chapter one - solution manual & test bank store · web viewwe hope you find each chapter of...

Chapter 06 - Selecting Employees and Placing Them in Jobs

Chapter Six: Selecting Employees and Placing Them in Jobs Welcome to your guide to teaching Chapter Six, Selecting Employees and Placing Them in Jobs!

This guide will provide you with a chapter summary, lecture outlines, solutions to in-chapter case questions, and discussion questions. Instructor’s Manual Highlights:

Chapter Six Roadmap

We hope you find each chapter of your Instructor Manual practical and useful, but also, exciting! You can adapt the chapter text, the PowerPoints, and the video to work in an online class environment, a guided independent study environment, or a face to face or on-ground environment.

When presenting Chapter Six, have the students first read the chapter and encourage them to absorb the “big picture” of Selecting Employees and Placing Them in Jobs.

Use the PowerPoint for Chapter Six to frame your lecture.

Have students read and discuss the Cases and their respective Questions.

Have students validate their knowledge of the chapter by working through the Discussion Questions at the end of the Chapter.

Lastly, have students review, journal, or discuss the Key Vocabulary Terms at the end of the chapter.

6-1© 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any

manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.


ROADMAP: THE LECTURE

SELECTING EMPLOYEES AND PLACING THEM IN JOBS

Chapter Summary

This chapter explores ways to minimize errors in employee selection and placement. It starts by describing the selection process and how to evaluate possible methods for carrying out that process. The chapter then takes an in-depth look at the most widely used methods such as applications and résumés, employment tests and interviews. The chapter ends by describing the process by which organizations arrive at a final selection decision.

Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter, the student should be able to:

1. Identify the elements of the selection process.

2. Define ways to measure the success of a selection method.

3. Summarize the government’s requirements for employee selection.

4. Compare the common methods used for selecting human resources.

5. Describe major types of employment tests.

6. Discuss how to conduct effective interviews.

7. Explain how employers carry out the process of making a selection decision.




I. Introduction

This opening chapter vignette explores the internet company, Groupon, and its innovative and fast-moving selection practices. Groupon is a “daily-deals” website, and it has a strategy based upon innovation. The company puts creativity and flexibility at the top of its list of job requirements. Groupon’s recruiters partner with hiring managers to evaluate candiates based upon “relevance and character” – which means a personality that fits in well with the company’s free-spirited and high-energy culture.

Discussion Question and Suggested Response

1. Imagine that you were a recruiter at Groupon, and you were approached by someone interested in applying for a position at the company. How would you explain, in brief, the selection process for job applicants?

The process includes an applicant applying for a job, followed by a phone screen from a recruiter. If the applicant passes the phone screen, he or she make take a skills test, often available online. If the candidate passes the skills tests, he or she is likely to particulate in a face to face interview. The face to face interview could likely be conducted by up to three people, so that if one person misses an important quality in a candidate, another interviewer may notice it.

II. Selection Process

1. Personnel selection is the process through which organizations make decisions about who will or will not be allowed to join the organization.

2. Selection begins with the candidates identified through recruitment and attempts to reduce their number to the individuals best qualified to perform the available jobs.

3. Figure 6.1, Steps in the Selection Process, identifies the steps involved in the selection process.

1. The steps in the selection process include:

a. Screening applications and résumés

b. Testing and reviewing work samples

c. Interviewing candidates

d. Checking references and background

e. Making the selection

4. Nowadays, the ease of applying online coupled with high unemployment rates of the past few years have made this processing overwhelming for many recruiters. Many employers are coping by automating much of the selection process with an applicant-tracking system.




Best Practices

How Associated Bank Selects the Best, Even in Lean Times

Associated Bank, headquartered in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is constantly looking for talent to fill their bank teller positions. Bank tellers need to be able to handle money, have great people skills, be willing to work on their feel for hours at a stretch. Because the skills are relatively high, and the pay is relatively low, teller positions have high turnover, so banks are constantly looking for replacements. Associated Bank streamlined the hiring process for tellers, by purchasing new technology called Voice Advantage. It is a system that conducts the first round of candidate interviews automatically. Associated places an “Interview Now!” link on careers sites, or sends the link to individuals, and candidates click on the link where they are taken to a web page that collects basic information. This process has streamlined the interviewing process, and recruiters an process many more interviews per day than they could before Associated began using Voice Advantage. Not only has it allowed recruiters to identify talent (that the Bank might lose to other companies who are hiring), but it has allowed the Bank to reduce its recruiting staff.

Discussion Question and Suggested Response

1. Explain the advantages of the Voice Advantage automation. What steps did it replace? What steps do you think it cannot replace?

The advantages of the Voice Advantage system are that it allows applicants to phone screen without having to be scheduled and screened “live” by a recruiter. This means that the Bank can collect applicant screens asynchronously, which frees up recruiting time. Recruiters can process many more interviews per day because they do not have to schedule the phone screens. This also means that recruiters can respond and set up interviews for the most qualified candidates faster. The steps that an automated system cannot replace are interviews with hiring managers, because those interviews are done “live.” Additionally, an automated system cannot replace the decision making process of the hiring manager and recruiter, nor can it replace the job offer step of the recruitment and selection process.The best selection methods will provide information that is reliable and valid and can be generalized to apply to the organization’s group of candidates.

