Mode selectivity of an air-post index-guided vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser structure operating at 1550 nm is investigated using a full-vector Maxwell-equation solver with a finite-difference time-domain method. The resonance wavelengths, quality factors, and spatial field distributions are calculated for the three lowest-order modes. Transverse-mode competition is quantitatively described as a function of the cavity size and the pillar etch depth. ©1998 American Institute of Physics.