Journal of Occupational Psychology {1991), (A, 23-36

1991 The British Psychological Society

Printed in Great Britain

23

Management selection:
A comparative survey of methods
used in top British and
French companies
Viv Shackleton and Sue Newell*
Aston University, Business School, Aston Triangle, Birmingham, B4 7ET, UK
This paper presents results of a study comparing the methods used to select managers in
73 British and 52 French organizations. While larger companies in both countries are
more likely to use reliable and valid selection methods, British companies are significantly
more likely to do so. These results are discussed in terms of cultural differences. The data
are also used to look at changes over time in the use of management selection methods in
Britain, comparing these current data with those obtained by Robertson & Makin (1986)
in 1984. Results are encouraging since they suggest that methods such as psychological
tests, biodara and assessment centres are being used more frequently, although the
interview remains dominant.

Thanks to a valuable survey conducted by Robertson & Makin (1986), we are now in a
position to know the frequency of use of various methods of management selection used by
companies in the UK. These companies were drawn from a one in three sampling of the
Times 1000 index. This index provides a rank order of UK organisations based 'primarily
in terms of sales, with subsidiary rankings in capital employed and pre-tax profits'. This
information has a number of benefits, including providing a base for monitoring change in
usage of methods over time and for exploring differences between organizations of
different size, industrial sector, etc. So, the first objective of the study reported in this
paper was to collect data on how British selection practices have changed in the five-year
period since the earlier survey. This is important given that Robertson & Makin found
that in 1984 there was still widespread use of methods which psychologists have shown to
have poor reliability and validity, while at the same time the use of more 'respectable'
methods was limited. The aim was to discover whether any of the much published
findings by psychologists about these issues have been transferred to practice in the field in
this period.
There was also a second objective of the current survey and that was cross-national
comparison. At the present time we are limited in the ability to compare the Robertson &
Makin data with those from other countries. For the most part, such data are simply
* Requests for reprints.

24

V. Shackleton and S. Newell

unavailable. Yet the absence of comparative national data does not inhibit speculation and
'guesstimates'. An example of one of the more interesting national differences concerns
handwriting analysis, or graphology, A documentary programme (QED) on BBC
television in April 1989, for example, claimed that around 80 per cent of jobs in France
were filled only after candidates' handwriting had been subjected to graphologists for their
interpretation. No evidence was provided to support this figure. Other estimates vary
between 40 per cent usage in Erance (Levy-Leboyer, personal communication, 1986) and
85 per cent 'of all European companies' (Sharma & Vardhan, 1975),
In comparison, Robertson & Makin (1986) showed that 8 per cent of their British
sample used handwriting analysis as a selection tool on some occasions, although only
3 per cent used it all the time. All of the companies who used it all the time were subsidiaries
of continental European organizations. This finding is confirmed by Mabey (1989) who
reported that just 3 per cent of a sample of 300 large British firms used handwriting
analysis. This figure varied according to industrial sector, ranging from 11 per cent in
distribution and transport to zero in financial services.
What is needed are replications and extensions of Robertson & Makin's survey, and
others like it, to other countries. These would provide data to support statements of
frequency of use of selection methods cross-nationally. This is particularly pertinent given
that in 1992 European trade barriers are going to be lifted and individuals will be freer to
apply for jobs in any of the member countries. This paper describes one such study
comparing Britain with one of its closest neighbours, France,

Method
Sample
In order to provide data comparable with the 1984 British survey by Robertson & Makin, the same directory of
companies was used for Britain. The Brirish sample of companies was drawn from The Times 1000 (1988),
while the French sample was drawn from Les 200 Premieres Groups des Echos (1987), which is the equivalent
report in France, In these lists companies are ranked by sector in terms of sales, net profits and capital
employed. A random sample of 120 was drawn from each source, across all indusrrial sectors.
Questionnaires and covering letters were sent out, followed 10 days later by a reminder letter ro those who
had not responded. In this way a total of 73 usable questionnaires were received from British organizations,
and 32 from French organizarions. These figures represent response rates of 61 and 44 per cent respecrively.
This compares with a response rare of 36 per cent for the Robertson & Makin survey, with the improved
response rate probably due to the inclusion of a reminder letter in the current study.
The survey questions are the same as rhose used by Robertson & Makin. The French sample was sent the
same questionnaire in French. The English questionnaire was rranslated into French, and independently
back-translated to check for accuracy of meaning.

