MGMT20004 – Week 8

1. What are KSAOs, and what would you consider most important ones to have a successful candidate for the
first line manager in your company to have?

KSAO is a set of criteria used to judge how qualified an employee or job applicant is for the purposes of
recruitment, performance evaluation and career development (“Encyclopedia.com, 2006). KSAO is the
acronym for Knowledge, Skills, Abilities and Other characteristics and is usually used in the recruitment
process to see whether the employee or applicant is well suited to a particular job or task(Kramar et al.,
2011). Knowledge refers to the procedural information required to complete the task, such as the steps
required to create a shoe. The the higher the knowledge criteria required for a job, the more it can be
considered to be a highly academic position requiring more cognitive abilities. Skills relates how proficient the
individual is at apply the knowledge to the work such as the knowledge used by an IT staffed to maintain the
office network system. Abilities refers more to the innate qualities of the individual that are used in the job
such as the ability to listen and understand information and ideas from a speech or interview. Other
characteristics, also refers other abilities and innate attributes which can enhance or improve the individual's
performance on the job, however they are not able to be seen until the person is working. For example, a
hospitality worker having great interpersonal skills which will help them relate to their clients or patients.

For organisations to obtain the optimum performance benefits from their workers, it is the human resource
department to match workers' KSAO to a particular job. Therefore an analysis of the jobs available is required
so that a comparison of between an employee's or applicant's KSAO to the job will reveal whether they are
qualified for the job. A first line manager is responsible for managing the day-to-day activities of a group of
workers, much like a group leader (“Basics – Definitions (and Misconceptions) About Management”, 1995).
They are also partly responsible in recruitment of new employees and so must have knowledge of the work
done. Furthermore they also need to understand the HRM practices to relate worker performance towards
the strategic goals of the organisation (Kramar et al., 2011). Hence the most important KSAO criteria for a
successful first line manager is to have knowledge and skill, as it is needed to co-ordinate the group of
workers in the direction of the organisational goal.

2. Do you think that interviews were the best method to select an applicant for the front line manager's job?
Justify your answer by comparing and contrasting interviews with another type of method for selecting job
applicants. You should consider the reliability, validity and costs associated with both selection methods.

Front line managers are usually working together with the employees to direct them towards the
organisational goal and therefore must understand the strategies employed by the management team but
also understand how the job is done. Since there will be a large amount of interaction between the workers
and the front line manager, the manager will be needing lots of interpersonal skills and also knowledge about
the type of work and how it is to be completed. Hence an interview would be more effective than just a
cognitive ability test. An interview is more effective in selecting for a front line manager candidate because it
has the ability to test more aspects of the applicant. An interview's purpose is to test an individual's
communication skills, listening and interpreting skills, knowledge and on the spot problem solving. This is
more relevant to a front line manager, because it tests the essentials KSAO requirements for the job
requirement rather than a written cognitive test which can only test for the knowledge component, making it
a more valid indicator of a suitable candidate.

The disadvantages of an interview is that it is prone to the interviewer's bias being factored into the results.
To reduce this, the interview must be structured so that there are standardised questions which have set
answers to them. This means that the interviewer cannot create biased questions and answers and hence
skew the results. In this aspect, the written cognitive test is better because it allows for anonymous testing,
which allows for more privacy and hence less prone to bias. The interview method of selection is less reliable
than a cognitive written test because depending on the how the person is feeling (health and emotion wise),
it can affect how they respond to the questions asked. However, on a written cognitive test, the knowledge
shown will always be approximately the same no matter the situation. Furthermore, an interview is more
resource intensive because you need to analyse the overall person, meaning costs in hiring more people to
facilitate the interviews whereas the the written cognitive test is just marked based on the absolute
percentage obtained and hence it's easier to do in large volume, making it cheaper, easier and quicker to
conduct these tests.

Interviews are more suited to selecting a front line manager's job because it tests the candidate on a more
well rounded criteria. However to improve the selection process, both an interview and a written cognitive
test is suggested so that a more complete KSAO can be created for the applicant.

p. 1
MGMT20004 – Week 8

Reference

Basics – Definitions (and Misconceptions) About Management. (1995). Retrieved April 20th, 2011, from
http://managementhelp.org/mgmnt/defntion.htm

Encyclopedia.com. (January, 2006). Retrieved April 20th, 2011, from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O18-

KSAOs.html

Kramar, R., Bartram, T., De Cieri, H., A. Noe, R., R. Hollenbeck, J., Gerhart, B., et al. (2011). Human Resource
Management in Australia – Strategy, People, Performance. North Ryde NSW, Australia: McGraw-Hill Australia

p. 2
MGMT20004 – Week 8

Evaluation of Internal and External Environments of the Fictional Consulting Firm

In previous assumption it was established that there are about 200 employees employed at the consulting firm where
50 of them are full time employees. The company is still newly open, being in the business for approximately 2 to 3
years old, based in Melbourne and Sydney but planning to expand into international markets. At the moment company
growth is stable with solid profits. There are no booms in profits at the moment and in the short foreseen future due
to fierce competition between other consulting companies and also the company's focus on stabilising their internal
environments. In this SWOT analysis about recruiting and selection, new assumptions must also be made about the
company.

