CHAPTER 5 • NEGLIGENT REFERENCES
- If former employer does not
EMPLOYEE SELECTION
REFERENCES AND TESTING
PREDICTING PERFORMANCES USING
REFERENCES AND LETTER OF
RECOMMENDATION
• REFERENCES CHECK
- The process of confirming the
accuracy of information provided
by an applicant.
• REFERENCES
- The expression of an opinion,
either orally or through a written
checklist, regarding an applicant’s
ability, previous performance,
work habits, character, or
potential for future success.
• LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION
- A letter expressing an opinion
regarding an applicant’s ability,
previous performance, work
habits, character, or potential for
future success. The content and
format of a letter of
recommendation are determined
by the letter writer.
REASON FOR USING REFERENCES
AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CONFIRMING DETAILS ON A RESUME
• RESUME FRAUD
- The intentional placement of
untrue information on a résumé.
CHECKING FOR DISCPLINE PROBLEMS
• NEGLIGENT HIRING
- If an organization hires an
applicant without checking his
references and background and he
later commits a crime while in the
employ of the organization, the
organization may be found liable
for negligent hiring if the
employee has a criminal
background that would have been
detected had a background check
been conducted.
• EXTRANEOUS FACTORS
- Even though most letters of
provide relevant information to an
organization that requests it.
DISCOVERING NEW INFORMATION
ABOUT THE APPLICANT
PREDICTING FUTURE PERFORMANCE
• VALIDITY COEFFIECIENT
- The correlation between scores on
a selection method (e.g.,
interview, cognitive ability test)
and a measure of job performance
(e.g., supervisor rating,
absenteeism)
• CORRECTED VALIDITY
- A term usually found with meta-
analysis, referring to a correlation
coefficient that has been
corrected for predictor and
criterion reliability and for range
restriction. Corrected validity is
sometimes called “true validity.”
PREDICTING FUTURE PERFORMANCE
:Low validity is largely due to four
main problems with references and
letters of recommendation:
• LENIENCY
- most letters of recommendation
are positive: less than 1% of
references rate applicants as
below average or poor
• KNOWLEDGE OF THE APPLICANT
- The person writing the letter often
does not know the applicant well,
has not observed all aspects of an
applicant’s behavior, or both.
• LOW RELIABILITY
- Letters of recommendation
involves the lack of agreement
between two people who provide
references for the same person.
recommendation are positive,
letters written by references who
like applicants are longer than
those written by references who
do not.
ETHICAL ISSUES
• 3 ETHICAL GUIDELINES THAT
REFERENCE PROVIDERS SHOULD
FOLLOW:
- explicitly state your relationship
with the person you are
recommending
- be honest in providing details
- let the applicant see your
reference before sending it, and
give him the chance to decline to
use it.
JOB KNOWLEDGE TEST
- designed to measure how much a
person knows about a job.
- primarily in the public sector,
especially for promotions
- Used primarily in the public sector,
especially for promotions job
knowledge tests are designed to
measure how much a person
knows about a job.
- A meta-analysis by Dye, Reck, and
McDaniel (1993) indicates that job
knowledge tests are good
predictors of both training
performance and on the-job
performance.
- Ability tests tap the extent to
which an applicant can learn or
perform a job-related skill.
- Ability tests are used primarily for
occupations in which applicants
are not expected to know how to
perform the job at the time of hire.
Instead, new employees will be
taught the necessary job skills and
knowledge.
 COGNITIVE ABILITY
- Includes such dimensions as oral
and written comprehension, oral
and written expression, numerical
facility, originality, memorization,
reasoning, and general learning.
- commonly used because they are
excellent predictors of employee
performance in the United States.
- Cognitive ability is thought to
predict work performance in two
ways: by allowing employees to
quickly learn job-related
knowledge and by processing
information resulting in better
decision making.
WONDERLIC PERSONNEL TEST
- The cognitive ability test that is
most commonly used in industry.
- The short amount of time (12
minutes) necessary to take the
test, as well as the fact that it can
be administered in a group setting,
makes it popular.
SIENA REASONING TEST (SRT)
- A potential breakthrough in
cognitive ability tests is the Siena
Reasoning Test (SRT). The
developers of this test theorized
that the large race differences in
scores on traditional cognitive
ability tests were due to the
knowledge needed to understand
the questions rather than the
actual ability to learn or process
information (intelligence).
- A type of test related to cognitive
ability is the situational judgment
test. In this test, applicants are
given a series of situations and
asked how they would handle
each one.
