PERSONNEL SELECTION FOR CIVIL SERVICE JOBS

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Selection and recruitment are the primary responsibilities of the Human Resource Department. One of the greatest impediments the department can face entails seeking to hire a diverse and expertly skilled workforce. Some of the best techniques applied to measure job performance, including judgment, tend to deliver substantial differences in prospective clients originating from divergent races. The need to balance expert skills and diversity can be perceived as a ‘trade-off’ problem given the differences between traditional and contemporary selection methods. Traditional methods tend to prioritize high performers resulting in the development of a workforce low in diversity. Contrastingly, modern methods prioritize workplace diversity, which might negate the acquisition of best performers. Civil service, unlike the private sector, has less demand for expert skills. The best approach for a civil employer is the application of a multistage selection tactic that helps strike a balance between diversity and performance.

Multistage strategies tend to facilitate the identification of areas that require trade-offs to ensure balance in the organization. According to Wallace, the recruitment initiative should never employ social class as an explicit selection criterion[1]. Instead, the first process should entail a comprehensive cognitive abilities test to examine the knowledge, skill and abilities of the applicant. The approach ascertains that applicants are hired based on merit, as the recruitment process emphasized technical qualifications. Merit should be the primary philosophy for most civil service employment positions[2]. Given that traditional recruitment methods tend to disfavor minority communities, patronage should be reduced as a selection criterion. For one, the method is not subject to a confirmation process, which creates room for nepotism and favoritism in an institution. Given that patronage does not require any formalized application process, it should be removed as a recruitment strategy for civil service employment positions.

The federal preference for recruiting veterans has hidden socioeconomic costs. The federal government has a long history of hiring veterans as means of showing appreciation for their service and personal sacrifices. Census data from 1990 to 2009 shows that veterans are three times likely to secure federal jobs compared t individuals without military service[3]. Preferential treatment has an adverse effect in the employment of individuals from minority communities, even at the state and local levels. Veterans tend to be less educated and older compared to the non-military recruit. Therefore, there is little rationale basis as to why veterans should be prioritized over qualified individuals at the national level. There is substantial evidence asserting that veteran preference might be reducing the performance of civil service organizations. However, the question as to whether veteran preference should be terminated is a political question, subject to the philosophies of the ruling regime.

Trade-off is a concept in human resource that refers to the need to balance diversity and performance within an organization. Most studies assert that selections strategies that increase the number of minorities do so at the expense of estimated performance. Other studies present contrasting views concerning the opposite effect of the relationship between organizational performance and workplace diversity. However, the reality is that civil service jobs entail some degree of political agendas that need to be considered for the sake of administrative stability. Then again, civil service plays a critical role in the growth and advancement of the general population, which adds more pressure for expert skills. Any public institution can improve its trade-off by employing a multistage selection process that keeps in mind the costs, politics, logistics and time factors influential to the success of the organization.

Bibliography

Lewis, Gregory. The Impact of Veterans’ Preference on the Composition and Quality of the Federal Civil Service. Public Management and Policy Faculty Publications, no. 9, (2013): 1-37.

Wallace, Craig. Multistage Selection Strategies: Simulating the Effects on Adverse Impact and Expected Performance for Various Predictor Combinations. Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 94, no. 2, (2010): 318-340.

[1] Craig Wallace. Multistage Selection Strategies: Simulating the Effects on Adverse Impact and Expected Performance for Various Predictor Combinations. Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 94, no. 2, (2010): 321.

[2] Ibid

[3] Lewis Gregory. The Impact of Veterans’ Preference on the Composition and Quality of the Federal Civil Service. Public Management and Policy Faculty Publications, no. 9, (2013): 8.

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