Selecting Employees to Fit the
Job and the Organization
03/04/2013
Today’s sub-topics
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1. The Strategic Importance of Selection
2. Designing the Selection Process
3. Techniques for Assessing Job Applicants
4. The Perspective of Job Applicants
5. Legal Considerations in Selection
6. Current Issues
7. Videos
1. The Strategic Importance of
Selection
Definition: Selection is the process of obtaining
and using information about job applicants to
determine who should be hired for both shortterm and long-term positions
• Obtaining a Capable Workforce
- High productivity
- Motivate to stay for as long as possible
- Behaviours that result in customer satisfaction
- Implement the company’s strategy
2. Designing the Selection Process
• What are the criteria of interest?
- Criteria: the outcomes that selection decisions are
intended to predict
• What predictors and assessment techniques will be
used?
- Predictors: the various pieces of information used to
make selection decisions, e.g. skill, ability, knowledge,
personality, behaviour
- Assessment: e.g. application forms, resumes,
references, written tests, interviews
Designing the Selection Process
• What sequence will be used to measure the
predictors?
- Information used early in the process is
weighted the most heavily; applicants who fail
to do well early in the process fail by default
on all the later steps
• How will the information collected be
combined to make the selection decision?
- multiple hurdles, compensatory, combined
Designing the Selection Process
Multiple hurdles: an applicant must exceed fixed
levels of proficiency on all the predictors to be
accepted
Compensatory: a high score on one predictor can
compensate for a low score on another predictor
Combined: the employer screens out everyone
who doesn’t meet one or more specific
requirements and then uses a compensatory
approach in comparing the applicants who have
passed the required hurdle
3. Techniques for Assessing Job
Applicants
• Written Tests
- Ability: measures the potential of an individual
to perform, given the opportunity
Psychomotor (perceptual speed and accuracy)
Physical (manual dexterity, physical strength)
Cognitive (verbal, quantitative)
e.g. bank tellers need motor skills to operate a
computer and finger dexterity to manipulate
currency … fire-fighters need mostly physical
strength
Techniques for Assessing Job
Applicants
Knowledge: what the person knows at the
time of taking the test; not what the
applicants are likely to learn (quickly) in the
future
e.g. selection practices for hiring and
promoting law enforcement officers usually
include a test for knowledge about laws and
the appropriate means for enforcing them
Techniques for Assessing Job
Applicants
Personality: assesses the unique blend of
characteristics that define an individual and
determine his / her pattern of interactions with
the environment
e.g. the Big Five
Extraversion (sociable, talkative)
Agreeableness (cooperative, trusting)
Conscientiousness (responsible, dependable)
Emotional stability (secure, calm)
Openness to experience (imaginative, intellect)
Techniques for Assessing Job
Applicants
• Interviews
- Structured: all the applicants are asked the same
questions in the same order
- Unstructured: the interviewer prepares a list of topics
to be covered and, depending on how the conversation
unfolds, asks questions about some or all of them
- Behavioural: uses either a structured or semistructured approach to ask questions that focuses on
behaviour
e.g. ask candidate to describe specific instances of past
behaviour that reflect a competency for which the
employer is looking
4. The Perspective of Job Applicants
• Content of the measures used to select people
PSE & G, a public utility company, wants to be
sure that its (potential) employees know the type
of content they should expect when they apply
for a job in the company.
The company has prepared a detailed manual
that describes the various types of test used
which relate to specific jobs and provides sample
items that might appear on tests used to select
people for those jobs
The Perspective of Job Applicants
• The administration of the process
Did the company tell the applicants what it was
evaluating and why?
Did it provide feedback about how they scored?
Did the company representatives behave
professionally and appear to take the task
seriously?
Did it treat all the applicants equally?
• The results of the process
5. Legal Considerations in Selection
• Laws and Regulations that Prohibit Discrimination
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Executive Order
(II246)
Prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, colour,
religion, sex, national origin
- The Age Discrimination in Employment
Prohibits age discrimination
- Rehabilitation Act / Americans with Disabilities Act
Prohibit discrimination against persons with disabilities
Legal Considerations in Selection
• Detecting Unfair Discrimination
- Disparate Treatment: a legal term used to describe
illegal discrimination against an individual
The individual belongs to a protected group
The individual applied for a job for which the
employer was seeking applicants
Despite being qualified, the individual was rejected
After the individual’s rejection, the employer kept
looking for people with individual’s qualifications
6. Current Issues
• Expatriates
They need to manage many times of
relationships, including their …
Co-workers
Families
Host government
Home government
Local customers and business partners
The company’s headquarters
Videos
• How To Hire the Right Customer Service
Person For Your Small Business - From
ClearFit.mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ToP37pi5
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• How To Pass Customer Service Interviews
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSxDwCM
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