Results
1. Company profiles and selection methods used

Table 1 provides data on the total number of employees and number of managers recruited
by the participating companies in France and Britain, The table also shows the
percentages of responses so that comparisons can be made.

Management selection

25

Table 1. Breakdown of sample by number of managers/management trainees recruited

per year and size of company
No. of
employees
France
Britain
France
200-500
Britain
France
501-1499
Britain
France
1500-3999
Britain
France
>4000
Britain
<200

No. of managers recruited per year

<5
4 (7.69)
7 (9.59)

5-9
1 (1.37)
1 (1.92)

1(1.37)
1 (1.37)
1 (1.92)
3(4.11)

1
1
1
1

(1.92)
(1.37)
(1.92)
(1.37)

1(1.37)

1 (1.37)

10-49
3 (4.11)
3 (5.77)
6 (8.22)
5 (9.61)
4 (5.48)
2(3.85)
4 (5.48)
7(13.46)
7 (9.59)

50-100

>100

1 ( 1 .37)

1(1 .92)
1(1 .37)
1(1..92)
2(2..74)
11 (21.15)
7(9.59)

3(5.77)
11 (21.15)
21 (28.77)

Note: Results in parentheses give the respective percentage response.

The table suggests that more of the French companies in the sample are larger compared
to the British companies. Thus, 71 per cent of the French companies have more than 1500
employees compared to 65 per cent of the British companies. As expected, there is a
significant relationship between the number of employees in a company and the number of
managers recruited in both France and Britain (r = .54 and r = .48 respectively).
Tables 2 and 3 show the percentages for French and British companies using the various
selection methods. Table 2 gives data on the use of interview techniques in the two
countries, while Table 3 gives data on the use of the other types of selection methods that
can be used. The tables also include data from the 1984 survey of British companies by
Robertson & Makin so that comparisons over time can be made.
Table 4 shows the use of the different methods by size of company, measured in terms of
the total number of employees. Table 5 shows the use of different methods by the number
of managers recruited each year.
2. Comparison of selection methods used in Britain and France

Although the tables below illustrate differences between the two countries there are also some
common themes:
the almost ubiquitous use of application forms (93.2 per cent in Britain and 98.1 per cent
in France).
the common use of interviews (93.2 per cent in Britain and 94.3 per cent in France) and the
inclusion of line managers in these interviews.
no reliance at all on astrology, which is as would be hoped given the low reliability and
validity of such a method.
Given these similarities the paper will now turn to assess the differences which are
numerous. Differences were examined using a chi-square analysis.

