1. 0 Introduction

The aim of this essay is to analyze and comment on the selection practices based on the movie “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”.
Scott (2005) states that “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was filmed in 2005 based on children’s book by Roald Dahl. The movie reveals a story about poor young boy – Charlie, who lives in town, where located chocolate factory owned by famous confectioner - Willy Wonka. Soon, Willy Wonka decides to allow 5 children to visit his factory and distributes five Golden tickets hidden in the five chocolate’s bars to the unknown locations. The one who will find golden ticket will be allowed to visit chocolate factory. Moreover last child left will win the main prize.
Thus, five children, who found the Golden tickets are: Augustus Gloop – rude and glutton guy, who lives only for food; Veruca Salt – spoilt child, who demands whatever she wants from her parents by screaming at them; Violet Beauregarde – impudent girl, whom mind completely taken by gum chewing; Mike Teavee – bot, who addicted to television; and Charlie Bucket – very polite and shy boy, who is protagonist in this movie.
Throughout all movie, Wonka applies selection processes, because he needs to identify one child, who fits his demands and choose him as a future manager of the factory (Billsberry and Gilbert, 2007) . Thereby, he observes each child’s behavior, when they are taking a tour through his factory and eliminate those, who failed his perceptions about a good heritor.
Mukhtar (2010) states that selection is process of screening candidates and choosing the most suitable one, who fit requirements of the organization. Selection of the employees is crucial for organization’s management as they directly involved in performance and internal culture. However, selection processes must be done properly and carefully to prevent from hiring candidates with questionable backgrounds or with unsuitable skills (Rao, 2010).

2.0 Key selection issues

Mayhew (n.d.) suggests that selection requirements are based on the organization’s goals, strategies and plans. The most common approaches to selection and recruitment that used in this report are psychometric, social and fit paradigms. All these three paradigms reflect the ways in which Willy Wonka selected his future owner of the factory.
Karim (2007) shows that one of the most dominant selection and recruitment paradigms in organizations is psychometric paradigm. This approach underlines recruitment and selection based on organization’s point of view and do not take into consideration the employees’ personal issues towards the recruiting firm. Thereby, psychometric paradigm emphasizes assessing applicant with the best knowledge, skills and abilities for the particular job. Psychometric paradigm is viewed in film, when Willy Wonka identifies the main characteristics of his future successor, which are creativity, extraordinary and innovation (Scott, 2005). Then he performs a test to select most suitable one. Moreover, as it shown in film, children were interviewed before visiting the factory and this gives prior information to Wonka how to check their characteristics. When testing the applicants, the most crucial thing is that these children do not know that they are being tested for selecting the leader. This allows showing their natural personality and urges without the pressure of knowing that they are under the observation of Wonka (Beardwell, 2007).
The changes in global trends lead to changes in people mind about the recruitment processes (Handler, 2004). Therefore, some organizations needed to adopt more social based approach to recruitment and selection such as social paradigm. Whereas psychometric paradigm emphasizes selection from the perspective of the organization, social paradigm stresses the interaction between the candidate and recruiting organization. Social paradigm suggests significance of the developing trustful relationships between these two parties.
It can be seen that social paradigm is viewed in this film by showing the results of failure to engage with organizational environment and culture (Billsberry and Gilbert, 2008). The environment of the factory expresses fun, creativity and magic, however it is restrict such characteristics as greed, spoiled behavior and aggressiveness. Thus, children that had shown such behavior were eliminated from the test, because of their contradiction to the factory’s environment. Pulakos (2005) states that social paradigm not only help to identify suitable employees, it may also eliminate unsuitable ones.
One of the modern approaches to selection and recruitment is fit paradigm. Fit paradigm can be defined in two distinct ways such as: Person–Job fit and Person- Organization fit (Handler, 2004). Person-Job fit is talking about measuring candidate’s skills, abilities and knowledge that will suitable to do certain tasks in the organization. Whereas, Person-Organization fit is defined as a match between applicant’s work-oriented values and culture of the organization. This approach shows that environment reflects people behavior and performance .For example: employers need to check whether the applicant is suitable for the internal environment of the organization, because if person will not favor the environment his performance can fall.
Scott (2005) argues that from the film perspective, in the Person-Job fit Wonka applies examines on the abilities and skills of the children and eliminates those who failed to reach his criteria. Next is Person-Organization fit, which are shown in Wonka’s ask the kids questions to determine, whether they liked the factory. Charlie was the one who showed positive expressions towards the environment and culture; therefore he fits with factory’s environment. But Charlie refused to become an owner of the factory, because Wonka did not allow him to bring his family along. This shows that Charlie has fulfilled the fit requirements, but his personal requirements were neglected and this led to the refusal of the job offer.

