THE PROBLEM OF SELECTION 
2. Are there more applicants than jobs? If the number 
of available applicants is less than the number of jobs that 
must be filled, then a research in selection is beside the point. 
Exceptions to this rule are found in those instances where 
greatly improved selection has decreased the number of 
employees required to do the work or has attracted to the 
employment window a larger and better group of applicants. 
3. Are there enough employees doing the same kind of 
work to make possible a reliable study? Statistical method 
demands a considerable number of cases for exactness of 
conclusions. If only a few employees are doing the same sort 
of work, the findings of an investigation will have only a 
very low reliability when used to select from among future 
applicants. 
4. Is there a valid and reliable criterion of success at this 
work? Without some dependable indication of a man’s 
actual success, it will be impossible to find out whether or 
not the proposed measurements of abilities distinguish 
between successful and unsuccessful employees. 
5. Is the investigator assured of cooperation? A reliable 
study is a practical impossibility without cooperation of both 
workers and management. 
We shall assume that the investigator has selected for 
study a job, an occupation, or a profession, after assuring 
himself that a real problem of selection exists there; that 
the excess of applicants over vacancies is great enough to 
promise considerable savings as a result of improvements in 
selection; that the number of cases available for study is 
large enough to warrant statistical reliability in the findings; 
that a dependable criterion of success is to be had; and that 
the research will not be seriously hampered by lack of active 
cooperation. The job chosen may be a highly responsible 
post such as branch manager or design engineer. Or choice 
may have rested on an important but more restricted occu- 
pation, such as that of chemical analyst, draftsman, accoun- 
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