PERCEPTUAL ABILITY
- Consists of vision (near, far, night,
peripheral), color discrimination,
depth perception, glare sensitivity,
speech (clarity, recognition), and
hearing (sensitivity, auditory
attention, sound localization)
PSYCHOMOTOR ABILITY
- Includes finger dexterity, manual
dexterity, control precision, multi
limb coordination, response
control, reaction time, arm-hand
steadiness, wrist-finger speed, and
speed-of-limb movement
PHYSICAL ABILITY TEST
- Are often used for jobs that
require physical strength and
stamina, such as police officer,
firefighter, and lifeguard.
- Physical ability is measured in one
of two ways: job simulations and
physical agility tests.
- Job analyses consistently indicate
that the physical requirements of
police officers can be divided into
two categories: athletic and
defensive.
:Research has shown that there are
nine basic physical abilities:
• dynamic strength
• trunk strength
• explosive strength
• static strength
• dynamic flexibility
• extent flexibility
• gross body equilibrium
• gross body coordination
JOB RELATEDNESS
- The extent to which a particular
job or task is relevant to or related
to an organization's overall goals
and objectives.
PASSING SCORE
- A second problem with physical
ability tests is determining passing
scores
- Passing scores for physical ability
tests are set based on one of two
types of standards: relative or
absolute.
WHEN THE ABILITY MUST PRESENT
- A problem with physical ability
requirements is the point at which
the ability must be present. Most
police departments require
applicants to pass physical ability
tests on the same day other tests
are being completed.
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING
APPLICANT SKILL
• WORK SAMPLES
With a work sample, the applicant
performs actual job-related tasks.
- Work samples are excellent
selection tools for several reasons
because they are directly related
to job tasks, they have excellent
content validity
- scores from work samples tend to
predict actual work performance
and thus have excellent criterion
validity.
• ASSESSMENT CENTERS
- An assessment center is a
selection technique characterized
by the use of multiple assessment
methods that allow multiple
assessors to actually observe
applicants perform simulated job
tasks. Its major advantages are
that assessment methods are all
job-related and multiple trained
assessors help to guard against
many (but not all) types of
selection bias.
According to the International Task
Force on Assessment Center
Guidelines (2009), for a selection
technique to be considered an
assessment center, it must meet the
following requirements:
- The overall judgment of an
applicant must be based on a
combination of information from
the multiple assessors and
multiple techniques.
- The assessment center activities
must be based on the results of a
thorough job analysis.
- Multiple assessment techniques
must be used and the assessments
must provide information about
the applicant that was determined
as being important in the job
analysis.
- Behaviors displayed
participants must be classified into
meaningful and relevant
categories such as behavioral
dimensions, attributes,
characteristics, aptitudes,
qualities, skills, abilities,
competencies, or knowledge.
- At least one of the assessment
techniques must be a job
simulation. Multiple trained
assessors must be used.
- Behavioral observations must be
documented at the time the
applicant behavior is observed.
Assessors must prepare a report of
their observations.
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING
PRIOR EXPERIENCE
- Applicant experience is typically
measured in one of four ways:
experience ratings of
application/résumé information,
biodata, reference checks, and
interviews.
• EXPERIENCE RATINGS
- The basis for experience ratings is
the idea that past experience will
predict future experience. Support
for this notion comes
• BIODATA
- A selection method that considers
an applicant’s life, school, military,
community, and work experience.
Meta-analyses have shown that
biodata is a good predictor of job
performance, as well as the best
predictor of future employee
tenure.
- A biodata instrument is an
application blank or questionnaire
containing questions that research
has shown measure the difference
between successful and
unsuccessful performers on a job.
- Biodata instruments are easy to
use, quickly administered,
inexpensive, and not as subject to
individual bias as interviews,
references, and résumé
by
evaluation.
▪ CRITICISM OF BIODATA
- Even though biodata does a good
job of predicting future employee
behavior, it has been criticized on
two major points. The first holds
that the validity of biodata may
not be stable—that is, its ability to
predict employee behavior
decreases with time.
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING
PERSONALITY, INTEREST, AND
CHARACTER
• PERSONALITY INVENTORIES
- They predict performance better
than was once thought, and in part
because they result in less adverse
impact than do ability tests.
- Personality inventories fall into
one of two categories based on
their intended purpose:
measurement of types of normal
personality or measurement of
psychopathology (abnormal
personality)
• TEST OF NORMAL PERSONALITY
- Tests of normal personality
measure the traits exhibited by
normal individuals in everyday life.
