Fundamentals of

Human Resource
Management
2e

Gary Dessler
 Selecting Employees

Chapter 5

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 Why Careful Selection Is Important ?

Leads to improved employee and

organizational performance.
Your own performance always depends
partly on the performance of your
subordinates.
Can help reduce dysfunctional behaviors at
work.
Its costly to recruit and hire employees.

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 Legal Implications and Negligent Hiring

Negligent hiring
Hiring workers
with criminal
records or other
such problems
without proper
safeguards

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 Selection instruments

Tests
Management Assessment Centers
Selection interview
Background Investigations and Reference
Checks
Honesty Testing

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 Tests - Reliability

Reliability
Consistency of scores obtained by the same
person when the person is retested with the
identical test or with an equivalent form of a test
Retest estimate
Equivalent-form estimate
Internal comparison estimate

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 Tests - Validity

Test validity
The accuracy with which a test, interview, etc.
measures what it purports to measure or fulfills
the function it was designed to fulfill

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 Tests - Validity

Criterion validity Content validity

Scores on the test The test contains a fair
(predictors) are related sample of the tasks
to job performance and skills actually
(criterion). needed for the job in
question.

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 A Slide from the Rorschach Test: Figure
5.1

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 How to Validate a Test: Figure 5.2

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 Sample Selection Test: Figure 5.3

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 Tests of Cognitive Abilities

Intelligence tests (IQ tests)

Tests of general intellectual abilities including
memory
vocabulary
verbal fluency
numeric ability

www.wonderlic.com

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 Sample Items from Wonderlic
Personnel Test: Figure 5.6

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 Type of Question Applicant Might Expect on a
Test of Mechanical Comprehension: Figure 5.4

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 Tests of Motor and Physical Abilities

Measure finger dexterity, strength, manual

dexterity, and reaction time
Stromberg Dexterity Test
Measures the speed and accuracy of simple
judgment as well as the speed of finger, hand,
and arm movements

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 Personality Tests

Emphasize the big five personality

dimensions as they apply to personnel
testing
Extroversion,
Emotional stability, (neuroticism)
Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness,
Openness to experience
Most difficult tests to evaluate and use
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 Big five Personality traits

Openness to experience: inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious.

Conscientiousness: efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless.
Extraversion: outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved.
Agreeableness: friendly/compassionate vs. analytical/detached.
Neuroticism: sensitive/nervous vs. secure/confident.
Is sometimes referred to by its low pole, "emotional stability".

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 Personality Tests

Conscientiousness shows a consistent

relationship with all job performance
criteria.
Extroversion is a valid predictor of
performance for managers and sales
employees.
Openness to experience and extroversion
predicts training proficiency for all
occupations.
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 Big five Personality traits

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 Big five Personality traits

ASM vs. Quality controller ?

PR specialist vs. Software developer ?

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 Situational Judgment Tests

Situational judgment tests

Personnel tests that are designed to assess an
applicants judgment regarding a situation
encountered in the workplace

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 Situational Judgment Tests

Answer ?

Source: https://www.jobtestprep.co.uk/images/free-pdf/free-sjt-questions-answers.pdf
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 Management Assessment Centers

Management assessment center

A facility in which management candidates are
asked to make decisions in hypothetical
situations and are scored on their performance

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 Management Assessment Centers

In-basket Leaderless group

The candidate is faced discussion
with an accumulation A leaderless group is
of reports, memos, given a discussion
notes of incoming question and told to
phone calls, letters, arrive at a group
and other materials. decision.

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 Management Assessment Centers

Individual presentations
A participants
communication skills and
persuasiveness are
evaluated by having the
participant make an oral
presentation on an assigned
topic.

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 Interviewing Candidates

Selection interview
Selection procedure designed to predict future
job performance on the basis of applicants oral
responses to oral inquiries

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 Types of Selection Interviews

Non-structured Structured
Interviewer asks Questions are
questions as they specified in advance
come to mind. and the responses may
No set format to be rated for
follow. appropriateness of
content.
Also called directive.

