Professional Selection

Professional Selection, the application of organized measures and scientifically-based methods to achieve the best match between individual characteristics (of a known group) of a person and certain forms of professional activity. In particular, individual forms of P. p. are: a) vocational selection, i.e., choosing from a large number of candidates those most suitable for a given profession, b) vocational counseling, i.e., indicating the profession most suitable for a given person. The application, in connection with vocational counseling work, of measures aimed at familiarizing those counseled with professions and at developing corresponding professional interests and work attitudes is usually called vocational guidance. P. p. also includes all measures related to changing professions (for example, due to disability), clarifying specialization and work specialization, choosing a specific workplace in an enterprise, staffing professional educational institutions, etc., i.e., all measures related to establishing, changing, and clarifying the nature of professional activity. From P. p., which represents a set of organized measures, one should distinguish the so-called "natural professional selection," i.e., the establishment of a certain differentiation between professional groups with respect to the psychophysiological characteristics of persons in these groups, due to the elimination in the work process itself of persons least suitable for this work, replenishing those eliminated from other professional groups, etc. The emergence in capitalist countries of organized forms of P. p. in their developed form dates mainly to the 20th century and is determined by the need to justify measures for professional distribution with respect to large numbers of people. The main prerequisites for the development of P. p. were the needs of large industry, the army, and the school (primarily vocational), which had earlier given rise to the appearance of a number of measures, research, and methods, on the basis of the synthesis and use of which further forms of professional selection developed. The development of manufacturing industry, and then large capitalist machine production, forced attention to be paid long ago to the specific professional hazards of individual productions, which impose certain requirements on the endurance and health of workers engaged in certain professions (see Professional Hygiene, Professional Diseases, and Professional Pathology). Similarly, the work of a number of psychiatrists (Janet and others), conducted at the end of the 19th century, forced attention to be paid to the possibility of mental illness arising from a mismatch between a person's mental characteristics and the requirements of professional activity. The works of Taylor (end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries) on the so-called "scientific organization of labor," aimed at maximizing the exploitation of labor power, based on time studies of time spent on work operations and on establishing certain norms, led to the need for preliminary selection of workers, mainly with respect to their physical strength and endurance, since it turned out that on average only 1 out of 6 workers could fulfill the prescriptions related to Taylor's system (which Lenin defined as a "scientific system for squeezing sweat"). At the same time, it must be directly stated that capitalist P. p. entirely serves the interests of capitalists, helping them to select labor power in such a way as to obtain the possibility of its greatest exploitation in the interests of maximum extraction of surplus value. This true essence of capitalist P. p. is carefully masked by the empty phraseology of bourgeois scientists about the special accounting of the interests of the "human personality." The first systematic application of P. p. in industry is associated with the introduction in the 1870s of the last century by Holmgren of mandatory medical examinations of railway transport workers with verification of vision and hearing. The needs for forming combat-ready troops, as well as the task of staffing special military units, had long ago led to the introduction of medical examinations during recruitment, the results of which were used in connection with the requirements for personnel composition determined by the peculiarities of military service in troops of different purposes. This service of military needs, not belonging to P. p. in the narrow sense of the word, had a certain influence (especially significant in the 20th century) on the development of forms and methods of P. p. The organization of forms and methods of mass training had already in the 19th century put forward a number of tasks, the solutions of which influenced the establishment of P. p. methodology. This includes a) the task of developing objective methods for accounting for the effectiveness of school learning, which at the end of the 19th century led to attempts to create so-called success tests, and b) the task of identifying mentally retarded children in special auxiliary schools (the beginning of the organization of which dates back to the middle of the 19th century), which led to the development of so-called tests (see) for determining abilities. The capitalist rationalization of industry, based on the increasing use of machines and the introduction of methods of mass and flow production, gave rise to the development of various forms of professional training (the "professionalization" of the general education school, the appearance of professional and "pre-professional" secondary schools of various types, the revival on a new basis of the factory-apprenticeship system, connected with state regulation of corresponding forms of training). The organization of this professional training is inseparably linked with the implementation of corresponding P. p. The striving to "coordinate" the work of the school with the needs of industry and professional training was also manifested in the activity of the Boston professor F. Parsons, who in 1908 founded in Boston (USA) the first bureau for vocational counseling for school graduates, and in the works of the Italian educator Ugo Pizzoli, who in 1908 built a number of devices and conducted research on testing professional suitability of schoolchildren. In 1912, in Belgium, under the leadership of A. Christians, the Brussels "Intercommunal Bureau for Vocational Guidance" was also created. In connection with the previously mentioned task of staffing auxiliary schools, methods for the psychological study of abilities received further development at the beginning of the 20th century on the basis of the work of French researchers Binet and Simon, who, on the basis of a proposal from the French Ministry of Education, created a series of tests for testing intelligence (the so-called "metric scale"), which received wide distribution in a number of countries and showed its practical effectiveness. The person who first used the results of school research and works in experimental pedagogy and psychology for the direct service of industrial needs and who brought the ideas about P. p. into a certain system was the German psychologist Hugo Münsterberg, working in the USA, who organized in 1910-11 works on psychotechnical selection of streetcar conductors, telephone operators, and naval officers. The imperialist world war gave a strong impetus to the development of P. p. methodology in connection with the staffing of various military units and the need for mass training of various specialties (drivers, pilot pilots and observer pilots, etc.). The particularly widespread application of psychological methods in the USA, in which 1,750,000 soldiers were examined by intelligence tests developed by a special committee of American psychologists, had great significance. Psychotechnical and medical examinations to establish suitability for work in special units were carried out in special laboratories created for this purpose in France, England, Italy, and Germany. If the practical experience of wartime significantly advanced the development of methodology for mass and individual examinations of professional suitability, then the conditions of the post-war period created favorable prerequisites for transferring these methods to industry and for developing various forms of vocational counseling and vocational selection. Among these conditions are: the sharpening of competition between capitalist countries in foreign markets and the desire to use all possible means to increase competitiveness, the general disorganization of the labor market in connection with the demobilization of the army and the reorganization of industrial work, which led to the creation of a number of institutions - state and municipal - to serve the needs of this market (employment exchanges), the need to employ a number of partial invalids (in particular with brain injuries) in production work, the sharp decline in birth rates during the war period and the expressed concerns about a future shortage of labor force, etc. As a result, there arose a number of psychotechnical laboratories in individual enterprises and the development of vocational counseling work on the basis of corresponding legislation, mainly along the lines of ministries of labor, municipal authorities, and public education authorities.

The problem of professional selection is approached completely differently in the USSR, where the interests of the working class as a whole (through the interests of the socialist national economy) and the interests of the individual worker (in the sense of maximum consideration of personal abilities, aptitudes and inclinations, as well as health status and physical development) are harmoniously combined. Professional selection in the USSR developed in connection with the so-called 'notovsk' movement (for the scientific organization of labor) and with the activities of corresponding scientific research institutes: in the Moscow Central Institute for Labor Protection of the NKT, NKZdr. and former VSNKh, the Central Commission of the VSU RKKA on the organization of psychophysiological tests in the Red Army, the Obukh Institute for the Study of Occupational Diseases, the Brain Institute (in Leningrad), the All-Ukrainian Institute of Labor (in Kharkov), etc. The first practical work in vocational counseling was organized in 1925 in Leningrad on the initiative of the Brain Institute and in Moscow on the initiative of the Moscow Health Department in connection with recruitment into FZU schools. In 1929, a resolution of the USSR Council of People's Commissars was issued, which placed the general supervision of vocational counseling and professional selection of the unemployed on the NKT of the USSR and the NKT of the union republics, and established an Interdepartmental Council on Vocational Counseling and Selection under the NKT of the USSR. From this time, the extensive development of a network of vocational counseling institutions in the USSR began along the lines of labor and health authorities. By 1932, there were 87 vocational counseling 'points' in the NKT system. In addition to these vocational counseling institutions serving the recruitment of FZU schools, by the beginning of 1933, the USSR had a separate system of vocational counseling and selection institutions serving railway transport, local transport, and the needs of the Red Army. Vocational counseling work was also conducted in the pedological offices of FZU schools, in psychophysiological laboratories of enterprises, at individual enterprises, economic associations, higher educational institutions, and technical schools. The principles and system of vocational counseling work in the USSR. Unlike in capitalist countries, where selection and vocational counseling institutions serve the interests of individual entrepreneurs and capitalist society as a whole, and where the implementation of genuine vocational counseling is impossible due to specific predatory production relations and the diametrically opposite interests of entrepreneurs and the proletariat, the planned socialist construction in the USSR creates all the necessary prerequisites for the development of vocational counseling. Vocational counseling work in our country is an integral part of the entire system of measures for staffing, training, distribution, and proper use of personnel, and its task is to maximize labor productivity on the basis of taking into account the personal characteristics of the worker and his interests, inextricably linked with the tasks of socialist construction. Vocational counseling in our country is the solution to one of the national economic and educational tasks and must be based on the synthetic use of data on the prospects for the planned