Chapter 6

Selecting Employees

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 Learning Objectives

1. Define basic testing concepts, including validity and reliability.

2. Discuss types of personnel tests
3. Explain the factors and problems that can undermine the interview’s
usefulness, and the technique for eliminating them.
4. Explain how to do background checks on job candidates.
5. Discuss how to use employee selection methods to raise the level of
a company’s employee engagement

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 The basics of testing and selecting employees

Q: Why careful selection is important?

Why careful selection is important?
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 Why careful selection is important?

• Lead to improved organizational performance

• Managers’ own performance partly depends on subordinates
Þ Hire employees who lack the necessary skills or who are
obstructionist affects managers’ and organizational performance
• Help reduce dysfunctional behaviors at work
• Save costs
• Avoid legal implications: violating discrimination and negligent hiring

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 Legal Implications & Negligent Hiring

Carefully Scrutinize

Authorize background checks

Negligent Hiring
Hiring workers with criminal
records or other such problems Save all records
without proper safeguards
Reject applicants with false
statements

Immediate disciplinary action

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 Test Characteristics
1. Reliability

• The characteristic that refers to the consistency of scores obtained by the

same person when retested with the identical or equivalent tests.
• It’s typical to judge a test’s reliability in terms of a correlation coefficient

Correlation Examples
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 Test Characteristics
2. Validity
• The accuracy with which a test, interview and so on measures what it
purports to measure or fulfills the function it was designed to fill.
• Is the performance on the test a valid predictor of subsequent
performance on the job?
• Criterion Validity: showing that scores on the test (predictors) are related
to job performance (criterion)
• Content Validity: a test that is content valid in one in which the test
contains a fair sample of the tasks and skills actually needed for the job in
question
• Construct Validity: a test that is construct valid is one that demonstrates
that a selection procedure measures a construct and that construct is
important for successful job performance.

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 How to Validate a Test

• Step 1: Analyze the job

• Step 2: Choose the Tests
• Step 3: Administer the Tests
• Step 4: Relate Scores and Criteria
• Step 5: Cross-Validate and Revalidate

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 Know Your Employment Law

• Avoiding Discrimination
• Job Relatedness
• Protecting Employees
Individual Rights &
• Test Privacy

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 Types of Tests

Cognitive (Mental) Abilities: to assess a candidate’s cognitive or mental

abilities. including Intelligence tests (such as IQ, Stanford-Binet, Wonderlic
Personnel Test, etc.)
Aptitude tests: measure person-job fit
Test sample

Motor & Physical Abilities: measure items such as finger dexterity,

strength, and manual dexterity.

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 Types of Tests

Personality tests
• Personality tests measure basic aspects of an applicant's personality,
such as introversion, stability, and motivation
• Non-Performance is usually the result of personal characteristics, such as
attitude, motivation, and especially, temperament
• Personality Test Effectiveness assumes that we find a relationship
between a measurable personality trait (such as extroversion) and
success on the job. Employers should use personality tests with caution.
• Industrial psychologists often focus on the “big five” personality
dimensions: extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness,
conscientiousness, and openness to experience.

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 Sample Online Personality Test Questions

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 Types of Tests

Achievement Tests: a measure of what someone has learned. It can

measure job knowledge (accounting, marketing… ) and abilities (typing
test…)
Computerized and Online Testing

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 Types of Tests

Work Samples & Simulations: focuses on measuring performance directly.

Situational Judgment Tests: assess an applicant’s judgment regarding a
situation encountered in the workplace (check example page 191)
Management Assessment Centers: A facility in which management
candidates are asked to make decisions in hypothetical situations and are
scored on their performance.
• The in-basket (that a candidate takes appropriate action upon accumulation of
reports or memos)
• The leaderless group discussion: A leaderless group receives a discussion
question and must arrive at a group decision.
• Individual presentations: A participant’s communication skills and persuasiveness
are evaluated.
=> Employers use assessment centers for selection, promotion, and
development.

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 Types of Tests (cont.)

Video-Based Situational Testing: presents examinees with scenarios

representative of the job, each followed by a multiple choice question.
Miniature Job Training & Evaluation Approach: the employer trains
candidates to perform a sample of the job’s tasks, and then evaluates their
performance.
Computerized Multimedia Candidate Assessment Tool

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 Interviewing Candidates

Selection Interview: a selection procedure designed to predict future job

performance on the basis of applicants’ oral responses to oral inquiries
Types of interviews:
Structured: the questions (and perhaps even acceptable answers) are
specified in advance, and the answers may be rated for appropriateness.
Non-structured: the interviewer asks questions as they come to mind,
generally with no set format

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 Interviewing Candidates

Types of Questions
• Situational questions: explain what the candidate’s behavior would be in a given
situation
• Behavioral questions: how they behaved in the past in some situation
• Knowledge and background questions: candidates’ job-related knowledge and
experience
• ”Trick” questions
How to Administer
One-on-one interview
Sequential Interview: several people interview the applicant in sequence before a
selection decision is made
Panel interview: the candidate is interviewed simultaneously by a group (or panel)
of interviewers

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 Structured Interview Guide

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 Interviewing Candidates

Online Interviews

Diversity

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 How Useful Are Interviews?

The evidence suggests the following:

• For predicting job performance, situational questions interviews yield
a higher mean validity than do behavioral interviews.
• Structured interviews, regardless of content, are more valid and
reliable than unstructured interviews for predicting job performance.
• One-on-one interviews tend to be more valid than panel interviews.

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 How to Avoid Common Interviewing Mistakes

• Snap Judgments
• Negative Emphasis
• Not Knowing the Job
• Pressure to Hire
• Candidate Order (Contrast Error)
• Influence of Nonverbal Behaviors
• Attractiveness
• Research Insight
• Ingratiation
• Nonverbal Implications

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 How to Conduct an Effective Interview

• Step 1: Design the Interview

• Step 2: Review the Candidate’s Background
• Step 3: Establish Rapport
• Step 4: Ask Questions
• Step 5: Close the Interview
• Step 6: Review the Interview

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 How to Conduct an Effective Interview

• Avoiding Illegal questions

• Using competencies models
• Profiles of employee interviews

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 Sample Interview Questions

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 Asking Profile-Oriented Interview Questions

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 Using Other Selection Techniques
Background Investigations & Reference Checks (usually done after the
interviews)

What to Verify

Collecting Background
Information

Checking Social Networking Sites

Reference Check Effectiveness

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 Using Other Selection Techniques
Know Your Employment Law

• Giving References
• Defamation
• Social Media
• Best to get candidates’ approval
• Using Pre-employment Information Services

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 Using Other Selection Techniques

Honesty Testing
• Polygraph Tests: lie detector
• Paper-and-Pencil Honesty Tests
• Spotting Dishonesty
Graphology: handwriting analysis
Medical Exams
Drug Screening
Realistic Job Previews
Tapping Friends & Acquaintances

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 Using Other Selection Techniques

Making the Selection Decision

How Useful are Testing & Selection Devices
Developing & Extending the Job Offer

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 Employee Engagement Guide

• Engagement
• Building Engagement
• The Toyota Way
• Step 1: an in-depth online application (20-30 minutes)
• Step 2: a 2-5 hour computer-based assessment
• Step 3: a 6-8 hour work simulation assessment
• Step 4: a face-to-face interview
• Step 5: a background check, drug screen, & medical check
• Step 6: job offer

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 Summary

1. Screening & selecting job candidates

2. The many types of personnel tests
3. Factors that can undermine the usefulness of an interview
4. Screening tools
5. Candidates with high potential tend to be engaged

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