Question

What is the difference between initial and final selection methods? Why are both needed for most jobs? Why is it important to carefully define the meaning of “applicant” for selection purposes?

Answer 1

In the initial screening, the human resource managers review the information presented before him or her by the applicants in order to select the applications for selecting those candidates who are very serious for the job. If you talk about the final screening then this is the method which is used to reduce or minimize the applicant’s pool to the most qualified applicants. These activities may include an ability test, interviews, competency test, etc. The final screening may also include background verification, medical test, reference check, etc before offering the final job to the applicants. Both are needed for the job because in the interviews the applicants present wrong data and information to get preference over the other candidates. The initial screening is helpful to eliminate the wrong information given by the applicants. The companies need an appropriate candidate for the given job and this could be possible only when the applicants are screened. And these two methods are useful for applicant screening. So for getting asset type of employees both the terms are very necessary for the company. Getting a detailed interview of every candidate is not possible for any company. It is time-consuming for human resource managers. Because of initial screening, the pool of candidates is narrowed down and only the best person is selected for the jobs.

It is very important to carefully define the meaning of “applicant” for selection purpose. This is very useful in discrimination charges on the company. If ‘applicant’ term is not there then the job applicants can send an inquiry over mail to the company and later decide to sue the company for different discrimination charges if the complaint is not decided to offer the job. So this will cost to the company. Because of that, it is very important to carefully define the meaning of ‘applicant’ for selection purposes.