A Competency Based Approach to Recruitment Decisions Using Brunswik's Lens Model

Studies related to 'recruitment' in general and 'decision making in recruitment' in particular are few in the Indian context. Decision making is a fundamental aspect of recruitment and deserves much more research investigation than it has received so far. Role of competency in recruitment is also nascent in research. This paper proposes a conceptual framework of how people arrive at recruitment decisions using Brunswik's "Lens model".

This study examines Brunswik's "Lens model" as an appropriate recruitment approach. The model provides a useful basis from which interviewers can make appropriate assessment of job applicants. The objective of this paper is to highlight the insights that the lens model can yield in the context of recruitment decisions by using the competency approach. In order to gain cognizance of how the lens model could be useful to understand the 'decision making' pattern among the recruiters, we delineate the concepts and the method to be followed. If a study wants to use a competency framework to generate the cues on the basis of which candidates will be evaluated during the job interview, the paper outlines the steps that may be followed to deploy a study using the Lens model framework. We argue that the Lens model has the ability to capture both subjective and objective dimensions in decision making which makes this model a robust framework for recruitment decisions.