Selection procedures and questions

In order to help young people look for jobs, we have several articles to guide them. We hope that our advices can help young people to find jobs easily. In this article, I am going to specify about the procedures used to select people and the type of questions interviewers usually ask. [1]

There are several ways to select people for jobs. For written procedures, tests are used to select people. Extended writing task [2] is one of them. The candidates are asked to write  a longer piece of work in whatever language or languages the job requires (4).   They  might have to do in a company   [5] .Another kind of test is multiple-choice test. [6] The test requires test-takers to choose an answer from several options given. [7] It takes an hour usually and can find out as much as possible about the personalities of people who apply for the jobs. [8] It is also easy to administer. [9]

Apart from written procedures, the interviews are more commonly used in Hong Kong. The most traditional one is an individual interview. [10] This involves two people only; one candidate sits in a room, and being asked by the interviewer alone. [11] The interviewer tends to use this method as they can focus on the one candidate in depth [12] and it allows follow-up questions. [13]

On the other hand, the new methods are increasingly popular. The multi-candidate interview is used widely now. [14] That means there are several candidates, usually two to four, [15] are interviewed at one time, with more than two interviewers. It usually takes one to two hours. This method allows easy comparison of candidates. [17] It is particularly useful for small companies as it saves much time. [16]

Another popular way to select people is the role-plays. [18] That means several candidates are grouped together, and the group is assigned a task to perform. [19] Each candidate will have a role to act out, for example, a team leader or a customer. Again, this method usually gets more than two interviewers, two to four candidates and takes one to two hours. It is good for observing candidates’ problem-solving and decision making skills [21] and it allows observation of personal interaction. [22] Of course, it saves time for the companies. [20]

An informal selection procedure is also widely used now. Extensive Multipurpose Visits (EMV) [23] is a way to select employees, particularly for important or sensitive jobs. The companies will invite a candidate to spend several days with their staff. They will have relaxed chat, lunch or dinner, some sort of recreational activity. [24] This method can provide an excellent picture of the whole candidate: his/her personality and social skills, as well as the traditional information about education, professional skills, goals and so on. [25] Furthermore, language skills are also frequently assessed in all kinds of job selection procedures. [26]

After discussing different kinds of procedure for selecting people, I will turn to the questions asked by the employers. By a survey to 289 personnel managers, the most common topics of questions are experience and work habits. Personality and education are less common. [27]

For the forms of questions, there are two types of questions asked during interviews, closed [28] and open questions [29]. Closed questions means the answer is seemingly either yes or no. But an elaboration following yes or no by giving more information is more informative, interesting and polite. [31] The open questions are asked to encourage candidates to give information and tend to begin with words like ‘what’, ‘why’ or ‘how’. [30] Candidates should make sure their answers are relevant [32] and avoid exaggerating. [33] We should also relate answers to contents of CV. [34]

All in all, the procedures for selecting job applicants are getting more and more diversified. But all are the same! Always remember to have a clear career direction and we will succeed! I hope all of us can enjoy working with jobs we are interested in! [35]