development of the national economy and the requirements of the relevant professions, with data on the mental characteristics and health status and physical development of the person being counseled, with mandatory consideration of his interests, socio-domestic conditions, etc., and with the organization of active measures to develop in the person being counseled correct professional interests and labor attitudes. The division of professional selection and vocational counseling into separate isolated parts: psychotechnical professional selection and medical professional selection, and attempts made by some of our authors to consider one of these parts as fundamental - are fundamentally incorrect under our conditions. Work in vocational counseling should begin already during the period when the teenager is in the polytechnic school (the main and initial part of vocational counseling), with vocational counseling measures being carried out at subsequent stages of professional advancement. In the polytechnic school, the work of vocational counseling should consist of two parts: a) study of the mental and somatic characteristics of the teenager in the process of their development on the basis of repeated tests and examinations, as well as special observations by teachers, pedologists, and the school doctor; b) vocational orientation work to familiarize the teenager with professions and to develop professional interests. This work in the polytechnic school is still not sufficiently developed. Data about the teenager collected by the polytechnic school should be transferred to the vocational counseling bureau, which on the basis of these data, as well as additional psychotechnical and medical examinations and interviews with the teenager, and on the basis of a preliminary study of professions and personnel needs, gives its conclusion about the most suitable professional activity for the teenager, linking this conclusion with an indication of a specific FZU, courses, technical school, or higher educational institution to which the teenager is sent with the necessary documents in the manner determined by the existing forms of staffing these institutions. It should be noted that due to the insufficient development of vocational counseling work in the polytechnic school to the present time, the conclusions of the bureau were based mainly on the results of examinations and tests conducted by the bureau itself, which is one of the significant shortcomings of this work. Vocational counseling bureaus also serve almost exclusively the staffing of FZU schools, not including in their tasks the staffing of technical schools, higher educational institutions, etc. The FZU school (as well as any other institution that can be served by the work of the vocational counseling bureau) receives from the bureau data regarding the teenager and a conclusion, and on the basis of these data and additional psychotechnical tests and medical examinations that may be required due to the specific characteristics of this production and enterprise, as well as on the basis of observations of the teenager during the initial periods of training, it clarifies the vocational counseling conclusion, directing the teenager to training in a specific specialty. A completely special area of work is vocational counseling regarding adult workers already employed in the enterprise and forced to change their profession (due to illness, etc.). This work, which has been developed to a limited extent so far, is closely connected with the work of social insurance bodies on the examination of working capacity. The peculiarity of this work lies in the desirability of directing the person being counseled to work where his previous experience and qualifications would be used to the maximum extent. The methodology of professional selection. The conduct of professional selection presupposes first of all knowledge of the requirements that professions impose on the psychosomatic characteristics of a person, the content of these professions, their relationship with other professions, trends in change, and ways of preparation for professional activity. All these questions are studied in so-called professionalogy, or professionalography (the science of professions). The result of this study is a characterization of the profession or professionalogram (a characterization from the point of view of mental properties is sometimes called a psychogram). On the basis of the study of the profession, the methodology of professional selection is built, which gives a set of data necessary for determining professional suitability and methods of obtaining and using this data (observations, tests, examinations, etc.). The proposed methodology is subjected to preliminary testing to establish a) the accuracy of the proposed methods, b) their value for determining professional suitability by comparison with criteria, i.e., data characterizing success in professional training and professional work (establishing the so-called 'suitability' or 'symptomaticity' of the methodology itself). The finally developed methodology is also subjected to further testing to establish the effectiveness of work in professional selection and to introduce necessary improvements. In this case, a distinction is made between: the diagnostic suitability of the methodology (comparison with criteria obtained simultaneously with the test) and the prognostic suitability (criteria are established after a certain period of time, for example, after a year or two). For the purposes of professional selection, the following properties and characteristics of the person being counseled must be taken into account: a) mental properties - abilities, characterological characteristics, established on the basis of psychotechnical tests and special observations; b) somatic characteristics - health status and physical development and their dynamics (see below); c) training, namely the state of knowledge and skills in various fields (based on observations, school reports, or special tests), and work experience; d) the direction of interests and the degree of their validity and stability; e) data on socio-domestic status - social status and origin, environment, conditions of development, etc. Psychotechnical tests for the purpose of vocational counseling are carried out using the so-called tests - group and individual - printed and instrumental.

