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Personnel Psychology: Employee Recruitment and Selection. Guide for SHP 1313 students at UTM, Malaysia Prepared by : Siti Rokiah Siwok , srsiwok@gmail.com. Recruitment.
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Personnel Psychology:Employee Recruitment and Selection Guide for SHP 1313 students at UTM, Malaysia Prepared by : SitiRokiahSiwok , srsiwok@gmail.com
Recruitment • Revision: Job analysis is the cornerstone of personnel selection. Unless a complete an accurate picture of a job is done, it would be difficult to select excellent employees. • During the job analysis process, in addition to identifying the important task and duties, it is crucial to identify knowledge, skills and abilities needed to perform the job.
Recruitment • Methods used to select employees must be directly tied to the results of the job analysis. • Every essential knowledge, skill and ability identified in the job analysis should be tested and every test must relate to the job analysis.
Recruitment • Recruitment is attracting the right people for a certain job. • Two types of recruitment : • Internal • External There is a need to balance between internal and external recruitment.
Effective Recruitment Methods Should be: • Valid : A valid selection test is based on a job analysis (content validity), predicts work behaviour (criterion validity) and measures the construct it purpots to measure (construct validity). • Cost effective : in all terms, that is to purchase or create, to administer and to score.
Effective Recruitment Methods Should: • Get the attention of the public • Screen unqualified applicants • Motivate qualified people to apply • Timely • Reduce the chance of legal challenge
Recruitment Methods • Informal or Indirect • Situation-wanted ads • Direct applications • Employee referrals • Formal or Direct • Media advertisements • Point of purchase • Direct mail • Employment agencies • College recruiters • Computer databases • Special events • Employee referral programs
Special Populations • The retired • The mentally or physically challenged • Ex-convicts • Current convicts • People on welfare assistance • Employees in other organizations • People in foreign countries • Temporary employees
Optimal Employee Selection Should be: • Valid • Based on a job analysis (content validity) • Predict work-related behavior (criterion validity) • Able to Reduce the Chance of a Legal Challenge • Face valid • Don’t invade privacy • Don’t intentionally discriminate • Minimize adverse impact • Cost Effective • Cost to purchase/create • Cost to administer • Cost to score
Effective Employee Selection Techniques • Interviews • Résumé • References and Recommendations • Training and Education • Applicants’ Ability • Applicant’s Skills • Prior experience • Personality, Interest and Character
Interviews • Structure • Structured • Unstructured • Semi structured • Style • One to one • Serial • Return • Panel • group • Medium • Face to face, telephone, video conference, in writing etc
Unstructured Interviews are Not Optimal • Because they: • Poor intuitive ability • Lack of job relatedness • Legally problematic • Rely on intuition, “amateur psychology,” and talk show methods • Suffer from common rating problems • Primacy • Contrast • Interviewer-interviewee similarity • Interviewee appearance • Non-verbal clues
Examples of Common Unstructured Interview Questions • Where do you see yourself five years from now? • What are your greatest strengths? • What are your greatest weaknesses? • What subject did you most enjoy in college? • Why should I hire you? • Why are you interested in this job?
Structured Interviews are Optimal • Because they are : • Reliable • Valid • Are based on a job analysis • Ask the same questions of each applicant • Have a standardized scoring procedure • Not as prone to legal challenge
Goals of Structured Interview • Understand the Applicant • Clarify and confirm resume information • Obtain new information • Predict Job Performance • Ask questions focused on past behavior • Ask questions focused on knowledge and skills • Ask questions focused on future behavior • Predict Organizational Fit • Use several interviewers • Combine interview impression with test scores • Sell the Organization to the Applicant • Provide information about the position/organization • Answer the applicant’s questions
Creating the Structured Interview • Conduct a thorough job analysis • Determine best way to measure each KSAO • Construct Questions • Determine rating anchors for each question • Choose two or more members for the interview panel
Résumés • Résumés are summaries of an applicant’s professional and educational background. • Commonly asked by employers but little is known about the value of predicting employee performance. • It is unclear how much predictive value résumés have.
Résumés • Résumés may not predict performance partly because they are meant to “advertise” an applicant; making the “strengths of the applicant more obvious and weaknesses hard to find”. • Result: many résumés contain inaccurate information. • Aamodt and Williams (2005) found that 25% of résumés contained inaccurate information. • No best way to write résumés.
