Job Analysis for Employment Purposes

Abstract

W HAT is the nature of job analysis work? How does psychological training aid in making a job analysis? These two questions are the task of the present paper. At the outset we mark off our field for discussion by pointing out that there are different kinds of job analysis and that this paper discusses only one kind of job analysis: job analysis for employment purposes. Whether a job analysis is of one kind or another depends upon the primary purpose for which that analysis is made. Purpose is all-important because it determines the kind of information sought and the kind of technique or method used to get that information. For one purpose one method of job analysis is used and one kind of information is selected, for a different purpose still another technique and another group of facts; and the two methods of analysis and the two groups of data are so different as to constitute different subjects for discussion. Yet there is considerable confusion of these different kinds of job analyses both in the thinking and practice of psychologists and employment executives. This confusion leads to so fundamental a misunderstanding of the analysis of jobs for employment purposes that it is necessary to consider first what the different kinds of job analyses are and how they are related.