Many consulting firms have started to screen prospective candidates

Question

Many consulting firms have started to screen prospective candidates with the help of case interviews, on top of the regular selection process. If this practice is widely adopted, it will help the firms in eliminating up to 10% of all the candidates who would otherwise have been misfits for the case-based work. Yet, the new process may still not catch half of the unsuitable candidates. Therefore, 10% of all the candidates will still be misfits.

Which one of the following inferences about the consequences of instituting the new tests is best supported by the passage above?

Which one of the following inferences about the consequences of instituting the new tests is best supported by the passage above?

(A) The percentage of misfits in the consulting industry will go up.
(B) The number of applicants to consulting firms will decline over a period.
(C) Balance of demand of consulting firms and supply of fit candidates cannot be achieved.
(D) The number of new candidates hired as a percentage of candidates appearing for the selection process at consulting firms will go down.
(E) The candidates aspiring for consulting will start preparing for case interviews.

Bunuel · Accepted Answer

Experts' Global Video Explanation:

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deepverma · Answer

Premise :  If case interviews practice is widely adopted, it will help the firms in eliminating up to 10% of all the candidates who would otherwise have been misfits for the case-based work.
 Conclusion :   Therefore,  10% of all the candidates will still be misfits.

Question Type :  Inferences (about the consequences of instituting the new tests)
 Prethink :  Inferences are must be true statements.

Which one of the following inferences about the consequences of instituting the new tests is best supported by the passage above?  POE

(A) The percentage of misfits in the consulting industry will go up.  Not neccesarily. Percentage is of total candidates and not of Industry 
(B) The number of applicants to consulting firms will decline over a period.  Out of scope , no reason for reduction in number of applications.  
(C) Balance of demand of consulting firms and supply of fit candidates cannot be achieved.  Out of scope : Nothing mentioned abt demand-supply 
(D) The number of new candidates hired as a percentage of candidates appearing for the selection process at consulting firms will go down.  Correct 
(E) The candidates aspiring for consulting will start preparing for case interviews. :  Not necessarily as some are already gud and needn't any preparation.

juancruzcba · Answer

Hi,

I cannot understand how it will go down in answer D.

I´m thinking it this way:

We have 10 candidates and 2 were chosen, so the percentage of candidates chosen was 20%.

Now we will have 9 candidates and 2 are going to be chosen. Hence the percentage of candidates chosen WILL GO UP.

What I´m thinking wrong?

Thanks,

anshulasthana · Answer

IMO D

The conclusion is - 10% of Candidates will still be misfits even if the new selection practice is used. Since there are chances that 50% of unsuitable candidates will succeed in escaping this filter. 
This implies that the efficacy of this practice is 50 % only.
so if 12 candidates apply and 6 are unsuitable then 3 will escape this filter. 
and so out of 9 candidates 3 are still unsuitable having chances of getting selected.

Now the selection procedure will also eliminate 10% meaning now they have 8 candidates to select from where previously they had 12.

So the number of candidates available has gone down, thus the percentage of candidates hired to the percentage of candidates applied will also go down.

correctly inferred in option D.

imants12 · Answer

Many consulting firms have started to screen prospective candidates with the help of case interviews, on top of the regular selection process. If this practice is widely adopted, it will help the firms in eliminating up to 10% of all the candidates who would otherwise have been misfits for the case-based work. Yet, the new process may still not catch half of the unsuitable candidates. Therefore, 10% of all the candidates will still be misfits.

Which one of the following inferences about the consequences of instituting the new tests is best supported by the passage above?

Which one of the following inferences about the consequences of instituting the new tests is best supported by the passage above?

(A) The percentage of misfits in the consulting industry will go up.
(B) The number of applicants to consulting firms will decline over a period.
(C) Balance of demand of consulting firms and supply of fit candidates cannot be achieved.
(D) The number of new candidates hired as a percentage of candidates appearing for the selection process at consulting firms will go down.
(E) The candidates aspiring for consulting will start preparing for case interviews.

Now, let's see what the argument states,

Premise I : If case interviews practice is widely adopted, it will help the firms in eliminating up to 10% of all the candidates who would otherwise have been misfits for the case-based work.

Premise II : Yet, the new process may still not catch half of the unsuitable candidates.

Conclusion : Therefore, 10% of all the candidates will still be misfits.