2. In addition, selection should measure characteristics that have practical benefits for the organization.

3. Selection criteria must meet legal requirements in effect where the organization operates.

A. Reliability

1. Reliability refers to the extent to which a type of measurement is free from random error.

2. A reliable measurement generates consistent results. Usually, information about the reliability of tests involves statistics such as correlation coefficients. These statistics measure the degree to which two sets of numbers are related. A higher correlation coefficient signifies a stronger relationship.




HR Oops!

Hiring Clones

This vignette explores the hiring strategy of entrepreneur Todd Morris, who brought in individuals like himself—those who pressed hard to get results and worked independently. These qualities are what helped Morris get his company off the ground, but as Morris hired more people, they needed to be able to collaborate. Morris now makes personality testing part of the selection process at his company, BrickHouse, and he looks for people who are less like himself and more like team players.

Questions

1. Morris felt he needed to be hard-driving and independent to get a business off the ground, so he looked for the same kinds of people to carry out the business. How would you rate the validity of his approach to choosing employees? How would you rate its reliability?

Since reliability means the extent to which a measurement is free from random error, it is not entirely clear whether or not Morris’ approach was reliable. If he used a means for determining whether or not someone was hard-driving and independent, and that means was free from error (which could mean, that Morris’s way of identifying candidates consistently identified people who were hard-driving and independent), then his approach was reliable. Morris’ approach was not valid, because it did not accurately predict job performance. Successful job performance necessitated interpersonal skills and collaboration. These were not qualities that Morris’ approach identified; therefore, his approach lacked validity.

2. Besides the addition of personality tests, what other steps of Morris’ hiring process might benefit from change?

Morris might want to consider implementing interviews that include other, current team members, so that data about candidates are collected from multiple perspectives. In addition to a test, in other words, the hiring process might be strengthened from the inclusion of steps that include live interaction between applicants and current, successful employees. Morris might also want to consider conducting job analyses of his positions, and developing job specifications and formal job descriptions. These steps would inform the steps of the hiring process, because in order to ensure reliability and validity of a test or assessment, the job and all of its details must be identified and described.




B. Validity

1. Validity describes the extent to which performance on the measures, such as a test score, is related to what the measure is designed to assess, such as job performance.

2. As with reliability, information about the validity of selection methods often uses correlation coefficients.

3. The federal government’s Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures accept three ways of measuring validity: criterion-related, content, and construct validity.

4. Criterion-Related Validity: Criterion-related validity is a measure of validity based on showing a substantial correlation between test scores and job performance scores.

5. Figure 6.2, Measurements of a Student’s Aptitude, presents information derived by a company making a comparison of two measures – an intelligence test and college grade point average - with performance as sales representative.

6. Two kinds of research are possible for arriving at criterion-related validity:

a. Predictive validation: This research uses the test scores of all applicants and looks for a relationship between scores and future performance.

b. Concurrent validation: This type of research administers a test to people who currently hold a job, and then compares their scores to existing measures of job performance.

7. Predictive validation is more time consuming and difficult, but it is the best measure of validity.

8. Content and Construct Validity: Content validity is consistency between the test items or problems and the kinds of situations or problems that occur on the job. The usual basis for deciding that a test has content validity is through expert judgment. Content validity is most suitable for measuring behavior that is concrete and observable. Construct validity involves establishing that tests really do measure intelligence, leadership ability, or other such “constructs” as well as showing that mastery of this construct is associated with successful performance of the job. Tests that measure a construct usually measure a combination of behaviors thought to be associated with the construct.




C. Ability to Generalize

1. Along with validity in general, we need to know whether a selection method is valid in the context in which the organization wants to use it.

2. A generalizable method applies not only to the conditions in which the method was originally developed – job, organization, people, time period, and so on, it also applies to other organizations, jobs, applicants, and so on.

D. Practical Value

1. Not only should selection methods such as tests and interview responses accurately predict how well individuals will perform, they should produce information that actually benefits the organization. Methods that provide economic value greater than the cost of using them are said to have utility.

2. The choice of a selection method may differ according to the job being filled.

E. Legal Standards for Selection

1. The U.S. government imposes legal limits on selection decisions. The government requires that the selection process be conducted in a way that avoids discrimination and provides access to employees with disabilities.

2. The following laws have many applications to the selection process:

a. The Civil Rights Act of 1991 – places requirements on the choices of selection methods and prohibits preferential treatment in favor of minority groups.

b. Equal Employment Opportunity Laws – affect the kinds of information an organization may gather on application forms and in interviews.

c. The American with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1991 – requires employers to make reasonable accommodation to disabled individuals and restricts many kinds of questions during the selection process.

3. Table 6.1 identifies questions that are permissible and questions that are not permissible to ask via applications or interview.

