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LettersRecruitment & retentionPsychometric testing

Subjectivity has no place in recruitment

by Personnel Today 17 May 2005
by Personnel Today 17 May 2005

Did Alan Sugar rely too heavily on his own gut feeling in selecting a winner for the television series The Apprentice, which you reported on in your last issue (Personnel Today, 3 May)?

Many business leaders are tempted to hire individuals who closely match their own values, skills and persona. However, in doing so, they risk passing over candidates who can bring valuable complementary skills to their business.

To counter this, Sir Alan would perhaps have been better served by incorporating a degree of objective assessment in the selection process.

Such an approach would have focused on selecting a candidate who not only had the right potential and track record, but who also demonstrated the right behaviour.

Entertaining as it was, and while the winner is to be congratulated, one can’t help but feel that had objective assessment been used in The Apprentice, the selection process would have been shorter and less prone to subjectivity.

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Kevin Kerrigan
Managing director
SHL (UK)

 

Personnel Today

Personnel Today articles are written by an expert team of award-winning journalists who have been covering HR and L&D for many years. Some of our content is attributed to "Personnel Today" for a number of reasons, including: when numerous authors are associated with writing or editing a piece; or when the author is unknown (particularly for older articles).

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Personnel Today
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