Remember it's an inference question, so let's understand the details. 
Supposing there were 100 candidates appearing for the interview process and say 20 got selected and remaining 80 therefore got rejected, what the new screening process does is that it removes upto 10% of those selected candidates,who would otherwise have been misfits for case works. So,that makes it 2 candidates out of total 20 selected candidates. Also, the screening weeds out 50% of the unsuitable candidates i.e, 40 candidates out of total 80 unsuitable candidates.

The argument further goes on to claim that despite the new process 10% of the selected candidates would still be misfits. The basis of this conclusion being that the new process doesn't screen out 100% of the unsuitable candidates but actually screens only 50% of unsuitable candidates, thereby leaving adequate scope for misfits still making through the complete selection process. To put it in terms of numbers, the process screens out total 42 candidates i.e, 2 out of selected lot and 40 out of unsuitable ones. 
Now there are numerous issues with such a reasoning but because it's an Inference Question, let's just focus on information given in the premises as none of the answer choices address the assumptions made to reach the conclusion. 
Only Answer Choice D is based on the facts mentioned in the argument. If with the new process 18 candidates are found to be suitable against 20 without the screening, we can safely say that the number of new candidates hired as a percentage of candidates appearing for the selection process at consulting firms have gone down.

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saipk · Answer

Hello,

I have a doubt in option D.

Let's suppose a company is planning to hire 20 people and 100 people applied for the position
Before Implementation of case interviews:
 Out of 20 people hired, 10 were misfits
After Implementation of case interviews:
 Out of 20 people hired, 9 were misfits
Case interviews are just helping the company screen out misfits and reducing the percentage of misfits hired out of total hired, but not deciding how many people the company will be hiring.

Percentage candidates hired remained same in both the cases.

Can someone please help me why D is still correct?

tarunSVS · Answer

Hello
Can you please explain how D is the right answer?

thegmatmaster · Answer

What bothers me is that the passage is talking about candidates, while the alternative talks about candidates HIRED -> different samples. Therefore, it seems to have a missing link that adequate candidates won't be hired instead of misfits

macgmat · Answer

I have a doubt. The text states that there are case studies in addition to the regular selection process. The correct answer assumes everyone that is not eliminated after the case interviews is hired, right? How can we know that from the text?

Gemmie · Answer

Initial Situation :
Consulting firms are trying to improve their hiring process by introducing case interviews.
The goal of these interviews is to better identify candidates who would be a good fit for case-based work.

Effectiveness of the New Process :
The new case interview process is expected to be somewhat effective. Specifically, it will help in eliminating up to 10% of candidates who would otherwise have been "misfits" (candidates who are not suitable for the job).

Limitation of the New Process :
However, the passage also says that  "the new process may still not catch half of the unsuitable candidates." 
This means that even with the new case interview process,  more than half of the candidates who are actually unsuitable might still pass through the selection process . The process isn't perfect and doesn't filter out all the "misfits."

Final Outcome :
Because the new process isn’t perfect,  10% of all candidates will still be misfits , even after applying the new selection process.
This means that despite the improvements, 10% of those who are hired will still be unsuitable for the consulting work.

---

(A) The percentage of misfits in the consulting industry will go up. 
This is not supported because the passage does not suggest that the percentage of misfits will increase; it will remain significant but not necessarily higher than before.

(B) The number of applicants to consulting firms will decline over a period. 
The passage does not discuss anything related to the number of applicants or a decline in interest.

(C) Balance of demand of consulting firms and supply of fit candidates cannot be achieved. 
This might seem plausible, but the passage does not provide enough evidence to conclude this directly.

(D) The number of new candidates hired as a percentage of candidates appearing for the selection process at consulting firms will go down.  
The statement  "If this practice is widely adopted, it will help the firms in eliminating up to 10% of all the candidates who would otherwise have been misfits for the case-based work"  implies that without this practice, those "misfits"—candidates who are not well-suited for case-based work—would likely be hired.
Therefore, with the adoption of the new practice, which reduce a number of such "misfits", the number of candiates hired is expected to decrease.

(E) The candidates aspiring for consulting will start preparing for case interviews. 
While this seems logical, the passage does not discuss the behavior of candidates in response to the new process.

VerbalBot · Answer

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Many consulting firms have started to screen prospective candidates

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Many consulting firms have started to screen prospective candidates

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