4. Along with equal employment opportunity, organizations must be concerned about candidates’ privacy rights.

5. Another legal requirement is that employers hiring people to work in the United States must ensure that anyone they hire is eligible for employment in this country.




6. An important principle of selection is to combine several sources of information about candidates rather than relying solely on interviews or a single type of testing.

III. Job Applications and Résumés

1. The usual ways of gathering background information are by asking applicants to fill out application forms and provide résumés.

1. Asking applicants to provide background information is inexpensive.

2. A major challenge with applications and resumes is the sheer volume of work they generate for the organization.

A. Application Forms

1. Asking each applicant to fill out an employment application is a low-cost way to gather basic data from many applicants.

2. Employers can buy general-purpose application forms or they can create their own forms to meet unique needs. Employment applications include areas for applicants to provide several types of information:

a. Contact information

b. Work experience

c. Educational background

d. Applicant’s signature

B.Résumés

1. The usual way that applicants introduce themselves to a potential employer is to submit a résumé. An obvious drawback of this information source is that applicants control the content of the information as well as the way it is presented.

2. Organizations typically use résumés as a basis for deciding which candidates to investigate further.

3. Review of résumés is most valid when the content of the résumés is evaluated in terms of the elements of a job description.




C.References

1. Applicants provide the names and phone numbers of former employers or others who can vouch for their abilities and past job performance.

2. References are not always an unbiased source of information.

3. Usually the organization checks references after it has determined that the applicant is a finalist for the job.

4. Difficulties can be associated with providing references for former employees. If the person who is a reference gives negative information, there is a chance the candidate will claim defamation, meaning the person damaged the applicant’s reputation by making statements than cannot be proved truthful. At the other extreme, if the person gives a glowing statement about a candidate and the new employer later learns of misdeeds such as sexual misconduct or workplace violence, the new employer might sue the former employer for misrepresentation.

HRM Social

Will Linkedin Make the Resume Obsolete?

Although job application forms and resumes are still the norm, managers are more companies are starting to think they can find a more realistic assessment of candidates by looking at their online presences. For example, Union Square Ventures, a venture capital firm, asks job applicants to submit links that demonstrate their “web presence.” LinkedIn is offering a tool to increase job applications through its site. The tool is called Apply with LinkedIn, and it allows recruiters to post job openings on their company’s LinkedIn page. Job seekers can click on the button to send their profile to the company. The user’s profile includes not only a resume by also recommendations and contact information. Recruiters also use social media later in the selection process to check whether candidates of interest meet the company’s standards in their online conduct. Present and future job seekers should be sure that their online comments are as courteous and professional as they would be in a meeting at the company they would most like to work for.

1. Identify some points that you learned from this vignette, about job seeking using social media. What are some advantages? What do you think a job seeker should keep in mind, when engaging in social media?

The vignette discussed how social media such as LinkedIn, have developed new recruiting tools that allow recruiters to post job openings using the tool called “Apply with LinkedIn.” This permits the recruiter to be able to read not only the job seeker’s resume, but comments and information from their LinkedIn site such as contacts and recommendations. Although social media make the process of posting jobs, and applying for jobs, perhaps a bit faster and more streamlined than traditional methods of resumes and cover letters, it does provide a word of caution for job seekers to be mindful of their online presence. Recruiters have, according to the vignette, rejected candidates because of something learned during a check of social media.




D.Background Checks

1. A background check is a way to verify that applicants are as they represent themselves to be.

2. Verifying credentials and conducting background checks is more complicated when candidates are not U.S. citizens.

IV. Employment Tests and Work Samples

1. When the organization has identified candidates whose applications or résumés indicate they meet basic requirements, the organization continues the selection process with this narrower pool of candidates. Often the next step is to gather objective data through one or more employment tests. These tests fall into two broad categories:

a. Aptitude tests: assess how well a person can learn or acquire skills and abilities.

b. Achievement tests: measure a person’s existing knowledge and skills.

2. Other types of employment tests utilized by organizations include: (1) Employment tests may assess general abilities such as physical strength or specific skills such as keyboarding speed, (2) Personality tests find applicants who have personality traits associated with successful job performance, (3) Integrity tests help weed out dishonest candidates, and (4) Drug testing and medical examinations try to ensure that candidates meet physical job requirements and will not be impaired on the job.

3. Table 6.2 identifies several sources of information about employment tests.

A. Physical Ability Tests

1. Physical strength and endurance play less of a role in the modern workplace than in the past thanks to the use of automation and modern technology. When these abilities are essential to job performance or avoidance of injury, the organization may use physical ability tests.

2. Physical ability tests evaluate one or more of the following areas of physical ability: muscular tension, muscular power, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance, flexibility, balance, and coordination.

3. Physical ability tests tend to exclude women and people with disabilities. As a result, they can leave an organization vulnerable to charges of discrimination.




B. Cognitive Ability Tests

1. Cognitive ability tests – sometimes called intelligence tests – are designed to measure such mental abilities as verbal skills (skill in using written and spoken language), quantitative skills (skill in working with numbers), and reasoning ability (skill in thinking through the answer to a problem).

