Personnel Selection

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Personnel Selection
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Selection

• What is selection?
• Using scientific methodology to choose one
  alternative (job candidate) over another.
• Job Analysis
• Measurement
• Statistics
• Why is selection important?
• Decreases the likelihood of hiring bad
  employees
• Increases the likelihood that people will be
  treated fairly when hiring decisions are made
• Reduces discrimination
• Reduces likelihood of discrimination lawsuits
• What do I/O psychologists need to know about
  selection?
• How to select predictors of job performance
  (criteria problem)
• How to accurately indentify and validate
  predictors for specific jobs (job analysis)
• Rely on cognitive and personality variables
• How to reliably and validly measure these
  predictors
• How to use these predictors to make selection
  decisions

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Criteria
Abstract concept or idea
Conceptual Criterion

• Criteria - standards used to judge the quality of
  (discriminate among) alternatives.
• For I/O psychologists, this means judging the
  quality of employees, programs, and units in the
  organization.

Criterion deficiency
Actual Criterion
Criterion relevance
Criterion contamination
Measures that act as proxies
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Illegal Criteria

• Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits
  using selection practices that have an unequal
  impact on members of a different
• Race
• Color
• Sex
• Religion
• National Origin

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Types of Illegal Discrimination

• Disparate Treatment (Opportunities)
• Discrimination decisions based on one of five
  prohibited categories
• Disparate Impact (Outcomes)
• Illegal discrimination is any practice (without a
  business justification) that has unequal
  consequences for members of protected groups.
• Roger Parloff, Fortune senior editor
• Though disparate treatment and disparate impact
  cases are both aimed at eradicating the same
  thing, there is potential tension between them.
• The goal of disparate treatment cases is to
  guarantee every worker equal opportunity, but not
  equal outcomes.
• The focus of disparate impact cases is on equal
  outcomes.
• If one pursues equal outcomes too
  single-mindedly, one can compromise the principle
  of equal opportunity by inducing the use of
  quotas.

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Determining Disparate Impact

• The 4/5ths Rule
• Disparate impact occurs if the selection ratio
  for any minority group is less than 4/5ths of the
  selection ratio of the majority group

100 male applicants
50 female applicants
20 males selected
50 .16 8
20/100 .20
At least 8 females should be selected
.20 4/5ths(.80) .16
At least 16 of people from minority group should
be selected using a given procedure.
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Summary

• Criteria
• Reliable and valid predictors of job performance.
• All criteria suffer from
• Deficiency
• Contamination
• Criteria typically classified as
• Objective
• Subjective
• These labels can be misleading
• There are several illegal criteria
• There are two types of illegal discrimination
• Disparate treatment
• Disparate impact

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Choosing Predictors of Job Performance

• When selecting new employees, I/O psychologists
  use criteria that will identify effective
  on-the-job performance
• Performance is a function of the following
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Abilities
• Motivation
• Situational Constraints

Performance (KSA)Motivation Situational
Constraints
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Job Analysis

• Describes
• the tasks that are performed
• type of work
• tools used
• working conditions
• human qualities (KSAOs or competencies) needed to
  perform the work
• Tells us what tasks people do and the knowledge,
  skills and abilities they need to accomplish
  those tasks.

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Types of Job Analysis

• Job-Oriented
• Job components (for a carpenter)
• Duty construct houses
• Task build kitchen cabinets
• Activity assemble cabinets
• Element drill holes
• Person-Oriented
• KSAOs (for a carpenter)
• Knowledge Have information to do a task
• Skill Practiced act or behavior.
• Ability Stable capacity to do task.
• Other personal characteristics personality,
  interests, etc.

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Examples Of KSAOs For Different Occupations
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Data Collection Approaches

• Questionnaire
• diaries
• Interview
• critical incidents
• Observation
• Analyst does work

Who do you collect data from?
Subject Matter Experts -incumbent -supervisor -co-
worker
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Hiring the Best

• Job Firefighter
• What are the major duties of a college professor?
• What tasks are performed to complete each duty
• Develop a set of KSAOs necessary for these
  tasks.
• should be useable for recruiting and evaluating
• Challenges?
• What other information would you want? How would
  you get it?

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Selection

• Predictors
• Any variable used to forecast a criterion
• Issues
• Quality (Reliability Validity)
• Types
• Psychological Tests Inventories
• Interviews
• Assessment Centers
• Work Samples Situational Exercises
• Biodata
• Peer Assessment
• Letters of Recommendation

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Biographical Data

• Good questions are about events that are
• historical
• external
• discrete
• controllable (by the individual)
• verifiable
• equal access
• job relevant
• non-invasive
• (Mael, 1991)
• Rationale vs. empirical method

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Biographical Data

• Strong criterion validity
• drug use, criminal history predicts dysfunctional
  police behavior (Sarchione et al., 1998)
• not redundant with personality (McManus Kelly,
  1999)
• Measurement issues
• Generalizability
• Faking
• Fairness
• Privacy concerns

