| EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY
executives. The investigation had then to be abandoned for
lack of a sound criterion.
Early consideration, then, of available criteria of voca-
tional success in the occupation being studied will enable
an investigator to avoid serious pitfalls. The selection of
subjects for the investigation, the determination of the abili-
ties essential to success in the vocation, and the choice of
tests will depend in part on the criterion of success which
is adopted.
If there were no problem of personnel there would be no
need to make an investigation of the type we are describing.
The motive for making the investigation usually comes
from a large turnover among workmen, excessive breakage,
low output, high cost of training new employees, or some
similar problem of management. When the investigator is
faced with such a problem, the criterion by which the man-
agement will judge his efforts is the improvement of exist-
ing conditions. The investigator is obliged to adopt as his
criterion the variable which has occasioned the study.
Vocational success as seen through the eyes of the man-
agement may be quite different from the ideals of success
which motivate the worker. The college student who sells
some article from house to house in order to earn money
to finish his course is not to be compared with the man of
less than average intelligence who does this to support his
family. Perhaps one standard of success among secretaries
is matrimony. Toolmakers not infrequently shift from fac-
tory to factory in order to broaden their experience and
increase their trade skill; and among some groups of tool-
makers it is a matter of professional pride not to have
worked long for one concern. Their ideal of vocational
success is a well-rounded versatility. The employer’s ideal
is competency in making the particular sorts of tools he
needs, with the particular equipment he provides. It does
no harm for the investigator to canvass the workers as to
their ideals of vocational success in order to see if these are
in agreement with the ideals of the management. A lack of
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