Chapter 5
Employee Selection: References and Testing
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING REFERENCES
AND LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
 In psychology, a common belief is that the best
predictor of future performance is past performance
 Reference checks: It is the process of
confirming the accuracy of information
provided by an applicant
 References: It is the expression of an opinion,
either orally or through a written checklist,
regarding an applicant’s ability, previous
performance, work habits, character, or
potential for future success.
 Letters of recommendation: It is a letter
expressing an opinion regarding an applicant’s
ability, previous performance, work habits,
character, or potential for future success.
Reasons for Using References
Recommendations
 Confirming Details on a Résumé
 Resumé Fraud: lying on their résumés
about what experience or education they
actually have
 Checking for Discipline Problems
 Negligent Hiring: If an organization hires
an applicant without checking his
references and background and he later
commits a crime while in the employ of
the organization
 Discovering New Information about the
Applicant
 Employers use a variety of methods to
understand the personality and skills of
job applicants; references and letters of
recommendation certainly can be two of
these methods
 validity coefficient for references/letters of
recommendation and performance is only
.18, with a corrected validity of .29
 Predicting Future Performance
 Leniency
 most letters of recommendation are
positive: Fewer than 1%
references rate applicants as below
average or poor
 applicants choose their
references!
 people have the right to see their
reference letters
 fear of legal ramifications: A person
providing references can be charged
with defamation of character (slander
if the reference is oral, libel if written)
if the content of the reference is both
untrue and made with malicious
intent.
 Negligent reference: if it does not
provide relevant information to an
organization that requests it
 Knowledge of the applicant: the person
writing the letter often does not know the
applicant well, has not observed all
aspects of an applicant’s behavior, or
both.
 Low reliability
 lack of agreement
 reference reliability is only .22
 Extraneous factors involved in writing
and reading such letters
 extraneous factors that affect their
writing and evaluation.
 Research has indicated that the
and method used by the letter writer is
often more important than the actual
content.
 A promising approach to increasing
the validity of references is to
increase the structure of the
reference check.
Ethical Issues
 Raynes (2005) lists three ethical guidelines
that reference providers should follow:
1. Explicitly state your relationship with the
person you are recommending.
2. Be honest in providing details.
3. Let the applicant see your reference
before sending it, and give him the
chance to decline to use it.
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT
TRAINING AND EDUCATION
 For many jobs, it is common that applicants
must have a minimum level of education or
training to be considered. That is, an
organization might require that managerial
applicants have a bachelor’s degree to pass
the initial applicant screening process.
of
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT
KNOWLEDGE
own  Job knowledge
 designed to measure how much a person
knows about a job.
 have excellent content and criterion
validity, and because of their high face
validity, they are positively accepted by
applicants
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT
ABILITY
 Ability tests
 tap the extent to which an applicant can
learn or perform a job-related skill.
Alyssa Louise C. Cabije
BS Psychology
University of Mindanao
 used primarily for occupations in which a
pplicants are not expected to know how to
perform the job at the time of hire.
Cognitive ability
 oral and written comprehension,
numerical facility, originality,
memorization, reasoning
(mathematical, deductive, inductive),
and general learning.
 thought to predict work performance
in two ways:
 by allowing employees to quickly
learn jobrelated knowledge
 by processing information
resulting in better decision
making.
 Drawback: difficulty of setting a
passing score.
 Wonderlic Personnel Test
 Most widely used cognitive
ability test.
 The short amount of time (12
minutes) necessary to take the
test, as well as the fact that it
can be administered in a group
setting, makes it popular.
 Perceptual ability
 consists of vision (near, far, night,
peripheral), color discrimination,
depth perception, glare sensitivity,
speech (clarity, recognition), and
hearing (sensitivity, auditory
attention, sound localization)
 Psychomotor ability
 includes finger dexterity, manual
dexterity, control precision, multilimb
coordination, response control,
reaction time, arm-hand steadiness,
wrist-finger speed, and speed-of-limb
movement
 Physical ability tests: often used for jobs
that require physical strength and
stamina, such as police officer, firefighter,
and lifeguard.
 Measured in two ways:
 Job simulation: applicants
actually demonstrate job-related
physical behaviors
 Physical agility tests
 9 basic physical abilities
 dynamic strength (strength
requiring repetitions)
 trunk strength (stooping or
bending over)
 explosive strength (jumping or
throwing objects)
 static strength (strength not
