Fundamentals of Human
Resource Management
Eighth Edition
DeCenzo and Robbins
Chapter 7
Foundations of Selection
Why Careful Selection is
Important
• The importance of selecting the right
employees
– Organizational performance always depends in
part on subordinates having the right skills and
attributes.
– Recruiting and hiring employees is costly.
– The legal implications of incompetent hiring
• EEO laws and court decisions related to
nondiscriminatory selection procedures
• The liability of negligent hiring of workers with
questionable backgrounds
The Selection Process
The selection process typically consists
of eight steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
initial screening interview
completion of the application form
employment tests
comprehensive interview
background investigation
conditional job offer
medical/physical exam
permanent job offer
The Selection Process
The Selection Process
• Initial Screening
– Involves screening of inquiries and
screening interviews.
– Job description information is shared along
with a salary range.
The Selection Process
Completing the Application Form: Key
Issues
– Gives a job-performance-related synopsis
of what applicants have been doing, their
skills and accomplishments.
The Selection Process
Completing the Application Form: Key
Issues
• Legal considerations
– Omit items which are not job-related; e.g.,
gender, religion, age, national origin, race,
color, and disability.
– Includes statement giving employer the right
to dismiss an employee for falsifying
information.
– Asks for permission to check work
references.
– Typically includes “employment-at-will”
statement.
The Selection Process
• Weighted application forms
– Individual items of information are
validated against performance and
turnover measures and given
appropriate weights.
– Data must be collected for each job
to determine how well a particular
item (e.g., years of schooling,
tenure on last job) predicts success
on target job.
The Selection Process
Completing the Application Form: Key
Issues
• Successful applications
– Information collected on application forms
can be highly predictive of successful job
performance.
– Forms must be validated and continuously
reviewed and updated.
– Data should be verified through
background investigations.
The Selection Process
Employment Tests
• Estimates say 60% of all organizations
use some type of employment tests.
– Performance simulation tests: requires the
applicant to engage in specific job
behaviors necessary for doing the job
successfully.
– Work sampling: Job analysis is used to
develop a miniature replica of the job on
which an applicant demonstrates his/her
skills.
The Selection Process
Employment Tests
– Assessment centers: A series of tests and
exercises, including individual and group
simulation tests, is used to assess
managerial potential or other complex sets
of skills.
– Testing in a global arena: Selection
practices must be adapted to cultures and
regulations of host country.
Sample Test
Source: Courtesy of NYT Permissions.
Figure 6–4
Measuring Personality and
Interests
• Personality tests
– Tests that use projective techniques and trait
inventories to measure basic aspects of an applicant’s
personality, such as introversion, stability, and
motivation.
– Disadvantage
• Personality tests—particularly the projective type—
are the most difficult tests to evaluate and use.
– Advantage
• Tests have been used successfully to predict
dysfunctional job behaviors and identify successful
candidates for overseas assignments.
The “Big Five”
• Extraversion
– The tendency to be sociable, assertive, active, and to experience
positive effects, such as energy and zeal.
• Emotional stability/neuroticism
– The tendency to exhibit poor emotional adjustment and experience
negative effects, such as anxiety, insecurity, and hostility.
• Openness to experience
– The disposition to be imaginative, nonconforming,
unconventional, and autonomous.
• Agreeableness
– The tendency to be trusting, compliant, caring, and gentle.
• Conscientiousness
– Is comprised of two related facets: achievement and dependability.
Other Tests
• Interest inventories
– Personal development and selection devices
that compare the person’s current interests with
those of others now in various occupations so
as to determine the preferred occupation for the
individual.
• Achievement tests
– Test that measure what a person has already
learned—“job knowledge” in areas like
accounting, marketing, or personnel.
Other Tests (cont’d)
• Web-Based (Online) testing
– Eliminates costly and inefficient paper-andpencil testing processes.
– Allows for role-playing by applicants.
– Use of computer-based scoring eliminates rater
bias.
– Provides immediate scoring and feedback of
results to applicants.
– Can be readily customized for specific jobs.
Work Samples
• Work samples
– Actual job tasks are used in testing applicants’
performance.
• Work sampling technique
– A testing method based on measuring an
applicant’s performance on actual basic job
tasks.
The Selection Process
Comprehensive
Interviews:
• Interviews involve a
face-to-face meeting
with the candidate to
probe areas not
addressed by the
application form or tests.
• They are a universal
selection tool.
