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The Selection Process A critical piece of building a sustainable operation in Peru was the integration of Peruvians into the workforce. Starting with more than 2,900 applicants, COLP (the operating company of PERU LNG), under the guidance of the Training Manager and Training Coordinator instigated a comprehensive recruitment and selection program. The first recruitment filter considered a matrix based on grade point average GPA., Technical certifications and degrees, residence (area of influence), age, work experience, salary and level of English (as reference, not excluding criteria). Within Peru, psychological profiling of applicants is considered to be an important part of the recruitment process and COLP employed a team of consultants to assist with this aspect of the selection process.
The criteria for initial selection to the second stage of the recruitment process included the requirement that all the applicants had prior technical experience and/or technical qualifications from recognised training establishments. It was important the recruitment and selection was as fair and as transparent as possible, and that is was seen to be so by both existing employees and external observers such as local officials. To achieve this objective a number of assessment tools were devised. The well known US based Wonderlic Test was used for initial testing. These assessment tools consisted of three different standards of technical tests including mathematics, physics and chemistry based on the UK General Certificate Secondary Education and Advanced Level of Education. All of these assessment tools were translated into Spanish; the tests were standardised against UK educational standards and were objective tests, except for some of the highest level technical questions which required calculations and the use of formulae. Following these tests the marks were collated and a distribution curve was drawn. The top 25 percentile value was used as the selection criteria for short-listing to the next stage. The COLP team was involved in a considerable amount of travel and accommodation planning, given the size of Peru. Candidates were invited for 'face to face' interviews, often travelling considerable distances and from remote locations. Final selection of the 48 candidates rested with the Operations Manager and their deputy, and to ensure fairness and transparency standardised interview questions were used with specimen answers and marking schemes. The successful candidates were informed by the company as to which broad job category they would be employed under, that is, Operator or Technician. The overall opinion of all those involved in the recruitment and selection process was that it had been very successful and the level of confidence regarding the effectiveness of the selection process was very high. |
