Personnel Selection and Training

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Personnel Selection and Training

• Chapter 18 in text

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• Selecting workers with the right skills
• Visual search
• Decision making
• Interpersonal skills
• Motivation

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Poorest Method?

• Interviews and References
• Why?
• However, most common used.

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Employment Laws

• Require hiring choices to be justified
• Proven not to be
• Arbitrary
• Discriminatory
• Hence, wealth of selection methods

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Selection Testing

• Based on a signal detection idea
• HIT hiring a person good at the job
• MISS not hiring someone who would have been good
  at the job
• FALSE ALARM hiring someone who does a poor job
• CORRECT REJECTION not hiring someone who would
  have done a poor job

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Signal Detection Idea
HIT
MISS
Acceptable Job Performance
Expensive!
FA
Job Performance
CR
Hire
Dont Hire
Test Score
Test score cutoff
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Tests of Cognitive Ability

• Verbal ability
• Perceptual speed
• Memory
• Spatial or mechanical ability
• Reasoning or analytical ability
• Ability to pay attention

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Example Picture Memory Test

• Look at the following picture for 30s

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(No Transcript)
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• Write down all the objects you saw

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How did you do?
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Mental Rotation Test
Which is the same as the object on the left, A or
B?
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Mental Rotation Test
Which is the same as the object on the left, A or
B?
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Perceptual Speed Test
Match the house in the top left with its
identical match. Put up your hand when you have
found the match.
Used for inspection jobs (airport screeners, xray
techs etc.)
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Object Displacement Test
Observe the following objects for 15s
Used for determining ability to find objects,
follow maps, remember landmarks
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Object Displacement Test
Which object is missing?
Used for determining ability to find objects,
follow maps, remember landmarks
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Which one was it?

• Car
• Leaves
• Frog
• Horse
• Chair
• Plane
• Computer
• Snowman
• Truck
• Lion

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Personality Testing

• Usually looking for
• Neuroticism
• Extroversion
• Openness
• Agreeableness
• conscientiousness

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Eysenck Personality Test

• Sample questions for extroversion
• ARE YOU INCLINED TO BE SLOW AND DELIBERATE IN
  YOUR ACTIONS?
• Y?N
• DO YOU OFTEN BUY THINGS ON IMPULSE?
• Y?N
• DO YOU OFTEN CHANGE YOUR INTERESTS?
• Y?N
• ARE YOU RATHER CAUTIOUS IN NOVEL SITUATIONS?
• Y?N

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Catell 16PF Test

• I am carefree.
• Very inaccurate 1 2 3 4 5 Very Accurate
• I dont mind eating alone.
• Very inaccurate 1 2 3 4 5 Very Accurate
• I take things personally
• Very inaccurate 1 2 3 4 5 Very Accurate

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• Problems with Personality Tests
• Want to test yourself?
• www.similarminds.com

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Work Sample Tests

• Ask candidate to do a work type problem
• Or watch other workers and critique their work
• Usefulness depends on relevance of the problem
• Fairly strong predictive validity

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Example Case Interviewing

• You are called in by Pizza Hut to help them
  develop a strategy for entering the home delivery
  market in which Domino's has the dominant
  position. As lead consultant on this project,
  what would you do?"

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Suggested Solutions

• Identify the appropriate framework or
  interpretation of the problem.
• Identify the key issues and state them to show
  you understand the problem.
• Dig deeper into the key issues, ask questions,
  clarification, listen carefully.

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Structured Interviews

• Ask all candidates the same questions
• Critical behaviour interview
• Built on eliciting past behaviour
• Tell me about a time when you had to facilitate
  the operation of a team. How did you get
  involved? What did you do? How did it turn out?"

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• The MIT STAR method for behavioral interview
  answers
• Situation
• Task
• Action
• Results

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• Example of a STAR AnswerDescribe a time when a
  team member came to you for help. What was the
  situation? How did you respond?
• Situation I was a member of a UROP group within
  MIT's Media Lab where we were working on a
  virtual reality project. The team was comprised
  of one professor, three graduate students, and
  two undergraduates (including myself).
• Task The undergraduates were primarily
  responsible for a specific part of the program
  coding. I noticed that an undergraduate team
  member was having trouble with their coding and
  it looked like he wasn't going to be able to meet
  the deadline for the next day.
• Action I noticed that he was getting frustrated
  but I didn't want to upset him by asking if he
  needed help. I casually went by and began some
  small talk. Eventually he asked me a few
  questions about the project and as we talked
  further he felt more comfortable to ask more and
  more questions. I spent the rest of the afternoon
  coaching him through the project.
• Result He was able to submit his portion of the
  project on time. The professor was extremely
  happy with the results and he consulted with us
  on future coding segments of the project.

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Preparing for Behavioural Interviews

• Anticipate the critical behaviours
• Identify a few key stories from your past
• Identify negative and positive stories
• Formulate STAR answers
• Practice them