2. These tests are especially valid for complex jobs and for those requiring adaptability in changing circumstances.

3. Concern over legal issues arises with the use of these tests. Race norming is establishing different norms for hiring members of different racial groups. Banding is one solution to the problem. This concept treats a range of scores as being similar.

C. Job Performance Tests and Work Samples

1. To evaluate candidates for certain jobs, the organization may administer tests of the necessary skills. Sometimes candidates take tests that involve a sample of work or they may show existing samples of their work.

2. Examples of job performance tests include tests of keyboarding speed and in-basket tests. An in-basket test measures the ability to juggle a variety of demands, as in a manager’s job. Examples of jobs for which candidates provide work samples include graphic designers and writers.

3. Tests for selecting managers may take the form of an assessment center – a wide

variety of specific selection programs that use multiple selection methods to rate applicants or job incumbents on their management potential.

4. Job performance tests have the advantage of being job specific – that is, tailored to the kind of work done in a specific job. They can become disadvantages if the organization wants to generalize the results of a test for one job to candidates for other jobs. These tests can be expensive.




D. Personality Inventories

1. Employers may want to know about candidates’ personalities. Table 6.3 identifies five major personality dimensions that are measured by personality inventories.

2. However, high scores are less than ideal for some traits in some situations. For example, the best performers often score in the middle of the range on emotional stability.

3. The usual way to identify a candidate’s personality traits is to administer one of the personality tests that are commercially available. Administration of these tests is simple and the tests have generally not violated equal opportunity employment requirements.

E. Honesty Tests and Drug Tests

1. The most famous kind of honesty test is the polygraph or the so-called “lie detector” test. In 1988, the passage of the Polygraph Act banned the use of polygraphs for screening job candidates. As a result, testing services have developed paper-and-pencil honesty (integrity) tests.

2. As concerns about substance abuse have grown during recent decades, so has the use of drug testing.

Did You Know?

Drug Tests Are Becoming the Norm

A majority of companies conduct pre-employment drug tests, according to a study by the Drugand Alcohol Testing Industry Association. (Other studies have found similar results.) Employerssay that after they implemented testing programs, productivity improved. The tests are mostcommon at large companies, and most companies that use them test all of their candidates.

1. What would be the advantages and drawbacks of testing all job candidates, rather than just the ones being considered for safety-sensitive jobs such as truck driver or electrician?

The advantages of testing all job candidates would be that is more equitable, and could be more readily explained to candidates that a routine and systematic part of the application process is the company tests all candidates, no matter what job. Also, because drug and alcohol problems impair the performance of any worker, another advantage to screening all candidates for all jobs would be the impact of productivity, and the minimizing of other HR and management related issues related to dealing with drug and alcohol abuse of an employee or employees. The drawbacks to testing all employees could include the increased cost of doing so, as well as having to explain to candidates who are applying for non-safety sensitive jobs, why they are having to be subjected to a drug screen.




3. Drug tests are controversial for several reasons: (1) invasion of individual’s privacy, (2) unreasonable search and seizure, and (3) violation of due process.

4. Employers considering the use of drug tests should ensure that their drug-testing programs conform to some general rules such as:

a. The tests should be administered systematically to all applicants for the same job.

b. Testing seems most defensible for jobs that involve safety hazards when not performed properly.

c. The applicant should receive a report of the test results and should know how to appeal those results.

d. The organization should respect the applicants’ privacy by conducting tests in an environment that is not intrusive and by keeping the test results confidential.

5. Even at an organization with the best practices, employers have to keep in mind that drug testing will not uncover all problems with impairment.

F. Medical Examinations

1. Especially for physically demanding jobs, organizations may wish to conduct medical examinations to see that the applicant can meet the job’s requirements.

2. Medical exams must be related to job requirements and may not be given until the candidate has received a job offer.

V. Interviews

1. Interviews bring together job applicants and representatives of the employer to obtain information and evaluate the applicant’s qualifications.

2. This method is part of the selection process and is used more than any other.

A. Interviewing Techniques

1. Interviews may be nondirective or structured. Nondirective interview: the interviewer has great discretion in choosing questions to ask each candidate. Interviews of this type do not have great reliability. Structured interview: uses a set of established questions for the interviewer to ask.

2. Some of the best results of interviewing come from the use of situational interviews – a type of structured interview in which the interviewer describes a situation likely to arise on the job then asks the candidate what he or she would do in that situation.




3. Situational interviews have been shown to have high validity in predicting job performance. A variation is the behavior description interview (BDI). In this type of interview the interviewer asks the candidate to describe how she or he handled a type of situation in the past.

4. The common setup for either a nondirected or structured interview is for an individual (an HR professional or the supervisor for the vacant position) to interview each candidate face to face.

