q.66 
EMPLOYMENT PSYCHOLOGY 
item which provides for just such a contingency. There 
are, to be sure, many jobs which require ability of a very 
high degree, and in order to get any comprehensive idea 
of this ability, it is necessary to go into much greater detail 
concerning the work than has been done in the foregoing 
analysis. However, the discussion of job analysis has 
been here confined to the more fundamental and common 
elements and the more advanced kinds of trades are dis 
cussed in other chapters. 
Now that it has been made clear what is implied by a 
comprehensive job analysis, the three remaining condi 
tions can be taken up in comparatively brief form. The 
second condition named is that such an analysis must be 
brief. Brevity is always a self-evident virtue. But as 
applied to the work of interviewing and choosing appli 
cants, the importance of brevity becomes even more 
obvious. When an interviewer needs to look up the 
characteristics of a job, he must be able to find them in the 
shortest possible time and with the least possible trouble. 
All the items contained in the outline given can be put on 
a single card four inches by six inches in size. Conformity 
to a standard, the third condition named, contributes to 
brevity although this is not its only merit. The impor 
tance of having jobs described in standard terms is almost 
the same as having people make out application blanks 
which are standard. It promotes simplicity and definite 
ness, makes sure of the essential features and excludes the 
non-essential, and in fact fulfills a large number of re 
quirements. Unless the description of jobs is made to 
conform to some such standard, the results will be a 
heterogeneous mass of facts and figures which can be used 
only with the utmost inconvenience. 
The fourth condition calls for a description of the job