CHAP 4: EMPLOYEE SELECTION: RECRUITING AND INTERVIEWING

Highly structured interview

All three criteria of structured interview are met

Clarifiers

Allow the interviewer to clarify information in the resume, cover letter, and application, fill in gaps, and obtain other necessary information

Cost per qualified applicant

Amount of money spent on a recruitment campaign divided by the number of qualified people that subsequently apply for jobs as a result of the recruitment campaign

Public employment agency

An employment service operated by a state or local government, designed to match applicants with job openings; they often offer services such as career advertisement and resume preparation

Employer-based websites

An organization lists available job openings and provides information about itself and the minimum requirements needed to apply to a particular job

Employment agency

An organization that specializes in finding jobs for applicants and finding applicants for organizations looking for employees; they charge either the company or the applicant

Future-focused questions (situational)

Ask an applicant what she would do in a particular situation

Recruitment

Attracting people with the right qualification (as determined in the job analysis) to apply for the job

Psychological resume

Based on sound psychological theory and research, containing the strengths of both chronological and functional styles

Face-to-face interviews

Both the interviewer and the applicant are in the same room

Videoconference interviews

Conducted at remote sites

Recruiting kiosks

Located in shopping malls and public buildings where applicants can use to search for local job openings and get information on how they can apply for the jobs

Direct mail

Method of recruitment in which an organization sends out mass mailing of information about job openings to potential applicants

Skill-level determiners

Tap an interviewee's level of expertise

1) Number of applicants 2) Cost for applicant 3) Cost per qualified applicant 4) Number of successful applicants 5) Number of minorities and women

Ways to evaluate the effectiveness of recruitment strategies

Apply-in-person ads

When they don't want their phones tied up by applicants calling, want the applicants to fill out a specific job application, or want to get a physical look at the applicant

ads with emblem

attracts the greatest number of applicants

ads with salary range and company phone

attracts the highest quality if applicants

word-of-mouth system

information about recruitment is passed from one person to another

Group interviews

Have multiple applicants answering questions during the same interview

Contrast effect

Interview performance of one applicant may affect the interview score given to the next applicant

Noncompetitive promotions

Involve "career" progression" positions in which employees move from a position; number of promotions are not limited and they do not compete with other employees

One-on-one interviews

Involve one interviewer interviewing one applicant

Written interviews

Involve the applicant answering a series of written questions and then sending the answers back through regular mail or through email

Serial interviews

Involves a series of single interviews

Point-of-purchase method

Job vacancy notices are posted in places where customers or current employees are likely to see them: store windows, bulletin boards, restaurant placemats, and the sides of trucks

Panel interviews

Have multiple interviewers asking questions and evaluating answers of the same applicant at the same time

Cover letter

Letter that accompanies a resume or job application

Chronological resume

List previous jobs in order from the most least to recent

Typical-answer approach

Method of scoring interview answers that compares an applicant's answer with benchmarks answers

1) Build rapport 2) Explain the process 3) Ask questions 4) Score answers 5) Provide information about the job and the organization 6) Answer any questions the applicant might have 7) Compliment the interviewer

Steps in conducting interview

1) Conduct the job analysis 2) Write a job description 3) Find the best way to measure an applicant's ability

Steps in creating a structured interview

Resumes

Summaries of an applicant's professional and educational background

Organizational-fit questions

Tap the extent to which an applicant will fit into the culture of an organization or with the leadership style of a particular supervisor

Resumes written as a history of one's life

Tend to be long and list every job ever worked, as well as personal information such as hobbies, mental status, and personal health

Resumes written as an advertisement of skills

Tend to be shorter and contain only information that is both positive and relevant to a job seeker's desired career

Cost per applicant

The amount of money spent on a recruitment campaign divided by the number of people that subsequently apply for jobs as a result of the recruitment campaign

round interview

another term for panel interview

application form

consists of personal information as well as previous work experiences, including previous salary

structure

determined by the source of the questions

medium

extent to which they are done in person

blind ads

hides the identity of the company

interviewee appearance

in general, physically attractive applicants have an advantage in interviews over less attractive applicants and applicants who dress professionally receive higher interview scores than do more poorly dressed applicants

resume fraud

lying on their resumes about what experience or education they actually have

onkine recruitment

number three source of recruitment

interviewer-interviewee similarity

research suggests that an interviewee will receive a higher score if he or she is similar to the interviewer in terms of personality, attitude, gender or race

preliminary screening

to eliminate unsuitable or unqualified candidates from the selection process

Right/wrong approach

Some interview questions, especially skill-level determiners, can be scored simply on the basis of whether the answer given was correct or incorrect

