Employee Testing Selection
Unit 5.1: Selection & its Importance
Why Careful Selection is Important
• Process of choosing individuals who have
relevant qualifications to fill jobs in an
organization.
• Selecting the appropriate set of knowledge, skills,
and abilities (KSAs)
• Fit between the applicant and organization
affects both employer’s willingness to make a job
offer and applicant’s willingness to accept a job.
• Fitting a person to the right job is called
placement.
Avoiding Negligent Hiring Claims
• Carefully scrutinize information on employment
applications.
• Get written authorization for reference checks, and
check references.
• Save all records and information about the applicant.
• Reject applicants for false statements or conviction
records for offenses related to the job.
• Balance the applicant’s privacy rights with others’
“need to know.”
• Take immediate disciplinary action if problems arise.
Unit 5.2: Basis of Testing and Selection
• While testing and selecting the employee, one
must know that if the candidate has required:
– Knowledge
– Skill
– Ability
• If not, Is he able to learn so?
Basic Testing Concepts
Reliability
• Describes the consistency of scores obtained by
the same person when retested with the identical
or alternate forms of the same test.
• Are test results stable over time? (f.e: SAT)
Validity
• Indicates whether a test is measuring what it is
supposed to be measuring.
• Does the test actually measure what it is
intended to measure?
Types of Validity
Types of Validity
Criterion validity
• means demonstrating that those who do well on the test also do
well on the job, and that those who do poorly on the test do poorly
on the job.
• In psychological measurement, a predictor is the measurement (in
this case, the test score) that you are trying to relate to a criterion,
such as performance on the job.
Content Validity
• Employers demonstrate the content validity of a test by showing
that the test constitutes a fair sample of the job’s content.
• The basic procedure here is to identify job tasks that are critical to
performance, and then randomly select a sample of those tasks to
test.
Evidence-Based HR: How to Validate a
Test
FIGURE 6–2
Examples of Web Sites Offering Information on
Tests or Testing Programs
Test Takers’ Individual Rights and Test
Security
Under the American Psychological Association (APA)’s
standard for educational and psychological tests, test takers
have the following rights:
• The right to the confidentiality of test results.
• The right to informed consent regarding use of these
results.
• The right to expect that only people qualified to interpret
the scores will have access to them, or that sufficient
information will accompany the scores to ensure their
appropriate interpretation.
• The right to expect the test is fair to all. For example, no
one taking it should have prior access to the questions or
answers.
How Do Employers Use Tests at Work?
Major Types of Tests
• Basic skills tests (the ability to read instructions,
write reports, and do arithmetic adequate to
perform common workplace tasks)
• Job skills tests
• Psychological tests
• Why Use Testing?
• Increased work demands = more testing
• Screen out bad or dishonest employees
• Reduce turnover by personality profiling
Unit 5.3: Types of Tests
Cognitive abilities
• include tests of general reasoning ability (intelligence) and tests of
specific mental abilities like memory and inductive reasoning.
Motor and Physical abilities
• Tests of motor and physical abilities measure motor abilities, such
as finger dexterity, manual dexterity, and reaction time.
Personality and interests
• Personality tests measure basic aspects of an applicant’s
personality, such as introversion, stability, and motivation.
Current achievement
• Achievement tests measure what someone has learned.
• Most of the tests you take in school are achievement tests. They
measure your “job knowledge” in areas like economics, marketing,
or human resources.
Sample Test
Computerized and Online Testing
Online tests
• Telephone prescreening
• Offline computer tests
• Virtual “inbox” tests
• Online problem-solving tests
Types of Tests
• Specialized work sample tests
• Numerical ability tests
• Reading comprehension tests
• Clerical comparing and checking tests
Unit 5.4: Work Samples and
Simulations
Work Samples and Simulations
• Work Sample tests are based on the premise that
the best predictor of future behavior is observed
behavior under similar situations.
These tests require the examinee to perform
tasks that are similar to those that are performed
on the job
• Simulation tests are used to assess how you
would react to situations you can encounter
while working and how you would solve
problems.
Video- based situational testing
• Presents the candidate with several online or
PC- based videos scenarios, each followed by
multiple choice question.
Miniature job training and evaluation
• Means training candidates to perform several
of job’s tasks, and then evaluating the
candidates’ performance prior to hire.
Unit: 5.5: Background information
Limitations on Background
Investigations and Reference Checks
Making Background Checks More
Useful
1. Include on the application form a statement for
applicants to sign explicitly authorizing a background
check.
2. Use telephone references if possible.
3. Be persistent in obtaining information.
4. Compare the submitted résumé to the application.
5. Ask open-ended questions to elicit more information
from references. (How much structure does the
applicant need in his/her work?)
6. Use references provided by the candidate as a source
for other references.
The Polygraph and Honesty Testing
• Polygraph (or lie detector) is a device that measures
physiological changes like increased perspiration.
• The assumption is that such changes reflect changes in
emotional state that accompany lying.
 Paper and pencil honesty tests


Psychological tests designed to predict job applicants’
proneness to dishonesty and other forms of counter
productivity.
Most of these tests measure attitudes regarding things like
tolerance of others who steal, acceptance of rationalizations
for theft.
Honesty Testing Programs:
What Employers Can Do
• Antitheft Screening Procedure:
 Ask blunt questions.

Have you ever stolen anything from an employer?

Have you ever been fired or asked to leave a job?
 Listen, rather than talk.
 Do a credit check.
 Check all employment and personal references.
 Use paper-and-pencil honesty tests and psychological tests.
 Test for drugs.
 Establish a search-and-seizure policy and conduct searches.
Graphology
• Graphology refers to the use of handwriting
analysis to determine the writer’s basic
personality traits.
• Graphology has some resemblance to
projective personality tests, although
graphology’s validity is highly suspect.
Physical Examinations
• Reasons for preemployment medical examinations:
 To verify that the applicant meets the physical requirements of the
position.
 To discover any medical limitations to be taken into account in
placing the applicant.
 To establish a record and baseline of the applicant’s health for
future insurance or compensation claims.
 To reduce absenteeism and accidents.
 To detect communicable diseases that may be unknown to the
applicant.
Substance Abuse Screening
• Types of Screening
 Before formal hiring
 After a work accident
 Presence of obvious behavioral symptoms
 Random or periodic basis
 Transfer or promotion to new position
• Types of Tests
 Urinalysis
 Hair follicle testing