RECRUITMENT

AND SELECTION

June 8, 2021
 Outline the importance of employee screening and selection.
• Differentiate between employee screening and employee
selection.
• Identify the advantages and disadvantages associated with
several widely used screening tools, including biographical data,

LEARNING application forms, rsums, work experience, and reference

checks.

OUTCOME • Site the legal status of these screening tools and the extent to
which they are predictive of performance in the target job.
• Design an effective multiphase screening program appropriate
to the position requirements for any particular job.
 
 Selection I:
Applicant Screening
Screening
◦ The first step of the selection process; involves identifying individuals from the applicant pool
who lack the minimum qualifications for the target position(s). Candidates “passing” this first
hurdle then undergo more extensive assessment.
◦ The goal is to identify and eliminate candidates who do not meet the minimum qualifications
(MQs) established for a position.
Minimum qualifications (MQs)
◦ Knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience deemed necessary for minimally acceptable
performance in one or more positions; designed for making the “first cut” in screening
applicants, and sometimes referred to as selection criteria.
◦ MQs critically affect the entire selection process and are often closely scrutinized for adverse
impact against designated targeted groups.
 Selection I:
Applicant Screening
Designated targeted groups
◦ The four groups (women, visible minorities, Aboriginal people, and people with disabilities)
designated in the federal government’s Employment Equity Act that receive legal “protection”
in employment policies and practices because of their underrepresentation in the workforce.
◦ Accordingly, they must be systematically established.
 RECRUITMENT, SCREENING, AND
SELECTION
Selection ratio
◦ The proportion of applicants for one or more positions who are hired. The number of positions recruited
for, divided by the number of applicants, provides the selection ratio.
◦ Well-designed screening tools quickly and inexpensively identify applicants who do not meet the MQs.
◦ Two types of errors—false positives and false negatives— can be made in the screening process.
◦ False positives, those who pass the screening process though ill-suited for the job, are likely to be
eliminated through more extensive testing at the selection stage.
◦ False negatives— those who have the MQs but are inappropriately eliminated— are more serious,
depending on the nature of the job involved.
 Screening Methods
◦ We now consider the common traditionally used screening procedures, including the review of
information obtained from application forms, biographical information blanks, résumés, and reference
and background checks, as well as the evaluation of applicant work experience.
◦ More recent technology-enabled tools, such as social networking site searches, virtual career fairs, and
virtual job auditions, will also be considered
◦ Well-designed and implemented screening tools identify and eliminate applicants who lack the MQs for
the position in a manner that is cost-effective and legally defensible.
 Application Forms
◦ Individuals applying for jobs are almost always asked to complete, online or otherwise, an employment
application form, commonly referred to as an application blank
◦ Application blank is a form completed by job candidates that provides a prospective employer with basic
information concerning things such as applicant knowledge, skills, education, and previous work
experience.
◦ Regardless of the specific format used, information from application forms provides a preliminary pre-
employment screen that addresses position-related MQs.
◦ Use of a standard form ensures that the same information is collected from all applicants, which can then
be a common point of comparison in subsequent screening activities.
◦ Human Rights Considerations
 Weighted Application Blanks
◦ Sometimes information concerning a single item on an application form is sufficient to
◦ screen out a candidate.
◦ Instead, the screener must use personal judgment and experience to evaluate the entirety of the
information the candidate provides.
◦ Weighted application blank (WAB)is a formal method for quantitatively combining information from
application blank items by assigning weights that reflect the value of each item in the prediction of job
success.
◦ Like any selection instrument, the WAB must exhibit good psychometric properties.
◦ Scoring of WABs is developed against aspects of employee performance that matter to the employer.
 Weighted Application Blanks
◦ Well-constructed WABs are good predictors of certain aspects of work, such as absenteeism and accidents.
◦ Once developed, they are both easy and economical to use especially when applications are collected digitally, such
that computer algorithms can quickly and efficiently score them at low cost. Importantly, well-constructed WABs are
unlikely to be considered intrusive or threatening, as most job applicants expect to complete one.
◦ Some cautions are associated with WABs. First, scoring keys are typically derived to predict one specific, often narrow,
outcome (e.g., turnover, absenteeism, or accident rates) as opposed to broad multifaceted measures of performance.
◦ Second, WABs require data from a large number of employees to obtain percentages that are stable estimates of the
targeted weights.
◦ Finally, while WABs enable employers to predict certain work outcomes, often the reasons for the relationships found
are not immediately evident, which is bothersome.
◦ WABs are often used for quick, cost-effective screening and may also be used in combination with other types of
predictors to improve selection decisions.
 Weighted Application Blanks