26

V. Shackkton and S. Newell

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V. Shackleton and S. Newell

1. Interviews. Despite the fact that there is widespread use of interviews in both countries there
is also a striking contrast between Britain and France in terms of the number of interviews used
in the selection process. In France, 92.4 per cent of the respondents say that they resort to
more than one interview, compared with 60.3 per cent in Britain. Chi-square analysis showed
this to be a highly statistically significant difference {)^ = 14.82,^ < .001). Interestingly,
the use of more than one interview appears to be most prevalent in companies recruiting a
medium number of managers (50100), especially in Britain. This may be because companies
which recruit large numbers of managers tend to use additional techniques to supplement the
interview, rather than another interview.
The fact that French candidates have to undertake mpre than one interview is related to the
different formats of the interview in France and Britain. Chi-square analysis of the frequency of
use of one-to-one interviews showed that there is a stronger tendency to use this method in
France than in Britain {/^ 28.05, p < .001). Thus, to be seen by more than one person in
France, and hence to spread the responsibility of the decision, candidates have to have a
number of interviews. In Britain by comparison, there is a greater tendency to use panel
interviews (X^ = 6.28,p< .01) such that one interview permits the candidate to be seen by all
concerned. In France panel interviews are restricted in use to very large companies. In Britain
panel interviews are not only used more, but are used by medium sized companies as well as
large ones.
2. References. There has been a long tradition of selectors in Britain using references. Findings
of the survey show that 73.9 per cent of companies currently use them, compared with just
11.3 per cent in France. Chi-square analysis showed this to be a highly significant difference
(f = 4 5 . 8 4 , / ; < .001).
In France references are used more in small and medium sized companies and where few
managers need to be selected, while in Britain references are used extensively by all companies,
irrespective of size.
3. Psychological tests. French companies rely more on personality tests than do British ones
(pf^ = 6.4, p < .01). In France, 17 per cent always use them, while 9.6 per cent do so in
Britain. In contast, British organizations make greater use of cognitive tests (^ 4.75,
p < .01). In Britain 69.9 per cent use cognitive tests compared with 48.9 per cent in France.
In France, no firms with less than 200 employees reported using personality or cognitive tests,
irrespective of the number of managers recruited per year. In Britain some small companies reported using such tests but their use was still much greater in larger companies.
This is probably because of the lack of in-house expertise and the relatively high cost
for a small enterprise of psychological consultants or psychometric training courses for
assessors.
4. Handwriting analysis. As expected, handwriting analysis is a very commonly used selection
technique in France. More than 77 per cent of French firms use it to select managers, while the
figure for Britain is 2.6 per cent (just two organizations in the sample). This difference is
statistically highly significant (^ = 12.11 ,p< .001). Interestingly, its use in France is least
in the largest firms. This may be because the larger organizations are better informed about the
questionable validity of the method.

Management selection

33

5. Biodata. Although a relatively recent method, the use of biodata seems to have developed
faster in Britain where nearly 19.1 per cent of firms report using it, compared with 3,8 per
cent of the sample in France (;f^ = 5 , 2 5 , / ' < ,01), However, only a small proportion of firms
even in Britain use this method in more than half of their selection processes. In France the use
of biodata is restricted to large firms, but in Britain it is used in some small and medium sized
firms as well,
6, Assessment centre type exercises. As with biodata, the uptake ofassessment centres for selection
, .purposes has been greater in Britain than in France {y^ 18,58, p < .001). Some 58,9 per
cent of the British sample report using it, as opposed to 18.8 per cent in France, However,
again, where companies use such techniques, they tend to use them with less than half of all
candidates. As expected, its use is much wider in both countries in larger firms, with the
correlation between use and number of employees being r = ,32 in Britain and r = ,44 in
France, Its use in France is confined exclusively to organizations with more than 500
employees.
The figures for the use of assessment centre-type exercises may be slightly understated,
since a few respondents in both countries reported using group discussions in the 'other
methods' section of the questionnaire,
3. Comparison with Robertson & Makin survey
The data for the British firms in this survey in 1989 compared to the data collected by
Robertson & Makin in 1984 seem to show an encouraging trend over time, with a greater
proportion of the 1989 sample using more valid and reliable methods (see Tables 2 and 3).
Thus, the most draniatic difference between the two samples relates to the use of psychological
tests, biodata and assessment centre methods, where in all cases there has been a threefold
increase or niore in the number of companies using these methods in at least half of their
selection processes. In this respect the use of personality tests by companies has increased from
12 to 37 per cent, the use of cognitive tests has increased from 9,3 to 41.1 per cent, the use of
biodata has increased from 2,9 to 8,2 per cent, and the use ofassessment centres has increased
from 6,8 to 24,7 per cent. All these results are statistically significant. Thus, a chi-square
analysis comparing those who never use each of these methods with those who use each at least
sometimes provides the following resultspersonality tests: y^ = 13.76, p > ,0001;
cognitive tests: x^ 26.8,p> ,0001; biodata: x^ 6.89,p > .01; assessment centres: x^ =
11,41,/; > ,001).
The use of the interview remains very high and in fact usage is slightly higher among the
later 1989 sample, with 94,5 per cent of companies using it at least half the time compared to
88,3 per cent in the earlier survey. However, there have been greater changes in terms of the
number of interviews used. Fewer companies in 1989 reported using only one interview for
most of their selection decisions (20.5 compared to 35,2 per cent in the earlier survey; x^
43.3, p > ,001). Correspondingly, fewer companies used one-to-one interviews for the
majority of their selection decisions in 1989 (54.7 compared to 65.2 per cent in 1984) and
more used panel interviews (13.6 compared to 7,7 per cent). However, these last two results
were not statistically different.
There were also differences in terms of the participants involved in the interviews. In 1989
companies reported that the personnel department and line managers were more likely to be
involved in the interviews, while specialist consultants (either internal or external) were less

