11.

Selection I

Past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

4 kinds of information obtainable:

 Employment and educational history

 Evaluation of the applicant’s character, personality, interpersonal competence
 Evaluation of the applicant’s job performance ability
 Willingness to rehire

 Recommendations and Reference Checks

Average validity of recommendations = 0.14. Letters should include:
1. Degree of writer familiarity with the candidate;
2. Degree of writer familiarity with the job in question;
3. Specific examples of performance;
4. Individuals or groups to whom the candidate is compared.
Average validity of reference checks = 0.26. Should include:
1. Consistent;
2. Relevant;
3. Written;
4. Based on public records, if possible.
Can also via telephone à Structured Telephone Reference Check (STRC).
Recommendations and reference checks can provide important information.
 
 Personal History Data
Job Application Blanks (JAB’s): questions must be job-related and not privacy.
Weighted Application Blanks (WAB’s): Certain aspects of an individual’s total
background (years of education, previous experience, etc.) should be related to later job
success.  WAB: identifying which of these aspects reliably distinguish groups of effective
and ineffective employees. Simple and straightforward. Cross-validated.
Biographical Information Blanks (BIB’s): Self-report instrument, multiple-choice.

à Although individuals have the ability to fake, it does not mean that they do it:
- information can be verified;
- multiple-choice questions are less agreeable to distortion;
- distortion is less likely if applicants are warned of the presence of a lie scale;
- asking job applicants to detail their answers.

Evidence that the validity of personal history data as predictor of future work behavior is
quite good.
Biodata inventories are relative free of adverse/negative impact compared to cognitive
ability tests.
Personal-history data are most useful when they are based on a rational approach
 (questions are based on a job analysis). It is probably the only legally valid approach for
the use of personal history data in employment selection. However, the validity of
biodata items can be affected by the life stage in which the item is.
 

 Honesty/ Integrity Tests

1. Overt integrity tests à questions about theft and other forms of dishonesty and
questions about admissions of theft and other illegal activities.
2. Personality-oriented measures à predictors of a wide variety of counterproductive
behaviors.
Both (1 + 2) seem to have a common latent structure reflecting conscientiousness,
agreeableness, emotional stability. It works, but 3 issues have to be resolved:
1. Need for a greater understanding of the construct validity of integrity tests, because the
integrity tests are not interchangeable.
2. Women and old people (40+) score higher than men and young people (40-).
3. Real threat of intentional distortion (ironic: being not honest on honesty test).
à Alternative ways to assess integrity: conditional reasoning: testing focuses on how
people solve what appear to be traditional inductive-reasoning problems.

 Evaluation of Training and Experience

Evaluating job experience is not as easy as one may think because experience includes
both qualitative and quantitative components that interact over time. However, using
experience as a predictor of future performance can pay off.
 
 Computer-Based Screening (CBS)
CBS can be used simply to convert a screening tool from paper to an electronic format
= electronic page turner.
Computer-adaptive testing (CAT) presents all applicants with a set of items of average
difficulty, and, if responses are correct, items with higher levels of difficulty. Uses IRT to
estimate an applicants’ level.

Advantages:
1. Administration is easier;
2. Applicants can assess the test from different locations (increasing applicant pool);
3. Possibilities for applicants with disabilities;
Disadvantages:
1. Technology changes so fast that HR professionals simply cannot keep up;
2. Costly;
3. “Image problem” (low face-validity).
 

 Drug Screening
67% of employers use drugs. Critics think that screening violates an individuals’ right to
privacy and that tests are often inaccurate. However, employees in jobs where public
safety is crucial, should be screened for drugs use.
Is drug screening legal? If illegal drug use, on or off the job, may reduce job
 performance, the employer has adequate legal grounds for conducting drug tests.
 
 Polygraph Tests
Intended to detect deception and are based on the measurement of physiological
processes (heart rate) and changes in those processes.
 
 Employment Interviews
Almost universal. 2 functions:
1. Fill information gaps in other selection devices;
2. To assess factors that can be measured only via face-to-face interaction.
Distortion of interview information: to upgrade rather than downgrade prior work
experience. Computer-based interviews decreased social-desirability distortion compared
to face-to-face interviews.
Impression-management = applicants who are pleasant and compliment the interviewer
are more likely to receive more positive evaluations.

The best way to improve validity is to improve the structure of the interview.
 

Factors affecting the interview decision-making process in each of these areas:

1. Social/ Interpersonal factors (interview-applicant similarity and (non)verbal cues);
2. Cognitive factors (pre-interview-/ first impressions, prototypes, contrast effects);
3. Individual differences (inwardly/ outwardly, interviewer training experience/mood);
4. Structure (questioning consistency, evaluation standardization, question sophistication, rapport
building);
5. Use of alternative media (videoconferencing/skype, telephone interviewing).
 

 Virtual Reality Screening (VRT)

Simulator. VRT has some challenges:
1. Can lead to syndromes (eyestrain, headache);
2. Cost and lack of commercial availability;
3. Technical limitations.