Development of a Multinational Personnel Selection System

Exist national differences in selection processes and some of the variability across organizations in staffing approaches is due to the nation in which an organization operates. In this case, we have an international management, German and Chinese Human Resource experts with multinational candidates and aspects of selection system.

Each recruitment source has strengths and shortcomings. Heneman (2011) accentuated that broad generalizations can be made regarding quantity, quality, cost and can impact the human resources outcomes for different recruiting methods.

The first strength about the personnel selection system was having the final decision about how to select these people. They decided on two-tiered. The first tier consisting of viewing of the candidates' application documents, a telephone conference with the applicants in an unstructured manner, and obtaining of three former employer's references. The second tier was separated by four modules: 1) panel interview; 2) biography-oriented in- depth; 3) simulated group exercise and 4) testing procedures.

Another relevant strength was having three persons evaluating the applicants' documentation. This "6-eye-method", as Krause et al (2007) referred to, is a process of overview the applicants and their qualifications. The "6-eye-method", it is very interesting and essential because the applicants will have more than one opinion about their applications. This method is a good way to have broadened perspective of the candidates. For this case, APAC personnel were focusing more on the KSAOs of the applicants. Effectively, staffing group would have to define the job requirements together with competency information, for each of these management positions available. The definition of the job requirements was proposed and the Koch, the manager leader, agreed on them. They were based on six dimensions cited by one of the team members: planning / organizing, initiative, adaptability, conflict management, decision-making / goal-orientation, and leadership (Krause et al, 2007). Sustained by this definition, the personnel selection criterion was completed.

I visualized the phone call interviews as strengths and shortcomings as well. Phone interviews have been very cooperative and beneficial for many employers, and one of the advantages it is the travel costs reduction. In addition, the phone call can encourage the applicant to listen to a question and respond it on his/hers time. Another advantage will be because the applicant is not at the same room as the interviewer; he/she can make commentaries accompanied by facial expressions. What probably a person would not do it in a face-to-face interview. Normally, interviewers want to know who the applicant is, what he/she knows, and whether if this person would be good to work with (Kauffman, 2010).

On the other hand, shortcomings may appear as; the interviewers can make their decisions based on superfluous aspects rather than on the applicant's abilities and qualifications. Some factors to influence the interviewers can be tone of the interviewee's voice: its inflection, mood, attitude, and even body language can interfere on the voice.

In addition, APAC's HR group would have the references from former employers as another strong point to evaluate the applicant's personality. This can bring more information about the candidate's relationship with colleagues and managers. Also, it could value if the individual had social skills and if he/she could work around difficult social workers situations.

On the second part of the selection process, four modules would be handled. In my personal opinion, the second tier could have being cut in half. I don't believe that the biography-oriented interview could have a good effect in this selection. According to Krause et al 's article (2007) the in-depth biography-oriented interview will have as primary objective to gain insights into the candidate's private and professional past. The interview would not be oriented towards job requirements, but instead consider the candidates' complete life span and be of a general nature.

This biography-oriented