34

V. Shackleton and S. Newell

likely to be involved. While these differences are not that great (7.8 per cent more companies
using personnel specialists at least half the time; 6 per cent more companies using line
managers at least half the time; and 9.1 per cent less using specialists) they might be a trend
which it is worth monitoring and looking at in more depth. For example, if more line
managers are getting involved in selection interviews, are they also being given training in
interview techniques? If the answer to this question is that they are being trained, then their
involvement can be seen as a positive improvement of the interview. If they have not been
given any training then the results would be viewed in a more negative light.

Discussion
The data from this survey provide some interesting points for discussion. However, before
looking at these, it must be noted that the data are based on a small sample of French and
British companies which are drawn from a selective source. Caution is needed in drawing
inferences from this data to the more general usage of selection methods in the two countries.
Future research, with larger sample sizes and including some qualitative data, is needed to
verify these results and help interpret them.
The comparison of the 1984 and 1989 British samples is also subject to the same caution,
although there appears to be no difference in terms of how representative the two samples are
of the source from which they are drawn. However, the 1989 sample size is smaller.
Results from this survey comparing the use of various selection methods between 1984 and
1989 would seem to suggest that the message of psychological research about reliability and
validity of different selection methods is beginning to reach practitioners in the field. Yet
there still remains much room for improvement. Thus, while the results show a threefold
increase in the reported use of Assessment Centres in Britain over the five-year period, this still
means that less than 25 per cent of the British companies used this technique with more than
half of their management candidates. Furthermore, data from the companies represented in
this survey probably overestimate the more general usage of such techniques since they are
more likely to be progressive companies, given the source from which they were drawn.
In terms of the cross-national comparison one problem is that the French companies, as
noted, tended to be larger in size. However, this may be a cultural difference rather than a
sampling error since Hofstede (1984) showed that a greater Uncertainty Avoidance Index for
France corresponds to a preference for larger organizations. It would therefore appear to be
legitimate to compare the two countries.
The results suggest that in both France and Britain large companies are more likely to use
more 'respectable' metbods for selection, although Britain appears to be significantly ahead in
this respect. At the same time, in both countries there is still a widespread use of techniques
which have been heavily criticized for poor validity and reliability. However, the actual
methods used are different. In France there is still widespread use of graphology, while in
Britain there is still widespread use of references. In both countries the interview is almost
endemic to the selection process, although the use of this method has recently had more
favourable reviews which suggests that it can be an extremely useful part of a selection process
if it is used in the right way (e.g. Avery, Miller, Gould & Burch, 1987). Furthermore,
regardless of their ability to predict job success accurately, interviews are still popular because
they serve a variety of purposes other than candidate selection. For example, selling the

