Introduction
Selection and recruitment processes in many organizations take different forms. This includes interviews, activities and tasks, internal selection and direct appointments without any vetting. During the selection of a team leader responsible for overseeing the rest of the team, different methods may be employed. Interviews and task assignment in form of a presentation was the method selected. The human resource manager wants to evaluate the effectiveness and success of the entire selection process. This paper looks at the attributes that were required of the prospective holder of that post (project team leader), and how well the process was able to meet the criteria for indentifying those attributes from the candidates. This will be the measure for how effective the selection process was.
Qualities of a Team Leader
When a company undertakes a project a person responsible for the other persons is appointed to oversee the actions of the project. This person should posses certain qualities which will be able to reflect themselves in the qualitative and quantitative aspects required from a project that a company seeks to undertake. Therefore the selection process adopted should be in a position to have the best employee for that job. For example it is paramount for that person to have people skills, listening skills and dialogue ability as the team will involve human beings who have temperaments and different social and mental capabilities.
A team leader in a manufacturing project should be able to inspire others towards getting the best. He should be a visionary and above all should be hard working and dedicated to his work. Since it is a manufacturing leadership position, the leader should possess creativity and innovativeness that is required to enable the company to move forward technologically and keep up the pace of competition and if possible be ahead of competitors. These attributes can only be found after a comprehensive selection process.
Effectiveness of Selection Process
Interviews
The selection and recruitment process that the company employed entailed a presentation and then an interview which was one on one. According to the attributes that the company might be looking for in an interviewee, the selection process is quite fair and detailed. This means that it will achieve the desired target of getting the right person. In comparison with the other available recruitment processes such as internal selection process, interviewing sounds great as it has many advantages (Johnson, 1990).
Interviewing has the element of bringing competition and the best person is presumed to have carried the day. This greatly reduces the post recruitment dissonance and lack of morale that may be associated with others like direct appointment. The other employees feel that it is fair and it therefore creates a better working environment for the team leader. Another very important attribute of interviewing is that it brings freshness in the group that will be working together as noted by McDaniel et al. (1994). This is especially true if the interviewees do not necessarily come from the same organization. This means that new ideas come in from the new faces and this motivates the group to have even greater mental elasticity which enhances creative juices according to Grove (1981).
In a one on one interview it is very easy to detect or to extract attributes that a person should have to take the leadership of a team. The attributes mentioned above like inspirational, people skills and the ability to have good conflict resolution mechanisms and skills can easily be detected from an interview. This also enables the company human resource persons to know how well the person can be able to grow the group and have the results that they require. This predictive approach may sometimes fail especially where only one person is involved as the interviewer. Therefore it is advisable to use panel interviews according to Ghiselli (1966).
In light of the needs that the company wants to fill by hiring a team leader of a manufacturing project, the interview process must have been effective. In as much as it may have spent a lot of time to vet all the candidates individually; it will pay off as the best will be chosen according to Haenlein (2010). It served the purpose it was intended for as it arrived at the best candidate. Therefore, it was the best recruitment process employed by the company as regards the post attributes the company was looking for from the candidates.
Presentation
Prior to the interview the company engaged each candidate to a task. The task entailed preparing a presentation. The presentation required the team leaders to be to address their prospective members of the team with details of the plans ahead and to solicit for their opinion at the end of the presentation. This was a very great process because it brought a real life project planning in front of the eyes of the interviewers according to Lopez (1966).
The presentation was basically a very good measure of how creative the team leader can be which in essence meant that they can be able to be effective. If a candidate failed in this area, it also means that it will be so hard to succeed in the project itself. The part that required the candidate to engage the members in questions was a great measure of listening skills and interactive people skills. These are two attributes that are likely to be the foundation on which the manufacturing project is based. It was also a way to measure the ability of the team leader to engage the others to be creative so as to achieve the best from the project.
Research skills are the cornerstone of the success of a manufacturing project. A presentation that lacks an element of a well researched document automatically fails in the test for recruitment. Therefore, by employing this part of the interview, the interviewers were in a position to weigh the ability of the prospective team leaders to do research on topics that will affect them during their work. This includes knowledge of the company’s products and its mission and vision concerning the project. It also entails the actual work that the company will be doing on the ground as regards the manufacturing project.
A presentation also has the ability to gauge the preparedness of a person and content brevity. This is a measure of how well the person can communicate jargon to laymen or people who may not have the technical dimension of the process that is being pursued. Therefore it is going to be simple for the team leader to break down lots of information and technical data to the employers and fellow team members (Jones, 1978).
Conclusion
The selection and recruitment process for the post of a team leader in manufacturing was done in a professional and a very successful way. It brought to the fore important parts that were quite imperative in the future success of the entire project (Komives, 1984). Employment of presentations may have cost the company a lot of time and maybe resources, but the ultimate outcome cannot be definitely compared to the cost. The cost cannot be compared with the detrimental effect that the prospective project would have on the company if it fails. The only guarantee for its success is if the right person was appointed to head it as noted by Hovland and Wonderlic (1999).
Interviews were also the best employed to narrow down candidates to the best for that post. It effectively brought the inner person that might be hidden. The fact that it was a panel interview was able to eliminate the issue of biasness as many people may not be wrong or collectively biased towards or against a particular person. It also may have been time wasting considering the number of candidates and the logistics of the whole process but the outcome was the most important thing. The fears associated with a particular person can easily be detected from the behavior of the person during the interview. This is in association with other weaknesses that a person may have which may be hard to detect from a person if other recruitment processes are employed (McQuail, 2000).
References
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Grove, D. A. (1981) A Behavioral Consistency Approach To Decision Making In Employment Selection. Personnel Psychology, 34, pp 55-64.
Haenlein, H. (2010) The challenges and opportunities of Social Media. Business Horizons, 54(1), pp 1-10.
Hovland, C. & Wonderlic, E. (1999) Prediction of Industrial Success From a Standardized Interview. Journal of Applied Psychology, 23, pp 537-546.
Johnson, G. (1990) The Structured Interview: Manipulating Structuring Criteria And The Effects On Validity, Reliability, And Practicality. New Orleans, LA: Tulane University.
Jones, D. (1978) Predicting Teaching Processes With The Teacher Perceiver Interview. Blacksburg: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Komives, E. (1984) The Applicant Interview As A Predictor Of Resident Performance. Journal of Medical Education, 59, pp 425-426.
Lopez, F. M. (1966). Current Problems in Test Performance of Job Applicants: Personnel Psychology, 19, pp 10-18.
McDaniel, M. et al. (1994) The Validity Of Employment Interviews: A Comprehensive Analysis. Journal of applied psychology, 79(4), pp 599-616.
McQuail, D. (2000) Mass Communication Theory. London: Sage.