Chapter 3: Hiring Ethical People
1. The most important factor for developing and reinforcing a high-integrity work culture is:
a) hiring ethical job applicants
b) effective codes of conduct
c) swift justice policies
d) ensuring fair pay
e) none of the above
2. The first step in hiring ethical employees is:
a) determining their work history
b) ensuring they meet all qualifications
c) designing a job notification that attracts ethical job candidates
d) reviewing resumes
e) none of the above
3. Which of the following is not a component of the Six-Step Ethics Job Screen Process?
a) informing potential applicants about the organization’s ethics job screen
b) gather information that may include information on the applicant’s age or disability
c) obtain information on personality traits and other characteristics using assessment tools
d) interview finalists on their experiences with ethical dilemmas
e) none of the above
4. Which legislation protects job applicants from discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender or
national origin?
a) Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
b) The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
c) The Worker Protection Act of 1959
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
5. Three major exemptions to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act include:
a) small businesses (under 15 employees) are exempted so as not to overwhelm them with regulatory
compliance burdens
b) organizations that serve religious purposes
c) preference for certain occupational qualifications that are related to the essence or central mission of the
business
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
6. _______________ job discrimination occurs when members of protected classes are excluded from the job
candidate pool.
a) back end
b) mission-related
c) front end
d) subtle
e) none of the above
7. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recommends applying a ___________ rule to
determine whether an apparently nondiscriminatory selection process may result in disparate impacts.
a) two-thirds
b) four-fifths
c) half-and-half
d) civil rights
e) none of the above
8. Over time, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 has been supplemented with legislation prohibiting
discrimination based on which of the following characteristics?
a) age
b) pregnancy
c) disability
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
9. Experts estimate that _______________ of the 47 million Latinos living in the United States are
undocumented.
a) 90 percent
b) 75 percent
c) 50 percent
d) 25 percent
e) none of the above
10. The best predictor of future performance is/are __________________, encapsulated on tools such as
resumes.
a) behavioral test scores
b) reference checks
c) past performance
d) age
e) none of the above
11. Research indicates what percentage of all resumes contain dishonesty?
a) more than one in two
b) more than one in five
c) more than three-fourths
d) one quarter
e) none of the above
12. If an employer finds false information or inconsistencies on a resume or job application, he/she is
encouraged to:
a) notify the candidate and immediately discontinue consideration of him/her
b) notify the candidate and ask for an explanation, correct and forgive minor mistakes, and closely monitor the
new hire
c) determine that minor mistakes are understandable given the highly competitive job market, and disregard
them
d) notify legal authorities
e) none of the above
13. If, during a reference check, a former employer or supervisor will only verify dates of employment, an
employer is encouraged to ask the following question to learn more about the candidate:
a) “Would you hire this person again?”
b) “Is this candidate a qualified worker?”
c) “Did you give this candidate positive evaluations?”
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
14. Which of the following sources of information are fair and available to employers when making hiring
decisions, if job-related?
a) criminal records
b) motor vehicle reports
c) credit checks
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
15. Which of the following characteristics cannot be measured by personality tests?
a) tendencies toward conscientiousness
b) tendencies toward citizenship behavior
c) tendencies toward social dominance orientation
d) mental disabilities
e) none of the above
16. It is helpful to provide job finalists with ________________, an honest description of daily work activities
that highlights both exciting and tedious aspects of the job, to avoid “entry shock” for new employees.
a) lie detector tests
b) working interviews
c) realistic job previews
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
17. Workplace substance abuse is associated with which of the following?
a) discrimination
b) productivity and safety costs
c) civil rights violations
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
18. Credit checks are increasingly part of the job-screening process, in part because research indicates that key
indicators of employee involvement in fraud include:
a) criminal records
b) living beyond his/her means and difficulty meeting financial obligations
c) difficulty passing personality and behavioral tests
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
19. Integrity tests are useful tools, which can provide which of the following?
a) direct admission of performing an illegal or questionable activity
b) opinions regarding illegal or questionable behavior
c) personality traits related to dishonesty
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
20. Of the hundreds of possibility personality measures, ____________________ is the best predictor of ethics
and job performance.
a) obedience
b) conscientiousness
c) integrity
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
21.Conscientiousness is associated with which of the following character traits:
a) trustworthiness
b) integrity
c) ethical behavior
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
22. _____________________ refers to work-related helping behaviors that go beyond normal job
requirements, such as aiding others with job-related problems.