◦ WABs are often used for quick, cost-effective screening and may also be used in combination with other
types of predictors (e.g., personality or cognitive ability; see Chapter 8) to improve selection decisions.
◦ This is especially appropriate when there are a large number of applicants for a single position, or when
large numbers of applicants are hired for similar kinds of jobs, because the same item set is likely to be
useful across the entire applicant group.
◦ Also, given their capability to predict turnover, WABs are often used for jobs requiring long and costly
training where turnover costs are high.
 Biographical Data
◦ Use of biographical data addresses a wider range of content, for example, hobbies, family relationships,
leisure-time pursuits, personal accomplishments, and early work experiences
Biodata
◦ Biographical data gathered from applicant BIBs, application blanks, or other sources.
Biographical information blank(BIB)
◦ A pre-selection questionnaire that requires applicants to provide detailed job related
◦ Information concerning their personal background and life experiences.
◦ BIBs, also known as life history or personal history inventories, are based on the assumption that past
behaviour is the best predictor of future behaviour.
Biodata has been used within and across a variety of contexts (e.g., work and education)
and fields (clinical, developmental, and social psychology). As with WABs, BIBs are
especially appropriate for organizations hiring large numbers of employees for similar
kinds of jobs, and a low selection ratio.
 Résumés
◦ Résumés provide another source of biographical information. Of course, unlike with application forms
and BIBs, here applicants typically decide what to provide and how to present it, as part of an effort to
give a brief, written self-introduction to the employer.
◦ Employers often presume that résumé information is job related and will help them to determine if a
candidate satisfies the MQs.
◦ Some organizations require candidates to complete preformatted résumé templates. While this could be
more time consuming for applicants, it could serve as a screen in itself—with only those individuals
especially motivated completing a template specific to the organization.
 Writing a Résumé
◦ Many people have difficulty writing a good résumé. Vocational guidance and employment counsellors
often provide useful help in résumé writing as part of their services.
◦ Most libraries have references concerning résumé preparation as well, and, of course, there are many
resources on the Internet.
◦ Résumés should include the applicant’s name, address, and phone number(s), education and training,
employment history, and names of references with contact information.
◦ Information regarding hobbies and interests should be included as relevant to career goals.
◦ The résumé should be well organized and highlight key information. The typeface size (e.g., a 10-, 11-,
or 12-point font) and style (e.g., Arial) should make for easy and quick reading.
 Screening Résumés
◦ While many employers, especially smaller ones, manually screen résumés, increasing numbers of
medium and large-sized organizations are using Applicant Tracking System (ATSs) to fulfill this task.
◦ ATSs are software applications that scan résumés to help match skills and experience with available
positions, filtering through only those with the closest matches for further consideration by a recruiter.
◦ Accordingly, it serves the applicant well to employ tactics for getting through the filters. Consultants
familiar with ATSs offer several such tactics, including repeatedly using key terms found in the job
description (desired knowledge, skills, and abilities), attaching dates to all prior roles/positions, using
simplified formatting (e.g., avoiding graphs and charts) and standard headlines, using acronyms where
relevant to the position (e.g., CSR for customer service representative), avoiding having your name
appear in all caps at the top of your résumé, using breaks to separate different kinds of information,
submitting a MS Word document (not PDF), and describing (behaviorally) how you demonstrated the
key skills you list along with associated outcomes.
 Screening Résumés
◦ Your LinkedIn profile should mirror your résumé, as employers are likely to compare the two, often
giving more weight to the LinkedIn profile (as candidates are less likely to exaggerate their credentials
on a publicly accessible platform).
◦ Advances in technology have also enabled the use of video résumés, wherein candidates send employers
a video self-presentation of their skills, experiences, credentials, and accomplishments.
 Reference Checks
◦ Applicants are often asked to provide supporting references, including past or present colleagues and supervisors,
who may be asked to verify information or comment on the candidate’s traits, characteristics, and behaviours.
Reference check
◦ Information gathered about a job candidate from supervisors, coworkers, clients, or other people named as
references by the candidate. The information is usually collected from the written references and/ or from
contacts over the phone.
◦ Since reference checks are typically collected only for applicants who make it through earlier stages of screening,
they tend to be conducted near the end of the screening process.
◦ This minimizes the time and costs and protects the confidentiality of candidates who prefer that their current
employer is kept unaware of their job search.
