Foundations of Personnel Selection

1
Foundations of Personnel Selection

• Work Psychology
• Understanding Human Behaviour in the Workplace

2
The Selection Process
Job Analysis
Identify Selection Criteria
Choose Selection Methods
Implement Selection Methods and Make Selection
Decisions
Attract Candidates
Evaluation Validation
3
Definitions of Competency

• A competency is defined as the specific
  characteristics and behaviour patterns a job
  holder is required to demonstrate in order to
  perform the relevant job tasks with competence.
• Trend towards more worker-oriented job analyses
  where job tasks are described with reference to
  the relevant person attributes.
• Main aim of competency analysis is to derive a
  competency model for the target role.

4
The Purpose of Job Analysis Competency Modelling

• Job analysis is conducted to define the necessary
  knowledge, skills, attitudes abilities for
  performance in the target job role. Applications
  include
• Recruitment selection (self-selection)
• Induction
• Performance management
• Career development, counseling
• Organisational change, diagnosis
• The existence of a competency model has
  implications for equal opportunities legislation

5
Job Analysis data collection

• Identify competencies by gathering behavioural
  data from job incumbents existing data sets
• Job incumbents define the role, such as
• senior managers
• managers
• direct reports/subordinates
• colleagues
• customers/ user group

6
Example Job Analysis Methods

• Observation
• Work diaries
• Stakeholder interviews
• Expert panels
• Behavioural Event Interviews
• Critical Incident Technique (Flanagan,1954)
• Repertory Grid Technique

• Focus Groups
• Repertory Grid Technique (Kelly, 1969)
• Behavioural Checklists
• Work Profiling questionnaires (e.g.PAQ)
• Hierarchical Task Analysis
• Behavioral Mapping

7
Criteria for Choosing a Method

• Worker or task orientation (precise tasks or
  psychological factors)
• Level of knowledge required for researcher
• Qualitative vs. quantitative
• Job proximity (observed vs. self-report)
• Capacity to generate usable outcomes
• Cost (time resource)
• Sensitivity access
• Sample size?

8
Research issues

• Multi-method, multi-level analysis is best -
  findings should converge
• Analysis informs Person Specification Job
  Description
• Competencies and job roles are not static
• JA arises from Person-Job fit assumption
• In todays organisations large scale recruitment
  is often into newly created jobs so traditional
  techniques may be redundant

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SLIDE 4.9
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SLIDE 4.10
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Reliability Validity

• Reliability the extent to which the selection
  instrument measures consistently under varying
  conditions.
• Validity the extent to which the selection
  instrument measures what it claims to measure.

12
Reliability

• Does the selection instrument measure
  consistently under varying conditions?
• Test-re-test reliability (stability) coefficient
• Parallel Forms - e.g. same items of equal
  difficulty
• Internal Reliability e.g. split-half method,
  alpha coefficient, etc.

13
Validity

• Faith Validity
• Face Validity
• Content Validity
• Criterion Validity
• Predictive Validity
• Concurrent Validity
• Retrospective Validity
• Construct Validity

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SLIDE 4.14
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Issues in Validation Studies

• Rarely conducted adequately
• Problems of prediction
• Criterion problem (error bias)
• Restriction of Range
• Small sample size