Human Resources

HRM 2012
Week 4
“Selection”

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

Copyright © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
 Selection
⚫ Through the process of selection,
organizations make decisions about who will
be chosen to fill job openings
⚫ Begins with the candidates identified through
recruitment
⚫ Should support job descriptions and
specifications

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

Data-Driven Hiring
 Companies of all
sizes are analyzing
data and using
algorithms to inform
or even make hiring
decisions
 Xerox uses software
to make all hiring
decisions for its call
centre jobs
 “Hiring by algorithm”

Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education

Steps in the Selection Process

Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education

What are the Legal
Standards?
 Selection needs to be conducted in a
way that meets human rights and privacy
requirements
 Interviews
 Assesscandidates without drawing out
information that is not relevant to the job
 Do not gather information about prohibited
grounds e.g. interview notes
 Candidates
must provide consent before
background or reference check
Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education
Screening Applications &
Résumés
An inexpensive way to gather basic data from
Applications many applicants
• Contact Information
• Work experience
• Educational background
• Applicant’s signature

Usual way that applicants introduce

Résumés
themselves to a potential employer

• Information is biased in favour of the applicant

• Highlights accomplishments .
• Use of applicant Steen/Noe
tracking system
et al., (ATS)Education
© 2016 McGraw-Hill
 Hospitality Resume

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson <8>

 Screening

➢ Resume Screening – determines who should be

contacted to discuss the position further

➢ How Recruiters Read your Resume in 7 Seconds

➢ Telephone Screening – candidates are contacted and

some initial evaluation is done – usually professionalism,
cultural fit, location and availability, and ultimately interest
in position

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 A Note on Embellished Resumes

Applicants often exaggerate or overstate qualifications

on their resumes.

Discussion
What are the potential implications of exaggerating or
embellishing qualifications on a resume?

Video

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 Employment tests:
(2 broad categories)
⚫ Aptitude tests (your learning potential)
⚫ Tests that assess how well a person can learn or
acquire skills and abilities
⚫ Cognitive Ability
▪ Numerical/Verbal reasoning
⚫ Situational
⚫ Free Hilton Aptitude Test
⚫ Job Knowledge (achievement) tests (what you know)

⚫ Measures a candidate's technical or theoretical

expertise in a particular field (e.g. accounting)

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 Employment tests

• Evaluates one or more physical or

Physical ability psychomotor abilities
• Vulnerable to human rights complaints

• Sometimes called “intelligence tests”

Cognitive • Measure mental abilities including
ability verbal, quantitative, and/or reasoning

Emotional • Measures “thinking”

Intelligence • Individual’s ability to regulate emotions
in themselves and others
.

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 Employment tests (cont’d)

• Finds applicants who have desired

Personality personality traits e.g. Myers Briggs
inventories • Concerns about “faking”

Honesty, • Attitudes toward honesty and integrity

alcohol & drug • Alcohol and drug testing should
tests conform to Human Rights policy

• Must be related to job requirements

Medical
• Establishes physical condition at hiring
examinations • Conducted after conditional job offer
.

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 Interviews
 Nondirective (unstructured) interview
 The interviewer has great discretion in choosing questions
to ask each candidate
 Less formal, conversational style of interview
 Difficult for interviewer to control content
 Gather inconsistent information between candidates

 Structured interview
 Consists of a predetermined set of questions for the
interviewer to ask
 Situational interview—a structured interview in which the
interviewer describes a situation likely to arise on the job,
then asks the candidate what he or she would do in that
situation
Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education
Interviews (cont’d)
 Structured interview (cont’d)
 Behavioural interview—a structured
interview in which the interviewer asks the
candidate to describe how he or she
handled a type of situation in the past
 Panel interview
 Selection interview in which several
members of the organization meet to
interview each candidate
 Reduces the effect of personal biases
Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education
 Types of Interview Questions
1. Situational:
▪ Asks about a hypothetical situation
▪ “What would you do if…..”

2. Behavioural:
▪ Used to show how someone ‘behaved’ in a past situation
▪ Based on the belief that past behavior is the best predictor of future
behaviour
▪ Would this person act the way we want them to?
▪ “Tell me about a time when….” “Give me an example of…”
➢ Answer must be SPECIFIC (not “that it happened many times”)
➢ Answer must follow this pattern: S A R
SITUATION – describe the situation or the problem
ACTION – what did you do?
RESULT – what was the outcome?
Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson
 Inappropriate Questions

Employers should avoid questions that ask a candidate

to reveal anything about themselves that could lead to
discrimination:

- Where were you born? (race)

- What year did you graduate? (age)
- Do you have kids? (family status)

Employers can ask about eligibility for bonding or

relocation.

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 Advantages and
disadvantages of interviewing
Advantages Disadvantages

Can provide evidence Can be unreliable

of communication and
interpersonal skills Can be low in validity

Can gain insight into Costly

candidate’s personality
and interpersonal Subjective
style
Risk of discrimination
complaints
.

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 This is the Worst Job Interview

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

 Virtual Speed Interviewing
⚫ 4 students/group
⚫ 1 interviewer
⚫ 1 interviewee
⚫ 2 observers
⚫ Research a list of behavioural, situational and unstructured interview
questions
⚫ Interviewer should ask 3
⚫ 1 unstructured
⚫ 1 behavioural
⚫ 1 situational
⚫ Observers to provide feedback
⚫ 1 positive comment
⚫ 1 constructive comment
⚫ Rotate roles to give everyone a chance to be interviewed
⚫ 20 minutes
Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson
References & Background Checks
Applicants provide names and contact
References information of former employers or others

• Legal issues may arise e.g. negligent hiring,

defamation, or misrepresentation

Background Way to verify that applicants are as they

checks represent themselves to be

• Growing use of background checks e.g. criminal

record checks, education and employment .
verifications, credit inquiries,
Steen/Noe driving
et al., © 2016 records,
McGraw-Hill Education etc.
Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson
Selection Decisions
 Multiple-hurdle model
 Process of arriving at a selection decision
by eliminating some candidates at each
stage
 Compensatory model
 Process of arriving at a selection decision
in which a very high score on one type of
assessment can make up for a low score
on another

Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education

2
4

MAKING THE SELECTION DECISION

⚫ Summarize applicant information

⚫ “Can-do” factors

⚫ “Will-do” factors

⚫ Final decision

Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson

Who Makes the Selection
Decision?
 Immediate supervisor or manager
 Human resource professional
 Work team or other panel
 Hiring algorithm
 Mathematical model that predicts which
job candidates are most likely to be high-
performers after being hired

Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education

Communicating the Decision
 HR department is often responsible for
notifying applicants about the results
 Job offer should include:
 Job responsibilities, rate of pay, work
schedule, starting date, date to accept, etc.
 Negotiations may occur
 Close communication needed between
HR and immediate supervisor about the
job offer and to prepare for the new
employee’s arrival
Steen/Noe et al., © 2016 McGraw-Hill Education
 Should you Google yourself?
Employers are increasingly
turning to social media sites
like Facebook to conduct
background checks on
prospective employees. This
growing trend prompted the
Office of the Information and
Privacy Commissioner to
publish “Guidelines for
Social Media Reference
Checks”
Steen/Noe et al., © 2013 McGraw-Hill Ryerson