Examples such as extraversion,
shyness, assertiveness, and
friendliness. Determination of the
number and type of personality
dimensions measured by an
inventory can usually be (1) based
on a theory, (2) statistically based,
or (3) empirically based.
• TEST OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
- Determine whether individuals
have serious psychological
problems such as depression,
bipolar disorder, and
schizophrenia. Used extensively by
clinical psychologists, these tests
are seldom used by I/O
psychologists except in the
selection of law enforcement
officers. Tests of psychopathology
are generally scored in one of two
ways: objectively or projectively
• PROJECTIVE TEST
- Provide the respondent with
unstructured tasks such as
describing ink blots and drawing
pictures. Because projective tests
are of questionable reliability and
validity and are time-consuming
and expensive, they are rarely
used in employee selection.
Common tests in this category also
include the Rorschach Ink Blot Test
and the Thematic Apperception
Test (TAT).
• OBJECTIVE TEST
- Are structured so that the
respondent is limited to a few
answers that will be scored by
standardized keys. By far the most
popular and heavily studied test of
this type is the MMPI-2, Other
tests in this category are the
Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory
(MCMI-III) and the Personality
Assessment Inventory (PAI).
• INTEREST INVENTORIES
- Interest inventories, such as the
Strong Interest Inventory (SII), are
used to gauge an individual's
vocational interests. These tests,
which measure similarity to those
in 89 occupations, are based on 23
basic interest scales and 6 general
occupational themes. Other
popular interest inventories
include the Minnesota Vocational
Interest Inventory, Occupational
Preference Inventory, Kuder
Occupational Interest Survey,
Kuder Preference Record, and
California Occupational
Preference System.
• INTEGRITY TEST
- The Employee Polygraph
Protection Act allows the use of
paper-and-pencil integrity tests,
either overt or personality-based.
Overt tests predict honesty by
measuring attitudes about theft
and previous behavior.
Personality-based tests consider
personality traits related to
counterproductive behaviors like
theft. Electronic integrity tests, like
polygraphs and voice stress
analyzers, are illegal except in
specific situations involving law
enforcement and national
security.
• CONDITIONAL REASONING TEST
- Self-report measures like
personality inventories and
integrity tests can be inaccurate
due to applicants faking responses
or not being aware of their own
personality or values. Conditional
reasoning tests, developed by aim
to reduce inaccurate responses
and provide a more accurate
picture of aggressive behavior.
• GRAPHOLOGY • REJECTING APPLICANTS
- An interesting method to select - Once a decision has been made
employees is handwriting analysis, regarding which applicants will be
or graphology. The idea behind hired, those who will not be hired
handwriting analysis is that the must be notified. Rejected
way people write reveals their applicants should be treated well
personality, which in turn should because they are potential
indicate work performance. To customers and potential
analyze a person’s handwriting, a applicants for other positions that
graphologist looks at the size, might become available in the
slant, width, regularity, and organization.
pressure of a writing sample. From
these writing characteristics, • FOCUS ON ETHICS
information about temperament - Ethical recruitment goes beyond
and mental, social, work, and legal compliance and aims to
moral traits is obtained. create a level playing field for all
candidates, regardless of their
PREDICTING PERFROMANCE
background, gender, race, religion,
LIMITATIONS DUE TO MEDICAL AND
or sexual orientation. It is the
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
responsibility of every company to
• DRUG TESTING ensure that their recruitment
- The process of detecting illegal practices are ethical, unbiased,
drugs or alcohol within and inclusive.
employees’ systems. Testing can
be conducted in accordance with
the employer’s policy and any
governing state laws on a post-
accident, random, or pre-
employment basis, in addition to
suspicion or cause.
• MEDICAL EXAM
- The procedure of undergoing tests
in a hospital or any other medical
facility to learn about one's
physical condition
• PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAM
The process whereby different
methods and techniques are used
to test hypotheses about people
and their psychological
characteristics
 CHAPTER 5 QUIZ
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY BELIEF IIN
PSYCHOLOGY REGARDING
PREDICTING FUTURE PERFORMANCE
ON PAST PERFORMANCE?
C) THE BEST PREDICTOR OF FUTURE
PERFORAMANCE IS PAST
PERFORMANCE
HOW CAN AN EMPLOYER TYPICALLY
VERIFY THE QUALITY OF AN
APPLICANT’S PAST PERFROMANCE?
D) RELYING ON REFERENCES OR
LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN A REFERENCE CHECK AND A
REFERENCE?