References and Recommendations • Common belief in psychology is : the best predictor of future performance is past performance. • Verifying previous employment is not difficult but DIFFICULT to ascertain the QUALITY of previous performance.
References and Recommendations • Reasons • Issues, ethics and considerations • Negligent reference • Potential to be charged with slander or a legal action taken.
Using Applicants’ Training and Education • Using applicant Training and Education • Min level of education and training • Inconsistent results regarding validity • However, meta-analysis of the relationship between education and police performance found education was a valid performance in the police academy, and performance on the job. • Student’s GPA and
Using Applicant’s Knowledge about the Job applied for • Job performance can also be predicted using applicants’ knowledge; hence job knowledge tests are designed to measure how much a person knows about a job. • Examples : computer programming knowledge etc • Standardised tests are also available . • Excellent content and criterion validity.
Using Applicants’ Ability • Ability tests taps the extent to which an applicant can learn or perform a job-related skill. Upon hire, new employees will be taught the necessary job skills and knowledge. • Ability tests are used primarily for occupations in which applicants are not expected to know how to perform the job at the time of hire. Eg: police officers, fire fighters, military personnel.
Using Applicants’ Ability: Cognitive Ability Cognitive Ability: • Includes oral and written comprehension, oral and written expression, numerical etc. • Important for professional, clerical and supervisory jobs. • Meta-analyses suggests that cognitive ability is one of the best predictors of performance across all jobs, but job-specific meta-analyses raise doubts about the assumptions. • E.gs of cognitive ability test : Wonderlic Personnel Test, Miller Analogies Test and Quick Test
Using Applicants’ Ability Other ability tests are : Perceptual Ability Psychomotor Ability Physical Ability
Using Applicant’s Skills • This method measures the extent to which an applicant has already a job-related skill. • Two most common methods are work sample and assessment centre. • With work-sample, the applicant performs actual job-related tasks; excellent selection tools and has high validity. Applicants also see the direct connection.
Assessment Centers • An assessment centre is a selection technique characterized by the use of multiple assessment methods that allow multiple assessors to actually observe applicants perform simulated tasks. • Major advantage: • Assessment methods are all job related and multiple assessors help guard against some types of biases.
Using Personality, Interest and Character • Personality Inventories • Interest inventories • Integrity Tests • Graphology
Personality Inventories • Increasingly popular as an employee selection method. • Falls into 2 categories based on their intended purpose: • 1) normal personality • 2) abnormal personality (psychopathology)
Personality Inventories: Normal Personality • Tests of normal personality measures traits exhibited by normal individuals in everyday life. Eg. of such traits are: extraversion, shyness, assertiveness and friendliness. • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator • Edwards Personal Preference Schedule • 16 PF • Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) • Many more….
Personality Inventories: Normal Personality • There are 100s of personality inventories, there is a general agreement that most personality traits can be placed into one of the five personality dimensions, known as the “BIG FIVE” or the five factor model. • Openness to experience (bright and inquisitive) • Conscientiousness (reliable, dependable) • Extraversion (outgoing, friendly) • Agreeableness (works well with others) • Emotional stability
Personality Inventories: Psychopathology • Tests of abnormal personality determine whether individuals have serious psychological problems such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. • Seldom used in IOP unless required as part of medical examinations .
Interest Inventories • Designed to tap vocational interests. • Most commonly used is the Strong Interest Inventory(SII) which asked individuals to indicate whether they like or dislike 325 items such as bargaining, repairing electrical wire and taking responsibility. • Answers provide profile of the person.
Integrity tests • Informs the employer of the applicant’s honesty; such as the probability that an applicant will steal money or merchandise • One study estimates that 50% of employees access to cash steal from their employers (Wimbush and Dalton, 1997).
Graphology • Handwriting analysis . • Used 8% in the UK and 75% in France. • The idea behind it is that the way people write reveals their personality, which in turn indicates work performance.
Typical Corrected Validity Coefficients for Selection Techniques
Main references: • Aamodt, M. G ( 2010). Industrial/Organizational Psychology. An Applied Approach.( 6th Ed) USA: Wadsworth • Spector, P. E. ( 2008). Industrial and Organizational Psychology (5thed). USA: Wiley • Employee Recruitment (2010). Cengage Learning