JOB ANALYSIS
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bounds of possibility. Consequently, the work of employment
has been carried on with only a superficial
knowledge, in most cases, of the jobs affected. There is
no doubt that, in the first flush of ease with which this
method functioned, the importance of this factor was
largely lost sight of. And it is equally certain that this
oversight has played a considerable part in the high labor
turnover which has characterized industry in recent
years.
This difficulty has not gone entirely unrecognized, and
various attempts have been made to overcome it. Among
them is the retention, as employment interviewers of men
who are experts in certain kinds of work. Their firsthand
knowledge of the work presumably fits them to
recognize during the course of an interview the applicant’s
qualifications for it. This method, while decidedly better
than one in which interviewers are not experts, has certain
shortcomings. In the first place, the increasing variety of
jobs makes it cumbersome and uneconomical, if not impossible,
to maintain expert interviewers in every one of
them. Moreover, it is one thing to be an expert at a certain
job and another to discover by means of an interview
the presence or absence of the necessary ability in a
stranger. Expert workers are seldom expert interviewers
or judges of human nature.
As an alternative, especially where the more skilled
trades are concerned, it is often the practice to send
applicants directly to the proper shop, and to let the
foreman of the shop hold the decisive interview. This
method has certain advantages, but it really defeats the
very purpose of a centralized employment system in that
it tends to delegate its powers of discretion to the foreman.
At the same time, it places back on the foreman a