C) A REFERENCE CHECK CONFIRMS
INNFORMATION ACCURACY, WHILE A
REFERENCE IS AN OPINION ABOUT AN
APPLICANT
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF CHECKING
AN APPLICANT’S REFERENCES OR
OBTAINING LETTERS OF
RECOMMENDATION TO CONFIRM
DETAILS ON A RESUME?
B) TO VERIFY THE ACCURACY OF THE
INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE
APPLICANT
WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL
CONSEQUENCES FOR AN
ORGANIZATION THAT FAILS TO
CONDUCT ADEQUATE BACKGROUND
CHECKS AND A HIRED EMPLOYEE
COMMITS A CRIME?
A) THE ORGANIZATION MAY BE FOUND
LIABLE FOR NEGLIGENT HIRING
IN NEGLIGENT-HIRING CASES, WHAT
DUTY DO COURTS TYPICALLY ASSERT
EMPLOYERS HAVE?
B) THE DUTY TO PROTECT EMPLOYEES
AND CUSTOMERS FROM HARM
CAUSED BY EMPLOYEES
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR CERTAIN IN WHAT SCENARIO CAN A FORMER
ORGANIZATIONS, LIKE POLICE EMPLOYER BE GUILTY OF NEGLIGENT
DEPARTMENTS ANS DAY-CARE REFRENCE?
CENTERS, TO CONDUCT MORE
C) IF RELEVANT NEGATIVE
THOROUGH BACKGORUND AND
INFORMATION IS NOT PROVIDED
REFERENCE CHECKS?
UPON REQUEST
D) TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THE
WHAT MAJOR ISSUE ARISES
PUBLIC AND CLIENTS
CONCERNING THE KNOWLEDGE OF
WHAT CAUTION SHOULD EMPLOYERS THE PERSON WRITING A LETTER OF
EXERCISE WHEN USING REFERENCE RECOMMENDATION?
OR LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
B) LACK OF INFORMATION ABOUT THE
FOR EVALUATING JOB APPLICANTS?
APPLICANT’S BEHAVIOR
C) ENSURE CONSENSUS FROM
WHAT IS A SIGNIFICANT PROBLEM
MULTIPLE REFERENCES FOR A MORE
CORCERNING THE RELIABILITY OF
ACCURATE ASSESSMENT
REFERENCES AND LETTERS OF
WHY MIGHT A REFERENCE’S OPINION RECOMMENDATION?
ABOUT AN APPLICANT’S CHARACTER
B) LOW AGREEMENT BETWEEN TWO
BE BIASED OR INACCURATE?
DIFFERENT REFERENCE PROVIDERS
C) BECAUSE SOME REFERENCE MIGHT
WHAT EXTRANEOUS FACTOR
HAVE HAD PERSONAL CONFLICTS
SIGNIFICANTLY INFLUENCES THE
WITH AN APPLICANT
PERCEPTION OF LETTERS OF
WHAT SHOULD REFERENCE CHECKERS RECOMMENDATION?
STRIVE TO OBTAIN WHEN ASSESSING
A) THE LENGTH OF THE LETTER
AN APPLICANT THROUGH
REFERENCES? WHAT DID A META-ANALYSIS BY
HUNTER AND HUNTER FIND
C) LOOK FOR CONSENSUS FORM
REGARDING THE VALIDITY OF
MULTIPLE REFENRENCES AND
EDUCATION AS A PREDICTOR OF JOB
SPECIFIC BEHAVIORAL EXAMPLES
PERFORMANCE?
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF
C) EDUCATION LACKS INCREMENTAL
ABILITY TESTS IN THE HIRING
VALIDITY OVER COGNITIVE ABILITY
PROCESS FOR CERTAIN OCCUPATION?
TESTS
D) TO MEASURE THE POTENTIAL TO
WHAT COMPLICATES THE USE OF
LEARN JOB-RELATED SKILLS
EDUCATION AND GPA IN EMPLOYEE
WHAT IS THE AVERAGE SELECTION?
UNCORRECTED VALIDITY
C) HIGH LEVELS OF ADVERSE IMPACT
COEFFICIENT FOR REFERENCE
AND THE RISE IN HOMESCHOOLING
/LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION
AND PERFORMANCE, AS FOUND IN A WHAT DO JOB KNOWLEDGE TESTS
META-ANALYSIS? PRIMARILY MEASURE?
C) 40% C) EXPERTISE AND KNOWLEDGE
ABOUT A SPECIFIC JOB
WHAT IS THE PRIMARY CONCERN
REGARDING THE LENIENCY OF
LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION?
C) MOST LETTERS TEND TO BE
POSITIVE