Benchmarks answers

Standard answers to interview questions, the quality of which has been agreed by experts

Innovative advertising

Creative, high-energy ads

Telephone interviews

Often used to screen applicants but do not allow the use of visual cues

Expectation-lowering procedure (ELP)

A form of RJP that lowers an applicant's expectations about the various aspects of the job

Virtual job fair

A job fair held on campus in which students can "tour" a company online, ask questions of recruiters, and electronically send resumes

Employee referral

A method of recruitment in which current employees recommend family members and friends for specific job opening; most effective recruitment method

Realistic job preview (RJP)

A method of recruitment in which job applicants are told both the positive and the negative aspects of a job

Key-issues approach

A method of scoring interview answers that provides points for each part of an answer that matches the scoring key

Employment interview

A method of selecting employees in which an interviewer asks questions of an applicant and then makes an employment decision based on the answers to the questions as well as the way in which the questions were answered

Averaging versus adding model

A model proposed by Anderson that postulates that our impressions are based more on the average value of each impression than on the sum of the values of each impression

Job fairs

A recruitment method in which several employers are available at one location so that many applicants can obtain information at one time

Print advertising

Declining method of recruiting employees; one of the least effective recruitment methods in a 2007 survey

Style

Determined by the number of interviewees and number of interviewers

Blind box

Directs the applicants to send resumes to a blind box

1) Poor intuitive ability 2) Lack of job relatedness 3) Primacy effects 4) Contrast effects 5) Negative-information bias 6) Interviewer-interviewee similarity 7) Interviewee appearance 8) Nonverbal cues

Eight factors that contribute to the poor reliability and validity of the unstructured interview

Executive search firms

Employment agencies, often also called headhunters, that specialize in placing applicants in high-paying jobs; charge their fees to the company

Negative information bias

Fact that negative information receives more weight in an employment decision than does positive information

Nonverbal communication

Factors such as eye contact and posture that are not associated with actual words spoken

Primacy effect

First impressions, the fact that information presented early in an interview carries more weight than information presented later

Past-focused questions (pattered-behavior descriptions interviews)

Focus on a previous behavior; taps an applicant's experience

Unstructured interview

One in which interviewers are free to ask anything they want, are not required to have consistency in what they ask each applicant, and may assign number of points at their own discretion

Structured interview

One in which the source of questions is a job analysis (job-related questions), all applicants are asked the same questions, and there is a standardized scoring key to evaluate each answer

Functional resume

Organizes jobs based on the skills required to perform them rather than the order in which they were worked

Incremental validity

Predictive power

Job board

Private company whose website lists job openings for hundreds or thousands of organizations and resumes for millions of applicants

Disqualifiers

Questions that must be answered a particular way or the applicant is disqualified

Internal recruitment

Recruiting employees already employed by the organization; filled by transferring or promoting someone from within the organization

External recruitment

Recruiting new employees to the organization

Competitive promotions

Several internal applicants compete with one another (and sometimes with external applicants) for a limited number of higher positions

Return interviews

Similar to interviews with the difference being a passage of time between the first and subsequent interview

1) Clarifiers 2) Disqualifiers 3) Skill-level determiner 4) Future-focused question 5) Past-focused question 6) Organizational-fit questions

Six types of interviewer questions

Employer-based websites Job boards Social networking sites

Three forms of internet recruiting

Structure, style and medium

Three main factors where interviews vary

1) The organization doesn't want its name in public 2) The company might fear that people wouldn't apply if they knew the name of the company 3) On rare occasions, a company needs to terminate an employee but wants first to find a replacement

Three reasons organizations use blind box

1) Many types of organizations have booths at the same location 2) Many organizations in the same field in one location 3) An organization holds its own

Three ways job fairs are conducted

Moderately structured interview

Two criteria of structured interview are met

1) Typical-answer approach 2) Key-issues approach

Two main methods of scoring most answers

Chronological resume Functional resume Psychological resume

Types of resumes

Respond by calling

When an organization wants to either quickly screen applicants or hear an applicant's phone voice (e.g., for telemarketing or receptionist positions

Send-resume ads

When the organization expects a large response and does not have the resources to speak with thousands of applicants