JOB ANALYSIS 
2 53 
bounds of possibility. Consequently, the work of em 
ployment 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 first 
hand 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 im 
possible, to maintain expert interviewers in every one of 
them. Moreover, it is one thing to be an expert at a cer 
tain 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 inter 
viewers 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 fore 
man. At the same time, it places back on the foreman a