The borrowing from capitalist countries of the methodology of professional selection, which in its content and in the purely technical methods at first glance for obtaining and interpreting corresponding indicators, led to the transfer to Soviet soil of class-alien theories that were in their essence idealistic and mechanistic, which was reflected in the errors of a number of Soviet researchers (the schools of Shpilrein and Gellershtein and others) on issues of professional selection and which in some cases led to class and national distortions in work on professional selection (Levitov, Baranovsky and others.). In particular, these errors manifested themselves: a) in misunderstanding the social and class nature of professional activity in the USSR and a change in its very content, which was associated with underestimating the variability of professions, with incorrect ideas about the trends in the development of professions in our Union, and with the biologization of the very concept of profession; b) in the incorrect psychological interpretation of professional labor (underestimation of the importance of intellect and professional activity, especially for so-called 'industrial professions' - locksmith, turner), in reducing it to a mechanical reaction to 'stimuli' and so on; c) in ignoring social factors, environmental influences, and the necessity of a class approach in work on professional selection; d) in the formal mathematical-statistical interpretation of the relationships obtained in research on professional selection, without sufficient analysis of the essence (in particular psychological) of the methods used, and in the fetishization of the resulting indicators and relationships; e) in the incorrect interpretation of the significance of psychotechnical indicators, which allegedly directly reflect innate 'talent' in a person, his unchanging properties, 'initial dispositions', 'dispositions' and so on, coinciding with differences in class, national, and gender affiliation, fatally determining the limits of possible development and professional suitability. Assertions of this kind are found in most foreign bourgeois scientists who ignore the reflection in psychotechnical indicators of the influence of environment (education, home surroundings, social origin, etc.); this allows them to interpret the differences that on average are obtained in the results of tests between so-called 'higher' social categories (entrepreneurs, highly paid employees and their children, etc.) and 'lower' categories (workers, peasants and their children) as 'proof' that the capitalist system corresponds to the very nature of things, since the ruling classes turn out according to their 'research' to be the most 'talented' by nature. Such supposedly scientifically substantiated data also serve the bourgeoisie to justify all kinds of national oppressions and restrictions (e.g., in relations with Negroes in the USA), to 'justify' colonial policy, and to 'substantiate' fascist tendencies, ideas, and measures of all kinds, since on the basis of similar 'research' it 'turns out' e.g., that the average mental development of the adult population (its 'mental age') equals the average development of a thirteen-year-old child, from which the conclusion is drawn about the harm of allowing the masses of the population to have any influence on state affairs. Data of this kind are also used to justify all sorts of proposals of a social-fascist type about the supposedly possible elimination of 'social conflicts' through appropriate organization of vocational counseling work and the promotion of the most 'talented' from the working masses into the ranks of the state-ruling class. Transferred to our soil, the ignoring of the influence of social environment and the incorrect use of psychotechnical indicators led to the situation that the percentage of 'highly talented' among children of employees (especially with higher education) turned out to be significantly larger than among children of workers and peasants, which in some cases led to class distortions in vocational counseling work, expressed in sending predominantly children of employees to the most significant, 'leading' professions. Similarly, the underestimation of the conditions for the development of young people of various nationalities (e.g., Uzbeks) and the application of unsuitable psychotechnical tests led to false conclusions about the presence of a significant percentage of mentally retarded among these nationalities. It should be noted that the correct accounting of the influence of the environment, showing that the differences between social categories and nationalities, taken as a whole, are due to these influences, by no means should lead to the conclusion that all people are the same in their innate abilities. Ignoring this