employee testing and selection-HRM

Editor's Notes

• #3: The purpose of Chapter 6 is to explain how to use various tools to select the best candidates for the job. The main topics covered include the selection process, basic testing techniques, background and reference checks, ethical and legal questions in testing, types of tests, and work samples and simulations.
• #5: Once you review your applicants’ résumés, the next step is selecting the best candidates for the job. This usually means whittling down the applicant pool by using the screening tools we cover in this chapter. Nothing is more important than hiring the right employees. It is important for three main reasons: performance, costs, and legal obligations.
• #6: Avoiding negligent hiring claims means taking “reasonable steps” to avoid hiring employees with criminal records or other problems who commit crimes or other acts for which the employer can be held liable.
• #9: A test is, basically, a sample of a person’s behavior. Using a test (or any selection tool) assumes the tool is both reliable and valid. Few things illustrate evidence-based HR—the deliberate use of the best-available evidence in making decisions about the human resource management practices you are focusing on—as do checking for reliability and validity.
• #13: In employment testing, there are two main ways to demonstrate a test’s validity: criterion validity and content 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. 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.
• #14: Anyone using tests (or test results) should know something about validation. The validation process consists of the five steps listed in the slide.
• #16: If there is a correlation between test and job performance, you can develop an expectancy chart that presents the relationship between test scores and job performance graphically. The expectancy chart in Figure 6-3 shows the percentage of high job performers in each of five test score groups.
• #19: Table 6-1 summarizes important testing guidelines, such as “use tests as supplements.”
• #20: Test takers have rights to privacy and feedback under the American Psychological Association’s (APA) standard for educational and psychological tests; these guide psychologists but are not legally enforceable.
• #21: Common law also provides some protection against disclosing information about employees to people outside the company. The main application here involves defamation (either libel or slander), but there are privacy issues, too.
• #23: In the Rorschach Test sample in Figure 6-1, the psychologist asks the person to explain how he or she interprets an ambiguous picture. In such projective tests, it is more difficult to prove that the tests are measuring what they are said to measure, in this case, some trait of the person’s personality—that they’re valid.
• #28: Figure 6-7 shows one of the steps required for installing pulleys and belts—“checks key before installing.” As the figure shows, possible approaches here include checking the key against (1) the shaft, (2) the pulley, or (3) neither. The right of the figure lists the weights (scores) reflecting the worth of each method. The applicant performs the task, and the observer checks off the approach used.
• #29: The short test in Figure 6-4 is intended to find out how prone you might be to on-the-job accidents.
• #30: The Test of Mechanical Comprehension in Figure 6-5 tests applicants’ understanding of basic mechanical principles.
• #31: Industrial psychologists often focus on the “big five” personality dimensions: extraversion, emotional stability/neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
• #36: Cognitive tests include tests of general reasoning ability (intelligence) and tests of specific mental abilities like memory and inductive reasoning. Tests of motor and physical abilities measure motor abilities, such as finger dexterity, manual dexterity, and reaction time. Personality tests measure basic aspects of an applicant’s personality, such as introversion, stability, and motivation. 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.
• #37: With work samples, examinees are presented with situations representative of the job for which they’re applying, and are evaluated on their responses. Experts consider these (and simulations, like the assessment centers we also discuss in this section) to be tests. However, they differ from most test forms, because they measure job performance directly.
• #45: Firms test applicants for basic skills (defined as the ability to read instructions, write reports, and do arithmetic adequate to perform common workplace tasks). Many others require employees to take job skills tests and require some form of psychological measurement. Employers don’t use tests just to find good employees, but also to screen out bad ones.
• #46: Computerized and/or online testing is increasingly replacing conventional paper-and-pencil and manual tests. Many firms have applicants take online or offline computerized tests—sometimes by phone, using the touch-tone keypad, sometimes online—to prescreen applicants quickly prior to more in-depth interviews and background checks.
• #47: Table 6-2 summarizes the validity, cost, and potential adverse impact of several popular assessment methods.
• #50: To avoid negligent hiring mistakes, employers must check the candidate’s background thoroughly.
• #51: Most employers check and verify the job applicant’s background information and references. Commonly verified data include legal eligibility for employment (in compliance with immigration laws), dates of prior employment, military service (including discharge status), education, identification (including date of birth and address to confirm identity), county criminal records (current residence, last residence), motor vehicle record, credit, licensing verification, Social Security number, and reference check.
• #52: In practice (as most people instinctively know), giving someone a bad reference can drag you into a legal mess. A communication is defamatory if it is false and tends to harm the reputation of another by lowering the person in the estimation of the community or by deterring other persons from associating or dealing with him or her. Employees can sue employers for disclosing true but embarrassing private facts about the employee. In practice, many firms have a policy of not providing any information about former employees except for their dates of employment, last salary, and position titles. To avoid potential invasion of privacy issues, employers should obtain the applicant’s written permission before checking into the applicant’s background information, even if that information is publicly available (e.g., published on social networking sites).
• #53: To obtain better information on an applicant’s background, employers can follow these guidelines.