Week 5: Assessing + Selecting Employees

Assessment Center

A detailed, structured evaluation of job applicants using a variety of instruments and techniques

Emotional intelligence

Ability to understand, regulate, and communicate emotions and use them to inform thinking

Situational interview

Asked how they would deal with job related situations

Written materials- weighted application forms

Assign different weights to each piece of information on the form. Weights are determined by research to see the relationship between biographical data (biodata) and job success

Why is biological information important?

Best predictors of future job performance BUT hard to measure constructs like work experience

How are biodata instruments developed?

By taking info that would appear on application forms (ie background, personal interests, behavior) and using that info to develop a forced-choice employment test

What can you use in employee screening?

Can use: resumes, job applications, letters of recommendation, employment tests, hiring interviews etc.

What type of information do written materials provide?

Collect biographical information: work experience, education, school accomplishments

Types of validity evidence

Content validity, construct validity, criterion related validity.

Personality tests

Designed to measure certain psychological characteristics of workers

Content validity

Does a test or test items adequately sample important job behaviors and elements involved in performing a job? Determined by having experts look at the test

Behavior description interview

Draw on past job incidents and behaviors to deal with hypothetical future work situations

Other tests

Drug testing, handwriting analysis

What are the 4 types of information that references and letter of recommendation provide?

Employment and educational history, evaluations of character, evaluations of job performance, Recommenders willingness to rehire

Second Step: Employment Testing

Examples of tests: measure specific skills or abilities required by a job, more general cognitive skills, personality dimensions

3 objectives of interviews

Fill in gaps from resume, application etc. Provide realistic job previews. Public relations function for the company

Criterion-related validity- predictive validity evidence

Follow up method. Test is administered to applicants without interpreting the scores and without using them to select workers. Once the applicants become employees, criterion measures such as job performance assessments are collected. If the original test was valid then the test scores of the two tests should correlate. Demonstrates how scores on the screening test actually relate to job performance

Internal consistency of a test

If a test is reliable each item should measure the same construct and performance on one item should be consistent with performance on all other items

Test restest reliability results

If the correlation is high (a correlation coefficient approaching +1.0) evidence of reliability is established

4 problems with interviews

Inconsistency in questions asked. Interviewer bias. Snap judgement. Reliability of interviewer judgements

Types of standardized tests

Individual vs group. Speed vs power. Paper and pencil (written reply) vs performance (typing test, dexterity test etc)

Knowledge tests

Instruments that assess specific types of knowledge required to perform certain jobs

Criterion related validity

Is there a statistically significant empirical relationship between test scores and a criterion measure?

Mechanical ability tests

Measure abilities in identifying, recognizing, and applying mechanical principles

Honesty/integrity tests

Measures of applicants' propensity toward undesirable behaviors such as lying, stealing, taking drugs, or abusing alcohol.

Job Skills Tests

Measures your ability to perform job duties

Hiring interviews standards

Need to be conducted properly to be a good determinant of job performance. Employment decisions derived from interviews should be held to the same standards of reliability, validity, and predictability as tests

Why are references not as useful?

People will only ask for recommendations from people who will make then look good, companies aren't allowed to say bad things about a former employee

Criterion-related validity- Concurrent validity evidence

Present-employee method. Test is given to current employees and their scores are correlated with some criterion of their current performance

Cognitive Ability Tests

Range from tests of general cognitive ability to specific skills. Designed to measure the ability to learn simple jobs, to follow instructions, and to solve work-related problems and difficulties.

Construct validity

Refers to whether an employment test measures what it is supposed to measure. Convergent and discriminant validity evidence

What do you have to consider in the development and use of screening and testing methods?

Reliability

What do all predictions used in employee selection need to be?

Reliable and valid.

What does validity depend on?

The inference. How accurate in the inference? Does the inference meet the standards of business necessity?

Employee Screening

The process of reviewing information about job applicants to select individuals for jobs

How does intercorrelation determine reliability?

The resulting coefficient, referred to as Cronbach's alpha, is an estimate of the test's internal consistency.

Test utility

The value of a screening test in determining important outcomes. (if you hire someone bc they do well on the test how much money will the company make off of that hire)

Downside to the parallel forms method

Time consuming

Reliability: Parallel forms method

Two equivalent test are made, each measures the same thing but with different questions/items Test takers take both tests

Biographical Information Blank (BIBs)

Type of assessment that uses biodata in employee recruitment to help determine which of several candidates should be hired for a job.

Motor and sensory ability tests

Used in basic screening for positions such as inspectors or bus drivers who require fine audio or visual discrimination

Job skills test- work sample test

Used in job skill tests to measure applicants abilities to perform brief examples of important job tasks

First Step: Evaluation of Written Materials

Written materials: applications, cover letters, resumes

Written materials- work sample

Written sample of portfolio (can be developed into a standardized test)

Test battery

a combination of employment tests used to increase the ability to predict future job performance

Validity

a concept referring to the accuracy of a measurement instrument and its ability to make accurate inferences about a criterion

test-retest reliability

a method of determining the stability of a measurement instrument by administering the same measure to the same people at two different times and then correlating the scores

Situational Exercise

assessment tools that require the performance of tasks that approximate actual work tasks

Biodata

background info and personal characteristics that can be used in employee selection

Construct validity- convergent validity evidence

demonstrate that your test correlates positively with the results of other tests on the same thing

Result of testing at an assessment center

detailed profile of each applicant, as well as some index of how a particular applicant rated in comparison to others.

Intercorrelation

determine the average intercorrelation among all items of the test to determine reliability

Split-half reliability:

divide the test items into two equal parts and correlate the summed score on the first half of the items with that on the second half.

Why is the concurrent validity evidence method less accurate

no test scores from poor workers since they were fired or quit or never hired

Criterion-related validity- Validity coefficient

r

How does the parallel forms method establish reliability?

reliability is established if the correlation between the two scores in high

Reliability

stability of a measure over time / consistency of that measure

Validity Generalization

the ability of a screening instrument to predict performance in a job or setting different from the one in which the test was validated

Construct validity- discriminant (divergent) validity evidence

the test should not correlate with tests of constructs that are unrelated to what you are testing

Validity in employee screening

whether the specific measure (e.g., test, interview judgment) leads to accurate inferences about the applicant's criterion status (which is usually, but not always, job performance).