Basic Features of Interviews
• An interview
– A procedure designed to obtain information from a
person through oral responses to oral inquiries
• Types of interviews
– Selection interview
– Appraisal interview
– Exit interview
• Interviews formats
– Structured
– Unstructured
Types of Interviews
• Selection interview
– A selection procedure designed to predict future job
performance on the basis of applicants’ oral responses
to oral inquiries.
• Appraisal interview
– A discussion, following a performance appraisal, in
which supervisor and employee discuss the employee’s
rating and possible remedial actions.
• Exit interview
– An interview to elicit information about the job or
related matters to the employer some insight into
what’s right or wrong about the firm.
The Selection Process
Comprehensive Interviews:
• Interview Effectiveness
– Interviews are the most widely used
selection tool.
– Often are expensive, inefficient, and not
job-related.
– Possible biases with decisions based on
interviews include prior knowledge about
the applicant, stereotypes, interviewee
order.
The Selection Process
Comprehensive Interviews:
• Interview Effectiveness
– Impression management, or the applicant’s
desire to project the “right” image, may
skew the interview results.
– Interviewers have short and inaccurate
memories: note-taking and videotaping
may help.
The Selection Process
Comprehensive Interviews:
• Interview Effectiveness
– Structured interviews use fixed questions
designed to assess specific job-related
attributes
– More reliable and valid than unstructured
ones.
– Best for determining organizational fit,
motivation and interpersonal skills.
– Especially useful for high-turnover jobs and
less routine ones.
The Selection Process
Comprehensive Interviews:
• Behavioral Interviews
– Candidates are observed not only for what
they say, but how they behave.
– Role playing is often used.
Interview Content: Types of
Questions
• Situational interview
– A series of job-related questions that focus on
how the candidate would behave in a given
situation.
• Behavioral interview
– A series of job-related questions that focus on
how they reacted to actual situations in the past.
• Job-related interview
– A series of job-related questions that focus on
relevant past job-related behaviors.
Interview Content: Types of
Questions
• Stress interview
– An interview in which the interviewer seeks to
make the applicant uncomfortable with
occasionally rude questions that supposedly to
spot sensitive applicants and those with low or
high stress tolerance.
• Puzzle questions
– Recruiters for technical, finance, and other
types of jobs use questions to pose problems
requiring unique (“out-of-the-box”) solutions to
see how candidates think under pressure.
Factors Affecting Interviews
• First impressions
– The tendency for interviewers to jump to
conclusions—make snap judgments—about
candidates during the first few minutes of the
interview.
– Negative bias: unfavorable information about
an applicant influences interviewers more than
does positive information.
Factors Affecting Interviews
(cont’d)
• Misunderstanding the job
– Not knowing precisely what the job entails and
what sort of candidate is best suited causes
interviewers to make decisions based on
incorrect stereotypes of what a good applicant
is.
• Candidate-order error
– An error of judgment on the part of the
interviewer due to interviewing one or more
very good or very bad candidates just before
the interview in question.
Factors Affecting Interviews
(cont’d)
• Nonverbal behavior and impression
management
– Interviewers’ inferences of the interviewee’s
personality from the way he or she acts in the
interview have a large impact on the
interviewer’s rating of the interviewee.
– Clever interviewees attempt to manage the
impression they present to persuade
interviewers to view them more favorably.
Factors Affecting Interviews
(cont’d)
• Effect of personal characteristics:
attractiveness, gender, race
– Interviewers tend have a less favorable view of
candidates who are:
• Physically unattractive
• Female
• Of a different racial background
• Disabled
Factors Affecting Interviews
(cont’d)
• Interviewer behaviors affecting interview
outcomes
– Inadvertently telegraphing expected answers.
– Talking so much that applicants have no time to
answer questions.
– Letting the applicant dominate the interview.
– Acting more positively toward a favored (or
similar to the interviewer) applicant.
Examples of Questions That Provide
Structure
Situational Questions:
1. Suppose a co-worker was not following standard work procedures. The co-worker was
more experienced than you and claimed the new procedure was better. Would you use the
new procedure?
2. Suppose you were giving a sales presentation and a difficult technical question arose that
you could not answer. What would you do?
Past Behavior Questions:
3. Based on your past work experience, what is the most significant action you have ever
taken to help out a co-worker?
4. Can you provide an example of a specific instance where you developed a sales
presentation that was highly effective?
Background Questions:
5. What work experiences, training, or other qualifications do you have for working in a
teamwork environment?
6. What experience have you had with direct point-of-purchase sales?
Job Knowledge Questions:
7. What steps would you follow to conduct a brainstorming session with a group of employees
on safety?
8. What factors should you consider when developing a television advertising campaign?
The Selection Process
Comprehensive Interviews:
• Realistic Job Preview
– RJP’s present unfavorable as well as
favorable information about the job to
applicants.
