From normative to tacit knowledge: CVs analysis in personnel selection

Purpose – This study aims to investigate decision‐making processes and to identify factors which influence managers in the selection of job applicants' CVs and how these factors differ from the firm's recruitment and selection policy. Design/methodology/approach – Twenty‐four semi‐structured interviews were conducted among HR managers or similar staff members responsible for recruiting and selection in small, medium, and large‐sized Portuguese firms. The interview comprised two parts: description of the selection policies that they used followed by a CV assessment game to understand decisions regarding the acceptance of a specific candidate. Findings – Interviewees' narratives are similar, describing a step‐by‐step process based on the firm's explicit policy and the model of a prediction of the job candidates' future performance based on subjective criteria. Research limitations/implications – Possibly, the results described are related to the research methodology – more specifically the use of a fictional set of CVs where the decisions made do not have any consequences. At the same time, managers are more relaxed when playing the “CV game” and tend to adopt more genuine and usual behaviours. Practical implications – The paper calls for an integrative practice in CV analysis combining both the structured and rational dimension and the informal dimension (tacit knowledge, emotion and intuition). Originality/value – The paper stresses the paradoxical behaviour of practitioners. On the one hand, the “good” of rational procedures is part of their rhetoric; on the other hand, the use of emotion and intuition is revealed in their practices.