5. Variations to the face-to-face interview include:

a. Panel interview – several members of the organization meet to interview each candidate – especially appropriate in organizations that use teamwork.

b. Computerized interviews – no human interviewers involved – candidate responds to questions presented by the computer – useful for gathering objective data rather than assessing people.

c. For suggestions on how to apply these techniques to conduct effective job interviews, see “HR How To.”

HR How To

Interviewing Effectively

Interviewing job candidates is time-consuming, and unfortunately, many companies waste thattime with highly subjective, unplanned interviews that fail to reveal much relevant information. This “HR How To” presents suggestions for making the most of the interview process. These suggestions include: plan questions that are specific and invite detailed responses; ahead of time, develop ideas about the kind of personality needed in the open position; keep questions consistent across candidates; and ask candidates how they applied their skills and what they have accomplished as a result.

Question

1. Think about a time that you were interviewed for a job. It may have been a summer job, a part-time job, a full-time job, or a temporary job. Read and review the list of suggestions provided in this “HR How To,” and reflect on the extent to which the interviewers prepared the interview.

Student answers will vary by each student. Look for evidence that the student was able to successfully explain why the interview that he or she recalls was well prepared, or not well prepared. Invite the student to go over each of the suggestions, and provide examples from their recollected interview experience.




B. Advantages and Disadvantages of Interviewing

1. Advantages include: (1) talking face to face can provide evidence of communication and interpersonal skills, and (2) gain insight into candidates’ personality and interpersonal style

2. Disadvantages include: (1) can be unreliable, (2) low on validity, (3) can be biased against a number of different groups, (4) costly, and (5) subjective.

3. Organizations can avoid some of the pitfalls of interviewing by keeping the interviews narrow, structured, and standardized.

C. Preparing to Interview

1. A well-planned interview should be standardized, comfortable for the participants, and focused on the job and the organization.

2. The interviewer should: (1) have a quiet place in which to conduct the interview without interruption, (2) be trained in how to ask objective questions, (3) be aware of what subject matter to avoid, (4) know how to detect and handle personal biases or other distractions from fairly evaluating candidates, and (5) have enough documents to conduct a complete interview including organizational information, if at all possible.

VI. Selection Decisions

The selection decision typically combines ranking based on objective criteria along with subjective judgments about which candidate will make the greatest contribution.

A. How Organizations Select Employees

1. The people making the selection decision should look for the best fit between candidate and position.

2. The usual process for arriving at a selection decision is to gradually narrow the pool of candidates for each job. This approach is called the multiple-hurdle model.

3. In an alternative approach, a compensatory model is used. This is the process of arriving at a selection decision in which a very high score on one type of assessment can make up for a low score on another.

4. Organizations have choices about who will make the decision. Usually a supervisor

makes the final decision, often alone. The decision could be made by a human resource professional using standardized, objective criteria. A work team or other panel of decision makers may make selection decisions.




B. Communicating the Decision

1. The human resource department is often responsible for notifying applicants about the results of the selection process.

2. The person who communicates this decision should keep accurate records of who was contacted, when, and for which position, as well as of the candidate’s reply.

ROADMAP: CASE STUDY

Thinking Ethically

Selecting Ethical Employees

Case Summary

Although many companies publish a code of ethics to inform their employees and others about the standards of behavior the company expects from its people, there is always a risk that employees will ignore ethical standards and try to hide unethical activities. Companies, therefore, need to select employees who value and follow ethical principles. One way to select ethical employees is to look for evidence that a candidate has behaved ethically in the past. Reference checks should seek information about how well the candidate has lived up to ethical standards. Interviews provide an opportunity for the employer to explore all of these sources of information. It is also important to model ethical behavior. Human resource professionals and hiring managers should communicate honestly with every candidate, from the job advertisement through the job offer.

Questions

1. Imagine that you work in the human resources department of a company that is hiring a project manager for its information technology department. The hiring manager in the IT department is excited about a candidate who has held similar positions in two top companies and who demonstrates deep knowledge of the field. But you did a background check online and found that someone with this candidate’s name frequently posts comments on news sites, and his tone is often crude and nasty. This raises questions in your mind about the candidate’s personal ethics. How should you handle this situation?

The first thing to do is to determine if the candidate is the same person who is posting crude and nasty comments on news sites. Just because the person has the same name, does not mean it is the same person. It would be appropriate to handle this research in a way that is discrete, because it may or may not be the same person. If it is determined that it is the same person, it would be responsible to bring this information to the attention of the hiring manager, and to suggest that you carefully consider whether or not this person has the ethics and values that align with those of your company.

2. Suppose your company hires this candidate in spite of your concerns. What might be the consequences to the company? How can you communicate the hiring decision in a way that promotes future ethical conduct?




Because the person is in a project manage position within IT, he or she has the capability to influence others and has the capability to represent the company in professional associations, social media, or other public or quasi-public venues, in ways that might be deleterious to the company. In the future, it would be useful to use this hiring experience as a way to generate more influence on the hiring decision, should a similar plot occur again. Of course, it would be inappropriate to be specific, and to identify the person or perhaps even the position. Keep the plot general, but use it to inform future hiring decisions.