circumstance led some of our researchers to mechanistic errors of the opposite kind, expressed in reducing all differences between people to the influence of the environment only. A. Manzyrka. Professional selection medical. The determination of professional suitability is a complex holistic problem, the resolution of which is based on taking into account all aspects of the personality of the person being consulted, including his physical condition. From the point of view of medical (physician's) professional selection, vocational counseling as an independent problem outside of connection with the other sections of vocational counseling work does not exist. However, due to the fact that the study of the personality of a worker (candidate) includes such special aspects as determining physical development, condition of the heart, lungs, condition of vision, hearing, etc., which are the field of application of medical knowledge, on the one hand, and on the other hand, due to the fact that the question of suitability for work pursues the goals of protecting the health and life of the proletariat, the tasks of preventing morbidity among the workers themselves, etc.,-in the vocational counseling system as part of it there is a section of somatic examination, usually performed by physicians of various specialties, sufficiently qualified according to the complexity of the problem itself. Medical vocational counseling is based on the study of professions from the point of view of the requirements they impose on the worker. On the basis of such professional study, special lists of contraindications to work in one or another profession are compiled. There are contraindications absolute (in which referral to this profession is absolutely inadmissible) and relative (referral in which is not desirable), as well as indications when work in this specialty is directly recommended for one reason or another. [In particular, in 1932, the People's Commissariat of Labor of the USSR issued a resolution on diseases and physical defects that prevent the admission of adolescents to factory apprenticeship schools. A list of such diseases and defects was developed by the Central Laboratory for Vocational Counseling of the Interdepartmental Council for Vocational Counseling at the Institute of Health and Labor Organization. This same laboratory, as well as other scientific and practical institutions for vocational counseling, developed lists of contraindications for a number of individual industries (in machine building, textile industry, construction industry, etc.).] Medical indications and contraindications are compiled taking into account both direct production requirements and preventive tasks. It goes without saying that both indications and contraindications should not be given absolute value. They should be regarded as conditionally accepted temporary norms, helping to carry out personnel selection on the basis of approximately uniform principles. Contraindications in this case always have only local significance and can be applied in other places only on the condition of the uniformity of the nature of the work and the main aspects of the working conditions, as well as the uniformity of the composition of candidates. Contraindications change depending on changes in the organization and technology of production, depending on changes in the sanitary-hygienic conditions of labor, depending on a number of local features of each production unit (factory, shop, workshops), etc. Contraindications change in their significance depending on the national composition, age of the person being examined, depending on his general physical condition. The presence e.g. of several diseases, each of which separately is not a contraindication, in the aggregate can give such a burden on the body that regular labor becomes impossible. In the same sense, some cases of severe course of diseases, generally speaking not constituting a contraindication, but in individual cases giving a poor prognosis, can be evaluated.- The main methodological error of the first years of the development of medical vocational counseling (Pakhomyshev and other Moscow health workers), fed by Menshevik ideology in labor issues, consisted in the excessive exaggeration of the preventive tasks of vocational counseling and in the separation of the latter from the general tasks of the national economy and socialist construction as a whole. In contrast to the right deviation in vocational counseling, there also existed a 'leftist' deviation (Clark, Tolchinsky and other Leningrad workers), which completely ignored the preventive tasks of vocational counseling and reduced the entire problem of determining professional suitability to the application of psychotechnology with the complete de facto exclusion of medical professional selection.