Strengths
Given that this is a consulting firm, it needs new ideas and innovations to help keep itself differentiated and unique,
hence capturing more interested clients. To get new ideas and innovation, the company can recruit externally from the
company, getting other who have fresh a views on things. By keeping new ideas flowing, it will keep the current
employees satisfied and hence increases motivation and turnover cost. Furthermore, there is also a larger pool of
talent to pick from and hence there is a large potential to find applicants which would fit the job requirements much
better. This also means that there will be some new graduates that are hired but also experience workers from other
firms which can also add to the company with their experience and expertise.

Recruiting internally is also a great way to motivate employees to work harder within the company to get a chance of
promotion allowing for increased performance to get recognition. Internal recruiting is easier for the company because
it's cheaper and quicker, because there is less training required. The employee already has insights into the way in
which the company operates and so is able to fit in much quicker. Moreover, the company already knows the
capabilities of the worker and hence less resources used. By internally recruiting, the company keeps it's knowledge
which can then be transferred to the employee which has now been recruited to fill in the new vacancy.

Weakness
Sometimes the selection process used to is not effective enough to separate the most compatible candidates due to
the fact that many candidates use a facade to fool the selection panel. This means that some of the employees that
enter the company will leave the company soon after that hence wasting training resources on the employee. Not only
that but since the process for recruiting externally takes a longer time to process and it is more expensive due to the
fact that the company needs to advertise and do interviews, hence a leaving employee means a larger proportion of
investment on the employee is wasted. This also leads to the problem of them taking knowledge out of the company.

With recruiting internally, employees sense that they are being unfairly treated due to the fact their their workmate
has been promoted instead of them. This apparent inequity will lead to reduced motivation and satisfaction that can
result in workers exiting the firm. This promotion of the employee will then leave a new vacancy spot that has to be
filled in, but this method of recruiting chooses from a restricted pool, hence the worker may not be very suited for the
position. This is not to mention that since the worker has already integrated into the company, he will be thinking like
everyone else and hence there will be little innovation available.

Opportunities
During the recruiting and selection period it is the best time to attract a rival company's employees and new talent. By
obtaining employees from rival companies, the consulting company gains new experienced workers which can then
utilise their knowledge and expertise into staying one step ahead of the other companies. Furthermore by obtaining
new talent in a broad range of areas, the company can diversify possibly going into new markets which will allow them
to gain more clients and hence power in the market.

Threats
Overextending resources in preparation of expansion into other markets and overseas expansion can leave the
company vulnerable to loss of workers and present market place. Overextension will cause undue worker stress
increasing sick leave and result in loss of overall performance and profits.

Recruiting employees to expand overseas, means relocating some workers into foreign cultures to help teach the new
employees. However, cultural differences may be a barrier to this resulting integration problems.

Recommendation
It is recommended that the consulting firm stays in Melbourne and Sydney to consolidate their position in the market
by focusing on local growth. This will prevent overextending the organisation resources and allow more time for the

p. 3
MGMT20004 – Week 8

company to mature and gain reputation that will make it easier to expand overseas. Moreover, by consolidating their
position it allows time to define their company structure and helps to organise and prioritise their long term goals.

During this time, to consolidate the company's position it would be best to attract as many bright minds from rival
companies slow down other company's progress. This can be done through several ways such as advertising better
working conditions, increased pay using leading the market payroll or a tailored job will attract employees from other
companies. This will increase the company's total knowledge and experience which can then be transferred to newer
members. Not only will it attract workers from other companies, but it will also pull graduates and other workers to
you giving your company a large pool of very potential workers. All these new people will bring newer innovation and
ideas that will help develop the organisation's direction. However, due to new workers not yet fully incorporated into
the company culture, internal recruiting should also be done so that some of the more important positions can be run
by workers who already understand the company allowing for more efficient running for management. A balance of
both internal and external recruiting should be done so that there is still enough new talent to allow organisational
growth but also fluid management. However, beware of the internal disorder due to workers feeling apparent inequity
from the promotions of colleagues and hence to reduce this, communication is essential to workers about the
conditions for promotion. This is because the workers will understand what is expected of them and hence there will
be less apparent inequity between workers.

Questions

1. When does rigorous selection process cross the line of being bias or discriminative? Does this line change
when the name of the company is taken into account?

2. Discuss the needs of internal and external recruiting for different industries. Do different industries seem to
prefer one type of recruitment strategy more than the other?

3. Discuss the relevance of KSAO reports and its importance in job compatibility.

p. 4