ROADMAP: Chapter Vocabulary

Achievement Tests

Aptitude Tests

Assessment Center

Behavior Description Interview (BDI)

Cognitive Ability Tests

Compensatory Model

Concurrent Validation

Construct Validity

Content Validity

Criterion-Related Validity

Generalizable

Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986

Multiple-Hurdle Model

Nondirective Interview

Panel Interview

Personnel Selection

Predictive Validity

Reliability

Situational Interview

Structured Interview

Utility




Validity

ROADMAP: Review and Discussion Questions

1. What activities are involved in the selection process? Think of the last time you were hired for a job. Which of those activities were used in selecting you? Should the organization that hired you have used other methods as well?

There are several activities involved in the selection process. Selection typically begins with a review of candidates, employment applications and résumés. The organization may administer tests to candidates who meet the basic requirements and qualified candidates undergo one or more interviews. Organizations check references and conduct background checks to verify the accuracy of information provided by candidates. A candidate is selected to fill each vacant position. Candidates who accept offers are placed in the positions for which they were selected.

The student responses provided regarding selection activities that they have experienced would vary. The individual responses should include such information as: completed an application, had a typing test, had an interview with the department supervisor, received a job offer from the organization, and accepted the job offer.

The responses provided as to whether the organization should have utilized other methods will also vary, but should reflect knowledge gleaned from the chapter material.

2. Why should the selection process be adapted to fit the organization’s job description?

A job description identifies the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics required for successfully performing a job. The selection process should be set up in such a way as to assist the organization with identifying people who have the necessary KSAOs for the vacant position. Without the selection process being adapted to fit the organization’s job description, individuals lacking in the necessary KSAOs may erroneously be hired.

3. Choose two of the selection methods identified in this chapter. Describe how you can compare them in terms of reliability, validity, ability to generalize, utility, and compliance with the law.

Selection methods identified within the chapter material include employment applications and résumés, references and background checks, employment tests and work samples, and interviews. In order to compare the selection methods in the terms identified above, there must be understanding of those given terms. Reliability: the extent to which a measurement is free from random error. Validity: the extent to which performance on a measure is related to what the measure is designed to assess. Generalizable: valid in other contexts beyond the context in which the selection method was developed. Utility: the extent to which something provides economic value greater than its cost.




The students may choose any of the two selection methods identified within the chapter. They should make the requested comparisons between the two methods that were selected.

4. Why does predictive validation provide better information than concurrent validation?

Why is this type of validation more difficult?

Predictive validation is research that uses the test scores of all applicants and looks for a relationship between the scores and future performance of the applicants who were hired. Concurrent validation is research that consists of administering a test to people who currently hold a job, then comparing their scores to existing measures of job performance. Predictive validation, while more time consuming and difficult, is considered to be the best measure of validity. Job applicants tend to be more motivated to do well on the tests and their performance on the tests is not influenced by their firsthand experience with the job.

One reason why this type of validation is considered more difficult is the process itself. Initially, the researcher administers the tests, waits a set period of time, and then measures the performance of the applicants who were hired.

5. How do U.S. laws affect organizations’ use of each of the employment tests? Interviews?

An organization’s selection process including its use of employment tests is greatly influenced by current U.S. laws. The selection process must be conducted in a way that avoids discrimination and provides access to persons with disabilities. This means selection methods (tests) must be valid for job performance and scores may not be adjusted to discriminate against or give preference to any group. Questions may not gather information about a person’s membership in a protected class such as race, sex, or religion, nor may the employer investigate a person’s disability status. Employers must respect candidates’ privacy rights and ensure that they keep personal information confidential. They must obtain consent before conducting background checks and notify candidates about adverse decisions made as a result of background checks.

6. Suppose your organization needs to hire several computer programmers and you are reviewing résumés you obtained from an online service. What kinds of information will you want to gather from the “work experience” portion of these résumés? What kinds of information will you want to gather from the “education” portion of these résumés? What methods would you use for verifying or exploring this information? Why would you use those methods?




The responses provided will vary. However, all responses should indicate understanding of the chapter concepts. Examples of suggested responses include: you would want to find out if the applicant has experience in the type of work for which there is a vacancy at the organization; you would want to see if there is any educational background to demonstrate higher understanding of the work that is to be performed in the job. In order to verify or explore the information provided, you would want to perform a thorough background check including securing transcripts from educational institutions, obtaining work references, and speaking with previous employers. These methods would be used in order to help ensure that the candidate is the best fit for the position available.

7. For each of the following jobs, select the two kinds of tests you think would be most important to include in the selection process. Explain why you chose those tests.

A. City bus driverB. Insurance salespersonC. Member of a team that sells complex high-tech equipment to manufacturersD. Member of a team that makes a component of the equipment in (c)

The individual student responses will vary contingent upon personal opinion and understanding of the chapter concepts. However, some of the tests identified for each of the items identified above could be: (A) drug testing and medical examinations – to ensure the candidate is a safe worker; (B) personality tests and honesty tests – to ensure the communication skills and integrity of the individual meets the organization’s needs; (C) cognitive ability tests and personality tests – to ensure the candidate has the necessary intelligence level and is able to work well with others; and (D) personality tests and physical ability tests – to ensure the candidate has the necessary personality traits for team work and has the physical capability for a manufacturing environment.

