For the past two years at FasCorp, there has been a policy to advertise any job opening to current employees and to give no job to an applicant from outside the company if a FasCorp employee applies who is qualified for the job. This policy has been strictly followed, yet even though numerous employees of FasCorp have been qualified for any given entry-level position, some entry-level jobs have been filled with people from outside the company.
If the information provided is true, which of the following must on the basis of it also be true about FasCorp during the past two years?
If the information provided is true, which of the following must on the basis of it also be true about FasCorp during the past two years?
Show Hint
- There have been some open jobs for which no qualified FasCorp employee applied.
- Some entry-level job openings have not been advertised to FasCorp employees.
- The total number of employees has increased.
- FasCorp has hired some people for jobs for which they were not qualified.
- All the job openings have been for entry-level jobs.
The Correct Option is A
Solution and Explanation
This is a logical deduction question. We are given a set of rules (the policy) and facts, and we must determine what conclusion necessarily follows. The key is to reconcile the seemingly contradictory facts while respecting the stated rules.
Step 2: Detailed Explanation:
Let's break down the given information:
Rule 1: All job openings are advertised internally.
Rule 2: If a qualified internal employee applies, they get the job over any outsider.
Fact 1: The policy (Rules 1 and 2) has been "strictly followed."
Fact 2: There are "numerous" qualified internal employees for entry-level jobs.
Fact 3: "Some" entry-level jobs were filled by outsiders.
How can Fact 3 be true if the policy was strictly followed (Fact 1) and there were qualified internal people available (Fact 2)? According to Rule 2, an outsider can only be hired if no qualified internal employee \textit{applies} for that specific job. Therefore, for those specific "some" jobs that went to outsiders, it must be the case that none of the "numerous" qualified employees chose to apply for them.
Analyzing the Options:
(A) There have been some open jobs for which no qualified FasCorp employee applied. This must be true. It is the only logical possibility that allows an outsider to be hired without violating the strictly followed policy.
(B) This would be a direct violation of Rule 1 of the policy, which the passage says was "strictly followed." Therefore, this must be false.
(C) We have no information about hiring vs. attrition rates, so we cannot conclude anything about the total number of employees.
(D) The passage says nothing about hiring unqualified people. The policy is about giving preference to qualified internal candidates.
(E) The passage says the policy applies to "any job opening" and gives entry-level jobs as an example. We cannot conclude that all openings were entry-level.
Step 3: Final Answer:
The only statement that must be true to reconcile all the given information is that for the jobs filled by outsiders, no qualified internal candidates applied.
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