Abstract: To obtain desirable results through people, executives need to be aware of new approaches to employee selection and staffing. The establishment of a new discipline called neurolinguistic programming (NLP) in the USA can offer such new approaches. Research in NLP has identified about two dozen mental subprogrammes people unconsciously use which affect work preferences. NLP calls them meta programmes, from the Greek prefix meta which means “beyond” or “after”. They were so called because they appear to be operating beyond or on another level from that of the main programmes which drive mental processes. Proposes that executives could utilize meta programmes to determine more accurately if job applicants are qualified for the positions they are seeking. These techniques could also be useful in taking transfer and promotion decisions and in working out.