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EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY
tests. Whereas mistakes in hiring were once attributed
immediately to the tests, office heads are now inclined to
question their own judgment as well. The result of this
change of emphasis from the personal to the impersonal
has been a much more consistent treatment of clerks in
general, and a much more decided conservation of human
material. Snap judgments are less common than was once
the case.
On the other hand, there have been freq lent instances
in which the tests themselves were at fault. For example,
the examiner would find that certain clerks who had failed
in the tests but who had nevertheless been engaged for
a trial, were succeeding beyond a doubt. A more minute
scrutiny of such cases usually showed that the clerk in
question was engaged at work for which the tests were
not in the least intended. For instance, it was once
customary to give every clerk a test in the fundamentals
of arithmetic. However, it frequently happened that
clerks were put at work which did not involve any knowledge
of arithmetic, and therefore they often proved successful
even though they had done extremely poor work
in this test and only fair work in the remaining tests.
Such cases, frequently met with, showed not so much the
inadequacy of tests in general as the inadequacy of certain
tests for certain kinds of work. In fact, one of the
most valuable features of the systematic follow up outlined
was to reveal discrepancies between particular tests
and particular kinds of work, and thereby point out
the need for a more careful study of the varieties of
clerical work and, at the same time, a more careful adaptation
of specific tests to meet these varieties. The manner
in which these requirements were filled is described in
following chapters.