8. Suppose you are a human resource professional at a large retail chain. You want to improve the company’s hiring process by creating standard designs for interviews, so that every time someone is interviewed for a particular job category, that person answers the same questions. You also want to make sure the questions asked are relevant to the job and maintain equal employment opportunity. Think of three questions to include in interviews for each of the following jobs. For each question, state why you think it should be included.

A. Cashier at one of the company’s storesB. Buyer of the stores’ teen clothing lineC. Accounts payable clerk at company headquarters

The individual responses will vary, but each response should demonstrate understanding of the chapter concepts.




9. How can organizations improve the quality of their interviewing so that interviews provide valid information?

Interviews should be narrow, structured, and standardized. Interviewers should identify job requirements and create a list of questions related to the requirements. Interviewers should be trained to recognize biases and conduct objective interviews. Panel interviews can reduce problems related to interviewer bias. Interviewers should put candidates at ease in a comfortable place that is free of distractions. Questions should ask for descriptions of relevant experience and job-related behaviors.

10. Some organizations set up a selection process that is long and complex. In some people’s opinions, this kind of selection process not only is more valid but also has symbolic value. What can the use of a long, complex selection process symbolize to job seekers? How do you think this would affect the organization’s ability to attract the best employees?

The student responses given for this question will vary.

Suggested responses may include that a process of this type would indicate to the applicant that the organization takes the time to seek out the “best” qualified person available for the position. Such an approach may serve to attract the most conscientious and dedicated candidates available.

Experiencing HR

Print out a copy of your résumé. If you don’t already have a résumé, create one summarizing your education, work history, and accomplishments. (For guidelines, visitwww.mhhe.com/noefund5e or get help at your school’s library or career center.)Find a job listing for a career or company that interests you. You could visit a job board such as Monster and search for jobs by company. Or visit careers pages of companies you’d like to work for. Compare your résumé with the details in the job advertisement. What qualities on your résumé match what the company is looking for? What words and phrases does the company use in its job ad and on its Web site that you could use (truthfully) to show you are a good fit with the company? What additional experiences and skills do you need before you would be considered for a job at this company?

Write a one-page paper summarizing your comparison. Attach your résumé, and turn it in for credit on the assignment. Keep a copy of your summary to refer to later when planning the next step in your career.

Taking Responsibility

Customer-First Values Shape Hiring Decisions at Zappos




Zappos’ initial strategy – to offer the biggest selection of shoes—didn’t turn out to make the company stand out from the competition. There are plenty of places, online and off, where consumers can find shoes. So chief executive officer Tony Hsieh switched the mission to one of offering the best customer service of any shoe retailer. That got customers’ attention, but Hsieh saw that he still had not tapped the heart of what makes a company great. So he made one more switch: Zappos would maintain a dynamic, fulfilling company culture. The company would be a great place to work, and in that environment, employees would delight customers, and loyal customers would provide the income needed to please shareholders. That mission affects every function at Zappos, including employee selection. The hiring process aims to find and keep employees who share the company’s values, such as “Deliver Wow through service” and “Create fun and a little weirdness.”

Questions

1. What are the steps in the selection process at Zappos? Does this seem like a completeselection process? If not, what steps would you add?

Candidates apply through the company’s website, where a prominent message urges them to read the company’s values first. Successful candidates undergo two interviews. In the first, which may be a phone interview, the interviewer talks to each candidate about his or her skills and experience. About half the candidates are invited to a second interview, held in a room set up to look like the set of a television talk show. There, candidates answer questions about Zappos’ core values. For example, interviewers try to evaluate whether candidates value honesty, are committed to learning, and have a sense of fun. Besides traditional interview questions, Zappos has some unconventional ways to learn about candidates. One of the company’s values is ―Be humble. To gauge humility, HR directors talk to someone candidates didn’t know they were supposed to impress: the drivers of the shuttle buses that bring candidates to the company’s offices. Another value is creativity and open-mindedness. To test for this, the interviewer gives candidates a mockup of a newspaper and asks how many photos it contains. After this process is over, about one-tenth of the candidates receive a job offer from Zappos. As one final check of cultural fit, these new employees are offered $3,000 to leave at the end of the initial training if they conclude they won’t actually fit in.

2. Review the criteria for a successful selection method: reliable, valid, generalizable, practical,and legal. How well does Zappos meet those criteria? How can it measure the success of itsselection methods?

It could successfully be argued that the selection methods that the company uses are reliable, valid, generalizable and practical. Look for evidence that students can define what each of these criteria means, and explain how each step of Zappos’ process successfully meet them. Zappos can measure the success of its selection methods through looking at employee engagement, employee productivity, and employee turnover.