The origins of this seemingly leftward deviation lie in the methodology of career counseling in bourgeois countries, particularly Germany, which is characterized by crude division based on satisfying the interests of entrepreneurs of today, which amount merely to extracting surplus value. Reflections of these bourgeois orientations in career counseling practice still find their place to this day among most of our psychotechnicians (Shpilrein, Gellerstein, Levitov, Dyakonov, and others), who verbally acknowledge the complex integrity of the problem of determining professional suitability, but in practice reduce it to the application of psychotechnical methods of personality analysis. Comprehensive research of a person, as we noted above, is the foundation on which synthetic career counseling conclusions are based. In that part of it which is carried out by the medical division, it necessarily consists of determining: 1) the level of physical development (including, if we are talking about adolescents, sexual maturity, which is one of the elements of diagnosing physical development) based on anthropometric research; 2) the condition of the motor organs; 3) the condition of internal organs (mainly the cardiovascular system, respiratory organs, excretory system, condition of the blood, etc.); 4) the condition of the nervous system and psyche; 5) the condition and function of the organ of vision; 6) the condition and function of the organ of hearing. The examination is conducted by doctors of the relevant specialties. Other examinations are conducted based on special indications that emerge during the course of the above-mentioned basic examination. Career counseling work among adults increases the weight of gynecological examination for women, and also has a number of other features. It should be emphasized that medical examination is necessary not only for determining the physical condition as such, but also for the correct evaluation of pedological-pedagogical characteristics and data from psychotechnical research. Psychoneurological research is of particular value in this regard, the data of which are often a real key to the correct evaluation of the behavior of the person being examined. The results of psychotechnical research, which generally vary in the same person depending on surrounding conditions, also strongly depend on random changes in health condition (for example, headache, acute febrile condition, etc.), on the excitability of the nervous system, on the condition of vision, hearing, etc. Career counseling in the USSR mainly serves adolescents entering FZUs. This creates specific features in medical work in career counseling. In general medicine, the objects of study were mainly adults and children, while the adolescent age has been comparatively little studied. Meanwhile, this so-called 'transitional' age has essential features, because during this period all functions and systems of the organism undergo a substantial restructuring. The growing and maturing organism in the pubertal period is characterized by great lability, and what sometimes seems like a pathological phenomenon can often be a variant of the norm for an adolescent, a physiological expression of the general lability of functions. On the other hand, what a fully formed adult organism can cope with can often be detrimental to a growing organism. During this period, it is especially necessary to take into account age-related variability, for example not applying the same measure to 14-year-olds and 17-year-olds. All this creates many difficulties both in diagnosis and especially in prognosis, on which the determination of professional suitability based on health condition is primarily based. In each locality (national republic, region, territory, a district with peculiarities in the composition of the population, etc.), age-sex norms and evaluation standards for anthropometric characteristics must be established for assessing physical development, as well as for characteristics of functional research of the cardiovascular system, blood condition, heart size, etc. The clinic of adolescence is of particular importance for medical career counseling, which should not be limited to studying the course of pathological processes only in a clinical setting, but should transfer its work directly to FZUs, into workshops, into the work environment, in order to study the behavior of healthy and sick organisms during work. The expansion of industrial construction in areas of national minorities and their involvement in industrial labor to the same extent raises the task of studying the peculiarities of physical development and health, as well as physiological peculiarities of these nationalities. For career counseling work to be sufficiently effective, it must be based not only on the results of a one-day examination, but on the results of long-term dynamic observations conducted year after year, which should begin already in the early school period (from 10-12 years). The organization of such systematic observations in the polytechnic school with the involvement of school doctors is an urgent need of career counseling. In this, the doctor must simultaneously participate in career guidance work in the school, cultivating a rational professional orientation in the adolescent and facilitating the correct choice of profession. Data from medical examinations are entered into a special sanitary journal, which along with other materials is submitted to the career counselor or to the commission determining professional suitability based on all data (medical, pedological, psychotechnical). The participation of the career counseling physician in this commission must be mandatory. The problem of changing profession due to health condition and the closely related problem of utilization of labor of 54:1 incomplete workers (invalids), as well as the problem of employment of incomplete adolescents (endocrinopaths, oligophrenics, psychopaths, weak-sighted, amputees, etc.), who cannot be trained in regular-type FZUs, are of special importance for medical career counseling. These questions are still very little developed, however this does not diminish their huge and independent importance, and their gradual resolution is an acute necessity both from the national economic and from the career counseling and pedagogical (for adolescents) points of view.