– May include brochures, films, tours, work
sampling, or verbal statements that
realistically portray the job.
– RJP’s reduce turnover without lowering
acceptance rates.
The Selection Process
Background Investigation:
• Verify information from the application
form
• Typical information verified includes:
– former employers
– previous job performance
– education
– legal status to work
– credit references
– criminal records
Background Investigations and
Reference Checks
• Extent of investigations and checks
– Reference checks (87%)
– Background employment checks (69%)
– Criminal records (61%)
– Driving records (56%)
– Credit checks (35%)
• Reasons for investigations and checks
– To verify factual information provided by applicants.
– To uncover damaging information.
The Selection Process
Background Investigation
• Qualified privilege
– employers may discuss employees with
prospective employers without fear of
reprisal as long as the discussion is about
job-related documented facts.
• One-third of all applicants exaggerate
their backgrounds or experiences.
• A good predictor of future behavior is an
individual’s past behavior.
The Selection Process
Background Investigation Methods:
• Internal investigation: checks former
employers, personal references and
possibly credit sources.
• External investigation: Uses a
reference-checking firm which may
obtain more information, while
complying with privacy rights.
The Selection Process
• Background Investigation
• Documentation, including whom called,
questions asked, information
obtained/not obtained, is important in
case an employers’ hiring decision is
later challenged.
The Selection Process
Conditional Job Offers:
• Offers of employment made
contingent upon successful
completion of background check,
physical/medical exam, drug test,
etc.
• May only use job-related
information to make a hiring
decision.
The Selection Process
Medical/Physical Examination
• Should be used only to determine if the
individual can comply with the essential
functions of the job.
• Americans with Disabilities Act requires
that exams be given only after
conditional job offer is made.
The Selection Process
Job Offers
• Actual hiring decision generally made
by the department manager.
• Candidates not hired deserve the
courtesy of prompt notification.
The Selection Process
The Comprehensive Approach
• Comprehensive selection approach
puts applicants through all the steps in
the selection process before making a
decision.
• Assesses both strengths and
weaknesses and is considered more
realistic.
The Selection Process
Now It’s Up to the Candidate
• The candidate now has to decide
whether this is the job for him or her.
• Applicants who are not hired this time
will still form an impression about the
company.
• Management should assure the
selection process leaves them with a
favorable impression of the company.
Selection for Self-Managed
Teams
• If teams are given management
responsibilities, it makes sense
for them to select their own
members.
• Team members bring to the
selection process varied
experiences and backgrounds.
• Team members need training in
selection and interviewing
techniques.
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
• Reliability, validity, and cut scores can
all help predict which applicants will be
successful on the job.
• Reliability: The ability of the selection
tool to measure an attribute
consistently.
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
• Validity: The relationship between
scores on a selection tool and a
relevant criterion, such as job
performance.
• Indicates how well a selection tool
predicts job performance.
– Content
– Construct
– Criterion-related
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
• Content validity: The degree to which
the content of the test, as a sample,
represents situations on the job.
• Construct validity: The degree to
which a particular trait is related to
successful performance on the job.
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
• Criterion-related validity: The degree
to which a particular selection device
accurately predicts the important
elements of work behavior.
– Predictive validity uses selection test
scores of applicants to compare with their
future job performance.
– Concurrent validity correlates the test
scores of current employees with
measures of their job performance.
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
• Validity Analysis: Correlation
coefficients (validity coefficients)
ranging from +1 to –1 summarize the
statistical relationship between an
individual’s test score and his/her job
performance.
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
Cut Scores and Their Impact on Hiring:
• Cut scores on a selection device can be
determined by validity studies.
• Applicants scoring below the cut score
are predicted to be unsuccessful on the
job and are rejected.
Key Elements for Successful
Predictors
• Validity Generalization: This is a
situation where a test may be valid for
screening applicants for a variety of
jobs and performance factors across
many occupations.
Selection From a Global
Perspective
• Selection criteria for international
assignments includes
– interest in working overseas
– ability to relate to different cultures and
environments
– supportiveness of the candidate’s family
• Women executives have done well
abroad in Asia and Latin America,
despite past reluctance to assign them
to these countries.
Final Thoughts: Excelling at
the Interview
• Suggestions for making your interviews as an
applicant successful are:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Do some homework on the company.
Get a good night’s rest the night before.
Dress appropriately.
Arrive for the interview a few minutes early.
Use a firm handshake.
Maintain good eye contact.
Take the opportunity to have practice interviews.
Thank the interviewer at the end of the interview
and follow up with a thank you note.