THE EXAMINATIONS AT WORK 
portance. In factory, office, and store, among clerks, skilled 
tradesmen, salesmen, laborers, and minor supervisors, and in 
the executive ranks of large-scale enterprises, is there need 
of better bases of information about available men and 
women for use in allocating occupational opportunities. The 
personal problems of government also, in the civil services 
of municipality, state, and nation, call for the best that 
science can contribute. Public schools and institutions of 
higher education have analogous tasks in the selection and 
100 
80 
| 60 
40 
2: 
or— _ ei —— 
1914 19:0 1916 1917 1918 191. Sul 
Year Hired with i 
Figure 34: Reduction of turnover among salesmen for a life insurance com- 
pany by improvement in methods of hiring. The chart is read as follows: 
Of the salesmen hired in 1914, 40% remained with the firm in 1915, 18% 
in 1916, 10% in 1917, 6% in 1918, 5.5% in 1919, and 5% were still with 
the firm in 1920. The next descending curve gives the same information 
for those salesmen hired in 1915. The improved methods of selection were 
installed in 1916. The subsequent years brought a steady increase in the 
proportion of newly hired employees remaining a year or longer, as shown 
by the rise in the heavy lines. 
231 
~