with at least two references. To apply for a vacancy at British Airways, the initial stage requires applicants to complete an online application form in addition to a CV that also has to be provided.
Interviewing
An interview is a “formal face-to-face meeting, especially, one arranged for the assessment of the qualifications of an applicant, as for employment” .
It form part of the selection process, usually the final aspect of assessment, to evaluate an individual work experiences, education and personal qualifications of candidates for the available vacancy. The format is usually biographical and is based on key competencies required for the job. British Airways interviews are behavioural as it asks about the candidates experience in different situations using real –life examples from work, university, social clubs or home. Interviews at British Airways are based on key competencies that are essential for a candidate to be successful in the chosen field.
Psychometric tests
Psychometric testing “is a way of assessing a person’s ability/personality in a measured and structured way” (http://www.keele.ac.uk)
There are three main types of testing, ability and aptitude, general intelligence and personality questionnaires. Psychometric testing help employers in the recruitment process especially in graduate employment, as it’s used to exonerate a large number of applications at an early stage therefore saving organisations time and money.
Aptitude testing consists normally of verbal reasoning or numerical aptitude, it focus on individual potential to undertake specific tasks and is not dependent on prior learning and knowledge but more on candidates natural ability. Ability testing assesses candidates general ability and is concerned with skills and ability already acquired by an individual e.g. word processing test.
General intelligence testing, gives an indication of overall mental capacity and how good candidates are at solving problem using logical thinking. Lewis 1985 stated that “personality questionnaire allow quantification of characteristics that are important to job performance and difficult to measure by other methods”
British Airways mainly conduct attitude testing which normally focus on verbal and numerical skills. Candidates are required to sit two tests normally, with applicants for senior or management roles required to participate in more. BA also conducts personality assessment, to find out more about the candidate.
Assessment centres
Flower 1992 stated that assessment centres “consist of a small group of participants who undertake a series of tests and exercise under observation, with a view to the assessment of their skills and competencies, their suitability for particular roles and their potential for development”. The reason for conducting assessment centres is due to the weaknesses of a single selection process. Assessment centres usually last from 1 to 3 days and are used to gather information on candidates suitability for job, they are extremely useful as employer can gather a picture of applicants major strengths and weaknesses .There are several key characteristics of assessment centres which are,
- Multiple assessors are used (ratio is usually one assessor to three candidates),
- Selection decisions are based on pooled decisions
- A variety of group and individual assessment techniques are used.
The aim of assessment centres is to uncover which applicants have the most suitable personal attributes, problem solving skills and general aptitude, and which candidates would fit best and excel within the organisation structure and culture. Disadvantages of assessment centres are the costs and wide range of resources required.
British Airways assessment centres consist of a variety of tasks which are presentations, role plays, group exercise and tests. Presentation give applicants the “chance to show ability to communicate to a group of people” (). Role plays usually “involve an assessor acting as your client or customer in a simulation of a negotiation exercise, interview or performance appraisal” (). Group exercises “look at how you work with other people, in particular examining your influencing, communication and teamwork skills”( ).
Research from a wide variety of sources into selection interviews; have established that structured interviews have a much higher predictive validity than unstructured equivalents. There are several issues associated with the validity associated with interviewing. When candidates are interviewed, normally present are at least three assessors who might have different view on the candidate they looking for concerning the job vacancy. This is caused due to the personal specification being ambiguous, resulting in interviewers having different ideas on who would be a successful applicant. E.g. one interviewer may place greater importance on pervious experience, whereas another may value skills and knowledge to be more valuable. This is applicable especially to British Airways management and senior level vacancies, as several high leading management employees are present at interviews that have contrasting views on the most important factors required in applicants.
Another problem associated with interviewing, is the expectancy effect. Research studies showed that interviewers make a decision about candidates in the first four minutes of meeting them. Taylor stated “Undue influence may be given to positive or negative expectation of a candidate formed from his or her CV or application form” All other information gathered during the interview is usually adjusted to correspond with decisions previously made by interviewers.
