Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 July 2016
Gilbert and Mosteller (1966) derive the probability of obtaining the best secretary when a fixed number of potential employees of varying quality are interviewed sequentially by an employer. This paper extends these results by deriving the probability of selecting an applicant of arbitrary rank under a variety of circumstances concerning the objective of employers and the amount of information employers have about applicant quality.
This paper was written while the author was in the Departments of Civil Engineering and Geography, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60201, USA.
The support of NSF Grant SES 84-19773 is gratefully acknowledged.