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Psychology Of Selection

For the past ten years, companies have complied with the equal opportunity slogan that the public has become so accustomed to seeing. The real question is, are all companies really equal opportunity employers? Through our research, it has become evident that equal opportunity standards are not always applied in the hiring process. There are many factors that contribute to the hiring process. Legally, an employer has the right to hire whoever it wants and it may establish any kind of selection application it chooses. Companies have many different reasons why they hire the people that they do; filling quotas is a large influence as well as race, age, weight, attractiveness, and gender preferences. These factors provide unfair opportunities to specific types of people and often overlook applicants who may be more qualified for a specific position. All of these issues are reasons why highly qualified applicants often are overlooked in the hiring process on an all-too regular basis. Organizational behavior provides a wealth of theoretical reasoning why the psychology of selection can often be an unethical process. Such theory will be used in the subsequent analysis of the current state of hiring practices in business.
The field of organizational behavior cites five characteristics employers desire when reviewing job applicants. The "big five" personality dimensions are as follows; conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism, openness to experience, and extroversion. These five personality dimensions offer an instrument for employers to judge potential employees. However as will be revealed in this paper, there are many outside influences that amend the hiring process in a negative manner.
In the process of hiring, sometimes simply having the necessary skill to do a job is not enough; companies are now beginning to look at more than just the skills of potential employees. The perfectly qualified candidate may not always be the best choice for a specific...