requiring repetitions)
 dynamic flexibility (speed of
bending, stretching, twisting)
 extent flexibility (degree of
bending, stretching, twisting)
 gross body equilibrium (balance)
 gross body coordination
(coordination when body is in
motion)
 stamina (ability to exert effort
over long periods of time
 Problems in P.A.T
 Job Relatedness
 Passing Scores
 Two types of standards:
 Relative standards:
indicate how well an
individual scores
compared with others.
 Absolute passing
scores: are set at the
minimum level needed
to perform a job.
 When the Ability Must Be
Present
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT
SKILL
 Work sample: the applicant performs actual
job-related tasks
 Excellent selection tool for several
reasons:
 directly related to job tasks,
 have excellent content validity
 scores tend to predict actual work
performance and thus have excellent
criterion validity
 job applicants are able to see the
connection between the job sample
and the work performed on the job,
the samples have excellent face
validity and thus are challenged less
often in civil service appeals or in
court cases
 have lower racial differences in test
scores than do written cognitive
ability tests
 Assessment centers: use of multiple
assessment methods that allow multiple
assessors to actually observe applicants
perform simulated job tasks
 Requirements for a selection technique to
be considered an assessment center:
 The assessment center activities
must be based on the results of a
thorough job analysis.
 Multiple assessment techniques must
be used, at least one of which must
be a simulation.
Alyssa Louise C. Cabije
BS Psychology
University of Mindanao
  Multiple trained assessors must be
used.
 Behavioral observations must be
documented at the time the applicant
behavior is observed.
 Assessors must prepare a report of
their observations.
 The overall judgment of an applicant
must be based on a combination of
information from the multiple
assessors and multiple techniques.
 The overall evaluation of an applicant
cannot be made until all assessment
center tasks have been completed.
 Development and Component
 In-basket technique: simulate the
types of daily information that appear
on a manager’s or employee’s desk
 Simulations: include such diverse
activities as role plays and work
samples, place an applicant in a
situation that is as similar as possible
to one that will be encountered on the
job.
 Work Sample: when a simulation
does not involve a situational
exercise
 Leaderless Group Discussions:
applicants meet in small groups and
are given a job-related problem to
solve or a job-related issue to discuss
 Business games: exercises that
allow the applicant to demonstrate
such attributes as creativity, decision
making, and ability to work with
others.
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING PRIOR
EXPERIENCE
 Applicant experience is typically measured in
one of four ways:
 Experience Ratings: idea that past
experience will predict future experience
 Biodata
 selection method that considers an
applicant’s life, school, military,
community, and work experience.
 application blank or questionnaire
containing questions that measure
the difference between successful
and unsuccessful performers on a job
 Development of a Biodata
Instrument
Information about employees is
obtained in one of two ways:
 File approach: obtain
information from personnel files
on employees’ previous
employment, education,
interests, and demographics.
 Questionnaire approach:
information cannot be obtained
from employees who have quit
or been fired
IMPORTANT:
 Once a criterion has been
chosen, employees are split into
two criterion groups based on
their criterion scores
 Vertical percentage: The
percentage of a particular
response for the low group is
subtracted from the percentage
of the same response in the high
group to obtain a weight for that
item.
 A problem with creating a
biodata instrument is sample
size. To create a reliable and
valid biodata instrument, it is
desirable to have data from
hundreds of employees.
Employees should be split into two
samples when a biodata instrument
is created:
 Derivation sample: is used to
form the weights
 hold-out sample: used to
double-check the selected items
and weights.
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING
PERSONALITY, INTEREST, AND CHARACTER
 Personality inventories: becoming
increasingly popular as an employee selection
method, in part because they predict
performance better than was once thought,
and in part because they result in less adverse
impact than do ability tests.
 Tests of normal personality: measures
the traits exhibited by normal individuals in
everyday life.
 Determination of the number and
type of personality dimension:
 theory-based test: identical to
the number postulated by a well-
known theorist
 statistically based test:
determined through a statistical
process called factor analysis
 empirically based test:
determined by grouping answers
given by people known to
possess a certain characteristic
 “Big Five” or the five-factor model,
these dimensions are:
 openness to experience (bright,
inquisitive),
Alyssa Louise C. Cabije
BS Psychology
University of Mindanao
  conscientiousness (reliable, test—the polygraph—that has
dependable), been made illegal partly
 extraversion (outgoing, friendly), because of questions about its
 agreeableness (works well with accuracy.
others, a team player), b) self-admissions of theft