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 Types of Questions

Situational interviews
Questions focus on the candidates ability to
project what his or her behavior would be in a
given situation
Behavioral interview
Applicants are asked how they behaved in some
situation in the past

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 Behavioral Interviews

When Citizens Banking Corporation in Flint,

Michigan found that 31 of the 50 people in its
call center quit in one year, the centers head
switched to behavioral interviews.
She says this makes it much harder to fool the
interviewer, and, indeed, only four people left
her center in the following year.

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 How Interviews Are Administered

Sequential interview
Several people interview the applicant in
sequence before making a hiring decision
Panel interview
Candidate is interviewed simultaneously by a
group (or panel) of interviewers

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 How Useful Are Interviews?

Situational interviews yield a higher mean

validity than behavioral interviews do.
Structured interviews are generally more
useful for predicting job performance.
One-on-one interviews tend to be more valid
than panel interviews.

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 Common Interviewing Mistakes

Snap judgments Influence of nonverbal

Negative emphasis behavior
Not knowing the job Attractiveness
Pressure to hire Ingratiation
Candidate order Nonverbal
(contrast) error implications

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Guidelines for Conducting an Interview

Structure the interview

Review background
Establish rapport
Ask questions
Close the interview
Review the interview

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 Preparing the Interview

1. Base questions on actual job duties

2. Use job knowledge, situational,background,
or behaviorally oriented questions and
objective criteria
3. Train interviewers
4. Use the same questions with all candidates

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 Preparing the Interview

5. Use rating scales to

rate answers
6. Use multiple
interviewers or panel
interviews
7. Use structured
interview form

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 Sample Interview Questions: Figure
5.8

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 Sample Interview Questions: Figure
5.8

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 Sample Interview Questions: Figure
5.8

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 Talent Management: Profiles and
Employee Interviews
Chemical engineer

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 Background Investigations and
Reference Checks
Most commonly verified background areas are legal
eligibility for employment, dates of prior
employment, military service, education, and
identification.

Other items should include county criminal records,

motor vehicle record, credit, licensing verification,
Social Security number, and reference checks.

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 Collecting Background Information

Most employers try to directly verify an applicants

current position, salary, and employment dates
with his or her current employer by phone.

Others call the applicants current and previous

supervisors to try to discover more about the
applicants motivation, technical competence, and
ability to work with others.

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 Checking Social Networking Sites

More employers are checking candidates

social networking sites postings.
Recruiters found that 31% of applicants had
lied about their qualifications and 19% had
posted information about their drinking or
drug use.

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 Making Reference Checks More Useful

1. Have the candidate sign a release

2. Obtain two forms of identification
3. Ensure the applicants complete the application
fully
4. Use a structured reference-checking form
5. Use the references offered by the applicant as a
source of other people who may know of the
applicants performance

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 Honesty Testing

Polygraph tests
Pencil-and-paper honesty tests
Graphology
Medical exams
Drug screening

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 Honesty Testing - Example
How often each week do you lie to your family?
1. Lie? I've never told a single lie in my life!
2. I lie about as much as you make sense
3. I don't lie weekly, more like daily
4. I do when I feel it's necessary
5. I don't like this question!
How often do you worry about what others think of you?
1. I never do! Really. REALLY!
2. More than I should, but mainly when I'm just meeting them
3. Sometimes, oh wait, never, oh wait, what?
4. When I'm around nice people
5. I don't like this question!

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 Making the Selection Decision

1. Whichever approach you use, use it

systematically.
2. It is very helpful to create, using the multiple
regression statistical approach, a formula
that relates your criterion score with scores
on several weighted predictor scores.
3. A more informal approach is still usually
better than nothing.

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 Evaluating the Selection Process

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 Complying with Immigration Law

Candidate does not have to be a citizen.

Employer should ask if candidate is lawfully
authorized to work in the country.
Pre-employment screening should include
employment verification, criminal record
checks, drug screens, and reference checks.

http://igi.mai.gov.ro/detalii/pagina/en/Work/73

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 Complying with Immigration Law

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 Copyright

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America.

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