Furthermore interviewers prefer candidates to be like themselves, this is know as the ‘similar to me effect’. Interviewers tend to give higher preferences to candidates that possess similar characteristics to themselves such as personality, skills, knowledge and background. Instead of matching candidates against job and person specification.
Also interviewers might make a decision based on whether they personally like or dislike the candidate.
A major issue involved with structured and competence based interviewing which is extremely popular with organisations like British Airways is that answers are available to competence based questions through a very wide variety of sources. There is a wide variety of books such as Gradate Career Handbook available providing questions and answers to a wide selection of probably behavioural and situational questions asked. Furthermore the internet provides a broad selection of possible answers to questions most likely to be asked. Majority of questions asked at British Airways interviews are behavioural based so this could provide a major problem for British Airways. As it could lead to an extensive range of applicants who are extremely well prepare, who seemed to have the required skills and knowledge for the vacancy, but actually don’t possess the right level of attributes and knowledge needed.
These issues regarding interviewing which affect British Airways can be addressed; British Airways need to make sure all interviewers are fully trained in interviewing and constantly receive training, at least on a annual basis for example to make sure interviewer skills are always up-to date. Furthermore issues stated above can be resolved by making sure interviewers are unbiased and don’t stereotype applications. British Airways also conducted assessment centres in accordance with interviews to make sure applicant actually possess the required skills, experience and knowledge and not actually learn competence answers.
Conclusion
Even though research has suggested interviews can be poor predictors of performance and has major flaws much of which have mention earlier, it’s still the most favoured form of selection technique due to the advantages it provides. If used correctly interviews can provided valid judgements which can be made on a number of aspects on behaviour. Furthermore interviews are important in selling the job to applicants. Also interviews allow the exploration of a specific topic, whilst allowing the applicant to tell the interviewer what they think is important.
Interviews also provide the opportunity for the applicant and employer to meet face to –face, this allow both of them to exchange information. Applicants can ask questions about the job and organisation, whereas interviewers can inform candidates of the role they are expected to perform and the duties they are expected to undertake. With experience and adequate training it should be possible to avoid the major flaws that can occur within the interviewing process that have been described. I feel interviews should be used in conjunction with some type of assessment in order to find the most suitable candidate for the job vacancy.
References and Bibliography
Websites
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British Airways, www.britishairways.com, Equal opportunity and diversity main page, Available at URL: [Accessed 22nd March, 2007]
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British Airways, , All about us, Available at URL
(Accessed 23
March 2007)
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British Airways, ,Recruitment Process, Available at URL (Accessed 23 March 2007)
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British Airways, , Assessment Process, Available at
URL (Accessed
24 March 2007)
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British Airways, , Commitment to You, Available at
URL (Accessed 24 March 2007)
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British Airways, , Information about British Airways, Available at URL (http:) (Accessed at 25 March)
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Dai-Sho, , Definition of interviewing, Available at URL () (Accessed at 25 March)
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Keele, , Definition of Psychometric testing, Availailable at URL () (Accessed at 25 March)
Books
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Beardwell.J, Claydon.T, 2007,Human Resource Management a Contemporary Approach ,5th edition, FT Prentice Hall (Dowling and Schuler)
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Beardwell.J, Claydon.T 2007,Human Resource Management a Contemporary Approach ,5th edition, FT Prentice Hall (Folwer 1992, page210)
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Beardwell.J, Claydon.T 2007,Human Resource Management a Contemporary Approach ,5th edition, FT Prentice Hall (Lewis 1985 page 209)
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Stredwick.J,2000, An Introduction To Human Resource Management,1st edition, Butterworth Heinemann
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Bratton.J, Jeffery.G,2003, Human Resource Management Theory and Practice, 3rd edition, Palgrave Macmillan
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Taylor.S, 2002, People Resourcing,2nd edition, Chartered Institute Of Personal Development