3. Would you recommend that decision makers at Zappos use highly structured job interviews?Why or why not?

Given the rather unorthodox culture of the company, and the variety of selection methods seems to be appropriate in identifying the type of employees that the company wants. It might not be a good idea to use a structured interview, since the data that the company is seeking might be better obtained through its existing means.

Managing Talent

Cutting Hiring Red Tape at the Office of Personnel Management

When people think of agile, efficient processes, they rarely think of government bureaucracy.But if Angela Bailey has her way, that perception could start to change. Bailey is the chiefhuman capital officer for the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM).OPM receives over 59,000 applications every day from people hoping to land a job in the federalgovernment, which employs more than two million civilians just in the executive branch. Processing so many applications and making good selection decisions is a daunting task.What made it even worse until May 2010, OPM had such a cumbersome application andselection process that it would astonish hiring managers in the private sector. In May 2010, President Obama directed OPM and other federal agencies to make the hiring process more efficient.

Questions

1. Review the criteria for a successful selection method: reliable, valid, generalizable, practical,and legal. How well did the Office of Personnel Management meet those criteria, before andafter the reform effort?

Before the reform, candidates had to write 500 to 1000 word essays intended to find good matches between candidates and jobs. This was not a reliable, valid, generalizable, or practical method. It was not reliable, because essays may or may not be a true, consistent indication of the candidate’s ability to perform the job. It was not valid because it did not predict performance. It was too generic, in other words, and was not reflective as a predictor of job performance. It certainly was not generalizable or practical, since it took so long for the OPM to read the essays and process the filing of positions. After the reform, the process became more reliable, valid, generalizable and practical because each job had a skills assessment, and the selection methods for each job were identified and used for each job.

2. What types of selection methods are described in this case? What other selection methods do you think federal agencies should use? Why?

The selection methods include resume and testing. The federal agencies might consider using interviewing, since the interviews could be structured and conducted in ways that even more accurately identify the best matches for open positions.




3. In general, how can an organization’s employee selection process support a strategy aimed at improving efficiency and lowering costs? How would you rate OPM’s efforts to support thistype of strategy? What else could it do?

The selection process should be reliable, valid, generalizable, and practical. Certainly it should be legal, too. It should be as streamlined as possible, but not so ambiguous that it be cumbersome for the recruiters having to cull through data, such as the OPM essays. Before reform, the OPM efforts were inefficient. After reform, the OPM began to systematize the selection process in a much more efficient manner.

Kinaxis Chooses Sales Reps with Personality

Case Summary:

This case scenario highlights the use of personality testing for sales professional positions. Kinaxis is a software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario and the vice president for sales, Bob Dolan, needed to hire a sales team to handle clients in North America. Dolan culled the initial list of 100 resumes down to 20, and then used personality testing to identify candidates who had the characteristics he determined were consistent with a sales representative most likely to succeed in this particular business.

Questions

1. What selection methods did Bob Dolan use for hiring salespeople? Did he go about using these methods in the best order? What, if anything, would you change about the order of the methods used?

Dolan used the resume first, reviewing resume information against job requirements. He then identified 20 candidates that he interviewed. Next, he administered a personality test to identify candidates who had the characteristics he determined were consistent with a sales representative most likely to succeed in this particular business. Dolan arguably used these methods in the best order, because he reviewed resumes against requirements first, and then identified candidates to interview. It would be unwieldy to interview all of the applicants who submitted resumes, so that was a good decision. A case could possibly be made for switching the second and third steps, although either order would make sense.

2. What were the advantages to Kinaxis of using personality tests to help select sales representatives? What were the disadvantages?

Advantages included the fact that the test provided objective data for Dolan about the candidates; he did not have to rely solely on his assessment of their interviews. Additionally, he was thorough in determining predictive validity; he took the test, and he had his current sales rep take the test, so that he could acquire insights about the characteristics that would likely lead to success in the position. The disadvantages to conducting the test were minimal. One could possible argue that candidates who were nervous may have scored inaccurately. However, Dolan gave each candidate the opportunity to disagree with the results, which no one did. The results of the tests were checked with the candidates, which factored out inaccuracies due to nerves.




3. Given the information gathered from the selection methods, what process did Dolan use to make his selection decision? What improvements can you recommend to this process for decisions to hire sales reps in the future?

Doland reviewed the resumes against job requirements. He the used a personality test that he ensured was valid. He ensured such by having his existing salesperson, who was doing an excellent job, take the test and he used some of the results to benchmark and identify the characteristics of someone who would be successful. He implemented the test, and Opus representatives even checked out the results with each candidate to ensure reliability of the results. Dolan then had the remaining eight candidates, to fill four positions, recall the major accounts they had signed up in the two previous years. This is an excellent way to interview, because it asks the candidate to provide specific information about past performance. To hire sales reps in the future, Dolan might consider having current, successful sales reps interview candidates, so that they can share their impressions.

Twitter Question:Have you ever taken a personality test? What was it like?



chapter one - solution manual & test bank store · web viewwe hope you find each chapter of...

Documents