Assessing suitability of candidates for selection using candidates' profiling report

The basic purpose of selection in human resource management is to choose the right candidates and to eliminate unsuitable ones. It is difficult to evaluate and to select one person over another, even for an experienced interviewer. The evaluation among the interviewers also varies according to their background, experience, personal judgment and observation. In the meantime, the recruitment system in the Malaysian public service is seen as too academic oriented, focuses more on academic qualification and does not cater for the quality of a candidate as a whole. To overcome this notion, Suruhanjaya Perkhidmatan Awam Malaysia (SPA) as the leading recruiting agency in Malaysian public service has adopted the profiling recruitment model which profile candidates in terms of personality, interests, attitudes, knowledge and skills. It is hoped that with a more comprehensive and descriptive profile, interviewers can make a better, fair, consistent and objective evaluation of a candidate and thus make more accurate hiring decision. However, in current state, there is no proper profiling done to include all the decision criteria. The purpose of this paper is to propose a decision support system (DSS) framework which is not only able to profile candidates according to the decision criteria but able to evaluate suitability of candidates to be appointed based on profile matching. This paper discusses the problem in-depth with data analysis from initial survey, the literature review on application of DSS in selection and product review from existing profiling system in the market. Finally, the paper proposed a DSS framework to assess suitability of candidates for selection and generate candidates' profiling report based on the profile matching between the job profile and the candidate's profile.