a) conscientiousness
b) civil rights behavior
c) organizational citizenship behavior
d) integrity
e) none of the above
23. Which of the following is not a factor of organizational citizenship behavior?
a) helping behavior
b) organizational loyalty
c) organizational compliance
d) legal behavior
e) civic virtue
24. Because ethics demands sincere, open-minded and respectful interactions with a wide variety of people,
________________ can be helpful in determining propensity toward ethical behavior in the workplace.
a) social dominance orientation surveys
b) integrity surveys
c) citizenship behavior surveys
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
25. The most frequently used instrument for diagnosing personality disorders, is called the:
a) Social Dominance Orientation survey (SDO)
b) Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
c) Organizational Citizenship Behavior survey (OCB)
d) polygraph or lie detector test
e) none of the above
26. Unlawful discrimination can occur in which of the following situations?
a) the front end, by excluding candidates from the hiring pool
b) the back end, by intentional or unintentional choices at the hiring stage
c) during employment, in retention and promotion processes
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
27. The “four-fifths rule” is intended to ensure:
a) avoidance of disparate impacts
b) civil rights violations
c) the percentage of ethical employees
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
28. Under which of the following scenarios might an organization implement an affirmative action plan?
a) if its gender ratio is exactly equal
b) if its racial bias is intentional
c) if its gender or racial profile does not reflect the gender or racial profile of people living in the same region,
qualified to perform the job task
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
29. Disparate impacts occur when members of a protected class rarely make it through all the job-screening
filters, suggesting that one of the decision rules could be unintentionally discriminatory.
30. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was created in 1965 to oversee provisions of
the Civil Rights Act.
31. Notifying potential job candidates about an organization’s ethics screen doesn’t seem to have an effect on
whether ethical people apply for the position, but can lead to better hiring decisions.
32. Ethical problems can often be characterized as occurring on a slippery slope, whereby relatively minor
issues can be compounded into major violations.
33. Employers must rely on instinct, not methodical tools, to determine whether a job candidate is ethical.
34. In order to ensure an ethical candidate is being hired, in some cases employers may need to ask questions
that violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
35. It is appropriate to ask job finalists about their responses to ethical dilemmas experienced at previous
workplaces, and how they would respond to dilemmas experienced by current employees.
36. Where appropriate, a final step in the ethics job screen process may include drug and polygraph tests.
37. People who behave unethically won’t be deterred by notifications that job screens for ethics are part of the
hiring process.
38. Though they are an invasion of privacy, ethics screens for job candidates are worth it.
39. Innovative companies like Ben & Jerry’s broadcast the organization’s progressive social mission
throughout its website in hopes of attracting like-minded people.
40. An organization’s gender, racial, and ethnic employee profile should reflect the profile of people living in
the geographical region qualified to perform the job task.
41. Some personality tests and background checks may result in disparate impacts, eliminating highly
qualified job applicants from further consideration because their non-job-related traits or previous life
experiences differ from those making the hiring decisions.
42. Attempts to avoid litigation based on discrimination by implementing protected class quota systems, rather
than more proactive attempts to increase diversity, often set protected class quota recipients up for failure,
reinforce negative stereotyping, and damage employee morale.
43. Employers may ask employees about being an alcoholic, because alcoholism is not characterized as a
disability.
44. To avoid discriminating based on national origin, employers are encouraged to ask all job applicants if
they are legally authorized to work in the United States on a full time basis, rather than asking only Latino job
applicants if they are illegal immigrants.
45. To avoid discrimination, job candidates are allowed to falsify responses to job-related questions on
application forms and submitted materials such as resumes.
46. Minor exaggeration on resumes is a necessary step in this hyper-competitive economy.
47. It is a violation of a job candidate’s civil rights to require reference checks.
48. In today’s litigious environment, some former employers will only verify dates of employment, which may
be a sign of negative employee appraisal, rather than provide detailed feedback on a job candidate’s
employment history.
49. Employment references are legally protected from a defamation lawsuit as long as the information being
conveyed is truthful.
50. Background checks are becoming less common in the hiring process, as more information about job
candidates is available online.
51. Integrity checks, also referred to as honesty tests, are notoriously unreliable measures of a job candidate’s
ethics.
52. For legal reasons, tests that measure general personality traits can be combined with those that diagnose
personality disorders or mental disabilities.
53. It is legal to ask job applicants whether they have been treated for any mental health conditions or certain
diseases.
54. A person with mental health disabilities is more likely to behave unethically, whether or not they are
receiving proper medical treatment.
55. Ethics questions about previous work experiences must be job-related to avoid protected class biases.
56. In some situations, final determination of whether to extend a job offer can depend on the results of drug or
polygraph tests.
57. Reference checks always protect the employer from hiring unethical employees.
58. Discuss the methods employers can use to help determine the ethics of job candidates.
59. Discuss the personality factors that are most relevant for understanding a job candidate’s ethics.
60. Identify and define three examples of legislation intended to protect job candidates from discrimination.