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Interviews

• Structured vs. Unstructured
• Info. gathering vs. interpersonal behavior sample
• Situational interview
• How would you handle a circumstance in which you
  needed the help of a person you did not like?
• Measurement issues
• structured has more criterion related validity
• value of unstructured?
• Illusion of validity
• Guidelines for structured interviews
• interviewer should know about job
• interviewer should NOT have prior info about
  interviewee
• individual ratings of dimensions AFTER the
  interview is over

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Work Samples

• perform a task under standardized conditions
• historically were for blue collar jobs
• e.g. use of tools, demonstrate driving skills
• white collar examples
• speech interview for foreign worker, test of
  basic chemistry knowledge,
• Measurement issues
• high criterion validity if skills are similar to
  job
• costly to administer
• work best with mechanical, rather than
  people-oriented tasks

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Assessment Centers

• Realistic tasks done in groups
• Assessed by multiple of raters rating multiple
  domains
• Multiple methods
• in basket group exercise
• leaderless group exercise
• Strong criterion validity (e.g., teachers,
  police)
• overall scores predict job performance
• Measurement issues
• costly to administer
• different ratings on a task too highly correlated
• dimension ratings not correlated strongly across
  tasks
• fix? focus on behavior checklists and rater
  training

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Drug Testing

• opinion?
• People are more accepting of it if job involves
  risks to others (Paronto, et al., 2002)
• Measurement issues
• reliability is very high, but not perfect
• Validity?
• Normands, Salyards, Mahoney (1990)
• over 5000 postal service applicants
• those who tested positive had 59 higher
  absenteeism, 47 more likely to be fired
• no differences in injury or accidents

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Letters of Recommendation

• ever written a letter of recommendation for
  someone?
• worst criterion validity of all commonly used
  assessment tools
• some use for screening extremely bad candidates
• Measurement issues
• restriction of range
• writer bias/investment

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Psychological Test Characteristics

• Group vs. individual
• Objective vs. open-ended
• Paper pencil vs. performance
• Power vs. speed

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Psychological Test Types

• Ability Tests
• Cognitive ability
• Psychomotor ability
• Knowledge and skill or achievement
• Integrity
• Personality
• Emotional Intelligence
• Vocational interest

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Integrity Tests

• Designed to predict whether employee will engage
  in counterproductive work behavior (CWB)
• overt vs. personality (covert)
• Better at predicting general CWB and performance
  than theft (r .30 -.40)
• Measurement issues
• difficult to measure criteria!
• proprietary issues (have to pay for them)
• legal and privacy issues
• faking

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Personality Tests

• measures predispositions toward particular
  feelings and behaviors
• not all tests are based on past research
• many have shown incremental validity
• e.g., predict when controlling for IQ
• Measurement issues
• job relevance
• not easily/often faked or a problem if faked
  (e.g., job faking too)

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The Big Five Inventory

• Openness
• Highs imaginative, creative, and to seek out
  cultural and educational experiences.
• Lows more down-to-earth, less interest in art
  more practical.
• Conscientiousness
• Highs methodical, well organized and dutiful.
• Lows less careful, less focused more likely to
  be distracted
• Extraversion
• Highs energetic and seek out the company of
  others.
• Lows (introverts) tend to be more quiet and
  reserved.
• Agreeableness
• Highs tend to be trusting, friendly and
  cooperative.
• Lows tend to be more aggressive and less
  cooperative
• Neuroticism
• Highs prone to insecurity and emotional
  distress.
• Lows more relaxed, less emotional and less prone
  to distress.

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Intelligence Tests

• Have greatest validity
• Often very easy and inexpensive to use
• Wonderlic Personnel Test
• 50 items
• 12 minute time limit
• Sample questions
• Interpreting scores?
• Scores vary as a function of race and ethnicity
• Ethical issues?
• Face validity?

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Determining Test Utility

• Goal of testing is to make decisions about
  individuals on the basis of the amount of a given
  trait they possess.
• A test should give us a true picture of a
  persons traits
• Test Score True Score Error

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Reliability and Validity

• Reliability
• Test-retest
• Parallel (Alternate) forms
• Internal Consistency
• Validity
• Face
• Content
• Criterion-related
• Construct-related

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Factors Influencing Selection Quality

• Three factors influence selection quality
• Predictor validity
• Selection ratio
• Base rate

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Selection Decisions
sr .50
sr .25
True Positives
r .60
r 1.00
Successful Performance
False Negatives
A
D
br .50
Criterion Performance
C
True Negatives
False Positives
B
Unsuccessful Performance
Reject
Accept
Predictor Score
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Effect of Selection Ratio on Predictor Utility
sr .50
sr .10
sr .95
r .40
Criterion Performance
Reject
Accept
Predictor Score
Selection Cutoff Score
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Effect of Predictor Validityon Predictor Utility
sr .50
r .40
r .80
r .00
Criterion Performance
Predictor Score
Selection Cutoff Score
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Selection Strategies

• 3 Basic Strategies
• Multiple Regression
• Assumes relationships between predictors and
  criterion are linear
• Assumes having a lot of one attribute compensates
  for having little of another
• Multiple Cutoff
• Applicants must achieve a set, minimum score on
  all predictors
• Multiple Hurdle
• Applicants must achieve satisfactory scores on a
  number of predictors that are administered over
  time.