 emotional stability (not anxious,  Problem: the researcher is
tense) relying on dishonest people to
be honest about their criminal
 Tests of psychopathology (abnormal
history
behavior): determine whether individuals
c) shrinkage (the amount of goods lost
have serious psychological problems such
by a store)
as depression, bipolar disorder, and
 Problem: the researcher does
schizophrenia.
not know which of the
 Projective tests: provide the
employees is responsible for the
respondent with unstructured tasks
theft or, for that matter, what
such as describing ink blots and
percentage of the shrinkage can
drawing pictures.
be attributed to employee theft
 Rorschach Ink Blot Test
as opposed to customer theft or
 Thematic Apperception Test
incidental breakage
(TAT).
d) known groups (e.g., priests vs.
 Objective tests: structured so that
convicts)
the respondent is limited to a few
e) future theft
answers that will be scored by
 Conditional reasoning tests
standardized keys
 to reduce inaccurate (faking) responses
 MMPI-2
and get a more accurate picture of a
person’s tendency to engage in
 Interest Inventories
aggressive or counterproductive behavior.
 Strong Interest Inventory (SII): most
 provide test takers with a series of
commonly used interest inventories which
statements and then ask the respondent
asks individuals to indicate whether they
to select the reason that best justifies or
like or dislike items such as bargaining,
explains each of the statements.
repairing electrical wiring, and taking
 The type of reason selected by the
responsibility
individual is thought to indicate his or her
 Vocational counseling: helping people
aggressive biases or beliefs. Aggressive
find the careers for which they are best
individuals tend to believe:
suited
1. most people have harmful intentions
 Aamodt Vocational Interest Inventory
behind their behavior (hostile
(AVIS)
attribution bias)
 Integrity tests (honesty tests): tell an
2. it is important to show strength or
employer the probability that an applicant
dominance in social interactions
would steal money or merchandise.
(potency bias)
 Electronic Integrity Tests
3. it is important to retaliate when
 polygraph
wronged rather than try to maintain a
 voice stress analyzer
relationship (retribution bias)
 Paper-and-pencil integrity tests
4. powerful people will victimize less
 Overt integrity tests: based on the
powerful individuals (victimization
premise that a person’s attitudes
bias)
about theft as well as his previous
5. evil people deserve to have bad
theft behavior will accurately predict
things happen to them (derogation of
his future honesty.
target bias)
 Personality-based integrity tests:
6. social customs restrict free will and
more general in that they tap a
should be ignored (social discounting
variety of personality traits thought to
bias).
be related to a wide range of
counterproductive behavior such as
 Graphology
theft, absenteeism, and violence.
 an interesting method to select employees
 the validity of integrity tests has been
is handwriting analysis
determined by comparing test scores
 the way people write reveals their
with:
personality, which in turn should indicate
a) polygraph test results
work performance
 Problem: the researcher is
 To analyze a person’s handwriting, a
essentially comparing integrity
graphologist looks at the size, slant, width,
test scores with the scores of a
Alyssa Louise C. Cabije
BS Psychology
University of Mindanao
 regularity, and pressure of a writing  Rejected applicants should be treated well
sample. because they are potential customers and
 Research Findings: potential applicants for other positions that
1. consistent in their judgments about might become available in the organization
script features but not in their
interpretation about what these
features mean
2. trained graphologists are no more
accurate or reliable at i nterpreting
handwriting samples than are
untrained undergraduates
3. not a useful technique in employee
selection
4. predicts best when the writing sample
is autobiographical (the writer writes
an essay about himself), which
means that graphologists are making
their predictions more on the content
of the writing than on the quality of
the handwriting

PREDICTING PERFORMANCE LIMITATIONS DUE TO

MEDICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
 Drug testing certainly is one of the most
controversial testing methods used by HR
professionals.
 Drug Screening for Urine:
 Enzyme multiplied immunoassay
technique (EMIT): uses enzymes as
reagents
 Radioimmunoassay (RIA): uses
radioactive tagging
 Thin-layer chromatography or gas
chromatography/mass
spectrometry analysis: urine
sample confirmation test

 Psychological Exams: it is common for

employers to give psychological exams to
applicants after a conditional offer of hire has
been made. If the applicant fails the exam, the
offer is rescinded.

 Medical Exams: many employers require that

a medical exam be taken after a conditional
offer of hire has been made

COMPARISON OF TECHNIQUES

 Validity
 Legal Issues
 methods used to select employees are
most prone to legal challenge when they
result in adverse impact, invade an
applicant’s privacy, and do not appear to
be job related (lack face validity)

Rejecting Applicants
 Once a decision has been made regarding
which applicants will be hired, those who will
not be hired must be notified.

Alyssa Louise C. Cabije

BS Psychology
University of Mindanao