◦ Although applicants implicitly grant their permission to contact those listed as references, the prospective
employer should explicitly (in writing) secure such permission.
 Phone-based Reference Checks
◦ Many employers are reluctant to give references in writing, preferring instead to provide them over the
phone.
◦ As part of the late stages of the screening process, many employers directly contact those who have
provided the written references.
◦ A reference check conducted over the phone provides an ideal opportunity to obtain confirmation of
information provided by candidates that the prospective employer deems to be especially important.
◦ References should also be probed for more information when their answers sound overly qualified or
overly general in nature.
 Negligent Hiring
◦ Negligent hiring refers to a circumstance wherein an employer places an employee in an employment
situation that causes harm or injury to another person, with liability determined on the basis of whether
the employer knew or should have known that the employee was unfit for the job at the time of hiring.
 Predictive Validity of References
◦ Written references obtained from past supervisors, when scored, have a low to moderate association with
job performance ratings of new hires.
◦ Predictive validity of written references is low relative to biodata and many of the employment test
alternatives.
◦ So, references and reference checks are generally best used to screen out especially weak or potentially
problematic candidates (e.g., to avoid negligent hiring), not for hiring decisions.
 Background Checks
◦ Background checks are conducted to obtain confirming evidence concerning information acquired from
the applicant’s BIB, résumé, or interview, which are more comprehensive and in-depth than a typical
phone reference.
◦ Especially thorough background checks, reserved for sensitive government positions, security-related
jobs such as the RCMP, and top-level managerial appointments, are sometimes referred to as field
investigations.
◦ Given their time-consuming nature and possible legal sensitivities, background checks and field
investigations are typically contracted out to specialists.
◦ One type of information often sought as part of a background check concerns the credit status of the
applicant, often conducted for positions of financial responsibility.
 Work Experience
◦ In screening applicants using résumés, preliminary interviews, or reference checks the emphasis is on
formal credentials, including formal training (e.g., license, diploma, or degree) and work experience.
◦ As most jobs involve a given level of education and/or formal training, some applicants are easily and
appropriately screened out on this basis.
◦ Work experience refers to the applicant’s past employment, which can be evaluated for its relatedness to
the target position using a wide variety of dimensions including its length; the number of employers and
contexts involved; and, of course, the number and type of tasks performed.
◦ Accurate evaluation of work experience becomes more complex, but even more crucial, as the level and
responsibilities associated with the position increase.
 Social Media Networks
◦ As use of social networking (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and LinkedIn) has grown, employers are accessing these sites,
mostly during the screening process, for information concerning the social, political, and leisure activities of applicants.
◦ 1) the available information typically varies across candidates, such that any review is necessarily incomplete and
unstandardized;
◦ (2) the available information was not created for the purposes of employer screening or selection and is therefore likely of
questionable job relevance;
◦ (3) information that is discovered on race/ethnicity, gender, national origin, religion, marital status, pregnancy status, union
membership, political affiliation, or disability status could inappropriately be used in screening and hiring decisions, leaving the
employer vulnerable to legal liabilities;
◦ (4) a statistically meaningful relationship between SNS based content and performance in an employment context has yet to be
demonstrated;
◦ (5) a large segment of the population (i.e., potential applicant pools) do not use SNSs (e.g., those lacking ready access to a
computer), and therefore may be subject to an inappropriate disadvantage; and
◦ (6) employers alienate desirable candidates who object to companies accessing their sites (i.e., perceived invasion of privacy).
 Virtual Career Fairs
◦ Employers are increasingly turning to electronically administered career fairs to recruit and screen job
candidates.
◦ Digital career fairs electronically match position openings to posted candidate profiles.
◦ Chat lines are often available to allow employers to share information about the hiring process and the
company; any interested candidate can view the content and post follow-up questions.
◦ Within this infrastructure, separate and private one-to-one exchanges can be arranged online, to allow for
further screening prior to any arranged in-person interviews.
 Virtual Job Auditions
◦ Another fairly recent development involving the application of technology to screening involves.
◦ Candidates must participate in an online work simulation
◦ It is likely that the use of virtual reality technology in employee screening, selection, and development
will grow exponentially over the next few years as the depth and richness of the software applications
(e.g., virtual reality) continue to improve and the cost declines.
THANK YOU