346 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
well, or because it promises to allow him to be near his 
friends, his preference for that work may be called a de 
rived preference. Such a preference may usually be modi 
fied during the course of an employment interview. If 
not, it belongs in the group of fixed preferences. Finally, 
there are many applicants who have very little choice or 
none at all. These applicants are willing to take almost 
any job, at a reasonable rate, which the employment 
office can give them. 
The first step in every interview should be to ascertain 
the nature of the applicant’s preference and to which 
of these classes it belongs. When this has been done, 
the subsequent steps can be guided accordingly. We 
shall take up each one of these possibilities separately, 
since in each case the plan of procedure involves funda 
mental variations. In a case of the first kind, where the 
applicant’s preference has been fixed by previous training, 
the procedure is a straightforward one of discovering 
how much the applicant knows about his trade and how 
well he is fitted for the work which the employment office 
has at its disposal. In discovering these facts, the inter 
viewer will, unless he is very familiar with the work in 
question, first look up the description which has been 
furnished by the job analysis. He will then compare the 
candidate’s application blank with the job description to 
discover whether the applicant has the requisite experi 
ence, age, education, and so forth, required by the partic 
ular job. If the information on the application blank is 
satisfactory, the next step is to conduct tests which shall 
reveal how thorough and extensive the education, experi 
ence, and ability of the applicant really are. Obviously, 
it is one thing to claim certain things on an application 
blank or in an interview and another to be in possession