3.0 Practice in the service industry

Tepeci (2010) suggest that employees play a major role in the service industry. This shows the importance of the proper selection employees for the performance of job. Most important attributes for the people in service industry are: people orientation, valuing customers, attention to details and physical abilities.
From the movie we can see that in selecting the best child Wonka used very unusual approach, because none of the candidates know about their roles. Moreover, Wonka treated each child by different test in different locations. In this case, using psychometric paradigm to assess applicant’s skills, knowledge and abilities in real organization will be effective to reveal a true nature of each applicant. Morrisby (2014) describes that this test can be applied in service industry as ability test, which refers how people perform on different situations
Apart of that, social paradigm shown in the movie can be a good example of the failure to engage in the environment. Pinilla (2002) explains that in the service industry having a good skills, knowledge and abilities is necessary to perform a tasks, however if the employee is not able to understand the value and culture inside the organization he will not be able to show whole organization idea to customers. Thus, it is necessary to check whether applicant favors and understands the environment in which he will work (Handler, 2004). Osoian, Zaharie, Lazar (2011) claims that in hospitality industry labor is very diversified, because it hire people from different countries and cultures. It can take time to understand candidates from different cultures and assess how their personality fits with the organization’s environment. Thus, fit paradigm is very suitable in recruiting and selecting as it allows selecting candidate by assessing his skills, knowledge and observes how they fit in that particular organization’s culture. For example: employers assess not only skills, abilities and knowledge of candidate, but also they observe his suitability with the culture of organization. This will allow selecting the most suitable employee, who will fit both Person-Job and Person-Organization fit paradigm.

4.0 Challenges of Practice

Osoian, Zaharie, Lazar (2011) suggests that in order to select most suitable employee, companies uses various practices, which can help to predict person’s future performance. Using psychometric, social and fit paradigms are helpful practice in recruitment and selection (Beardwell, 2007).
Psychometric paradigm is most visible practice, which is used by Wonka. However, psychometric testing, which he implemented is not applicable for the service industries. This test is conducted in such way, when candidates are not aware of their participation in the test. Thus, it may lead to complaints from applicants, because such treatment might be offensive for them and high costs will be incurred of performing testing (Nickson, 2007). Handler (2004) suggests that social paradigm is based on interaction between candidate and the recruiting organization. It can be seen from the film that only one child had positive attitude towards factory’s environment. Although, social paradigm approach very helpful in order to develop trustful relationships between applicant and organization, it can face difficulties for the service industry. The main challenge for this paradigm is diversified labor workforce (Pinilla, 2002). It is possible to see that candidates with diverse cultural background may face the problem of favoritism. For example: some employers can select candidates based on ethnic issue and discriminate those ethnic groups, whom he dislikes. Pulakos (2005) states that fit-paradigm very efficient approach in order to select most suitable candidate. By using fit-paradigm candidates are assessing from both perspective: how they fulfill job requirements and how their personality engages with organization’s culture. However, such approach can be costly and time-consuming for the service industry. Nickson (2007) states that service industry has many departments, which require a lot of employees to work in it. So recruiting managers need to be time-efficient in selecting candidates. As fit-paradigm assesses not only one criteria of the candidate it consumes more time compare to basic practice of selecting by interview or simple test. Richards (2014) states that poor managerial training can lead to challenge in recruiting and selecting employees. Therefore, to overcome these challenges it is vital to provide training for managers, who are responsible in recruiting and selecting candidates. Fail to do so lead in choosing not suitable candidate and ignoring the suitable one. Thus, it is important to teach managers in basic skills of assessing, interviewing and selecting candidates (Pinilla, 2002).

5.0 Conclusion

Rao (2010) explains that selecting and recruiting of the right employees are highly contributing to the performance of the organizations. Choosing candidates, who are not willing to work or understanding the value of organization leads to customer’s complaints and internal arguments. Thus, organizations establish approaches and practices, which it follows in order to select suitable ones. In the film “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” mostly dominates – psychometric approach (Scott, 2005). This approach stresses on selection techniques, which are perspective for the organizations and assess candidate’s skills, knowledge and abilities required by the organization. From the film it can be seen, that Wonka mainly based in testing children to observe their abilities. However he did not mention to children that they are in process of testing. This test helped to him in selecting Charlie as candidate, who has most suitable skills for the managing of factory. But in service such practice will face challenges, because of unfair treatment. Social paradigm is not dominant in the film and using by Wonka to assess children. Pinilla (2002) suggests that mailnly this approach shows failure of engagement in the factory’s environment by those children who were eliminated. This selection approach is applicable in service industry, because it is important to understand the main value of the organization to deliver it in right form for the customers. However, due to diversity of workforce such issues as unfair selection process can arise. Some managers may practice hiring employees on principle of favorability based on ethnic group, culture, religion and so on. Lastly, fit paradigm assesses not only from organization’s perspective, but also looks into the interaction between employee and organization. Fit paradigm has two practices, which are Person-Job and Person-Organization (Handler, 2004). Pesron-Job related to Wonka’s observation of children’s interview and conduction of test for them, based on information, which they told about their selves. Whereas, Person-Organization is more viewed in film by Wonka’s questions and warnings to children. Those, who disobey his warnings are failed to understand value and environment of the factory and eliminate from the factory. Fit-paradigm is applicable for the service industry, because it can measure not only candidate’s skills and knowledge, but show his engagement to the organization as well. But, such approach may be not time-efficient, because it requires many tests and interviews to be conducted in order to indicate most suitable one. In conclusion, all three paradigms are applicable for the service industry, but it needed to be accurately developed in order to use it in a right way. As organization’s performance more or less depends on its employees, they must to be selected carefully and precisely.

6.0 References

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