The gap between science and practice in personnel selection is an ongoing concern of human resource management. This paper takes Oliver´s framework of organizations´ strategic responses to institutional pressures as a basis for outlining the diverse economic and social demands that facilitate or inhibit the application of scientifically ... recommended selection procedures. Faced with a complex network of multiple requirements, practitioners make more diverse choices in response to any of these pressures than has previously been acknowledged in the scientific literature. Implications for the science-practitioner gap are discussed.