Management selection
35
organization, providing opportunities for candidates to find out more about the organization
and ensuring that successfial applicants will 'fit in' in terms of attitudes and personality, rather
than aptitude for the job. Despite the fact that many of these additional purposes are also
served poorly by the interview, it is the belief in the versatility of the interview that means it
remains popular.
The concepts of Hofstede (1984) may be usefiil in explaining some of the differences found.
For example, it is possible that the greater use of more than one interview in France is related
to the difference Hofstede found of greater Uncertainty Avoidance in France compared with
England. This might mean that French managers are more likely to seek confirmation of their
views of candidates from colleagues, to lessen the uncertainty of having to make the decision
themselves. Similarly, it might be related to the greater Power Distance and hierarchical
nature of French organizations, implying that managers have to seek approval from more
senior ones before accepting an applicant. This may mean that they are keen to have superiors
interview the candidate before the decision is made.
More generally, many of the cross-national differences may refiect the different perspectives
towards evidence in the two countries. It has often been claimed (e.g. Cherns, 1982) that in
continental European countries, psychology has undergone far less pressure to become
scientific than in the English-speaking world. This may be why the British sample tends
to use more scientifically validated methods, such as cognitive tests, assessment centres
and biodata. The French, on the other hand, seem to prefer what are often considered to be
more intuitive, interpretative, clinical approaches, such as personality questionnaires,
multiple interviews and, especially, graphology. References would seem to be the sole
exception to this trend.
Similarly, Payer (1989) suggests that French attitudes are heavily infiuenced by Cartesian
love of reasoning. So French selection research and practice can be seen as more concerned with
process than outcome. She suggests that French medical research, for example, such as the
recently announced new treatment for AIDS, can be based on only six patients treated for a
week and with preliminary findings available for only two. Anglo-Saxon doctors who criticize
the announcement fail to appreciate that it is not so much the evidence that is important in
France but the idea. It is an intellectually elegant approach to treating AIDS.
The same might be said of selection. Graphology is certainly elegant. How simple and clear
it is to assess a candidate's personality by a behaviour so straightforward and unintrusive as
graphology. The scientific evidence is less important than the idea. The question remains
of why these differences have evolved and more research would seem to be needed in this
area.
More generally, this research provides a benchmark against which data collected in the
future and in other countries can be compared. These data need to be both quantitative and
qualitative if we are going to come to a fuller understanding of why international differences
exist. More international comparisons of this sort may well provide useful data for both
candidates and organizations in post-1992 Europe. For example, if international mobility of
labour increases, as expected, such research allows organizations to know what candidates
from other countries are likely to expect by way of selection procedures. From the point of view
of candidates we could speculate that British applicants might feel aggrieved at being rejected
by a French company on the basis of handwriting analysis; and French candidates express
surprise at the 'impersonal' nature of cognitive tests and biodata or the time-consuming rigour
of assessment centres.

36

V. Shackleton and S. Newell

Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Peter Makin, who kindly allowed use of the questionnaire employed by Ivan Robertson and
himself in the earlier British study. Catharine Richard collected much of the data for the study and was responsible
for translating the questionnaire into French.

References
Avery, R. D., Miller, H. E., Gould, R. & Burch, P. (1987). Interview validity for selecting sales clerks. Pmmnet
Psycholosi, 40, 1-12.
Cherns, A. (1982). Culture and values: The reciprocal influence between applied social science and its cultural and
historical context. In N . Nicholoson & T. D. Wall (Eds), The Theory and Practice of Organisational Psychology.
London: Academic Press.
Hofstede, G. (1984). Culture's Consequences. London: Sage.
Mabey, B. (1989). The majority of large companies use occupational tests. Guidance and Assessment Review 5(3)
1^.
Payer, L. (1989). Medicine and Culture. London: Penguin.
Robertson, 1. T. & Makin, P. J. (1986). Management selection in Britain: A survey and cntique. Journal of
Occupational Psychotogy, 59, 4 5 - 5 7 .

Sharma, J. M. & Vardhan, H. (1975). 'Graphology: What handwriting can tell you about an applicant'.
Personnel, 52, 57-63.
Received 8 May 1990; revised version received 5 September 1990