Chapter 6

Selection and Placement

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 Learning Objectives
LO 6-1 Establish the basic scientific properties of personnel
selection methods, including reliability, validity and
generalizability.
LO 6-2 Discuss how the particular characteristics of a job,
organization, or applicant affect the utility of any test.
LO 6-3 Describe the government’s role in personnel selection
decisions, particularly in areas of constitutional law,
federal laws, executive orders, and judicial precedent.
LO 6-4 List common methods used in selecting human resources.
LO 6-5 Describe the degree to which each of the common
methods used in selecting human resources meets the
demands of reliability, validity, generalizability, utility and
legality.

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 Introduction
• Organizations must take the utmost care with how it
chooses employees.
• These decisions impact the organization’s
competiveness, and every aspect of the job
applicant’s life.
• Organizations make sure the decisions they make
with respect to who gets accepted or rejected for
jobs promote the best interests of the company and
are fair to all parties involved.

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 Selection Method Standards 1 of 11

Reliability
Validity
Generalizability
Utility
Legality

LO 6-1

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 Selection Method Standards 2 of 11
Reliability
Estimating the reliability of measurement
• Reliability refers to the measuring instrument rather than
to the characteristic itself
• Correlation coefficient is a measure of the degree to
which two sets of numbers are related.
• A perfect positive relationship equals +1.0
• A perfect negative relationship equals - 1.0
• Test-retest reliability

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 Selection Method Standards 3 of 11
Reliability continued
Standards for Reliability
• The required reliability depends in part on the nature of
the decision being made about the people being
measured.

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 Selection Method Standards 4 of 11
Validity
• Criterion-Related Validation
• Method of establishing validity of a personnel selection
method by showing a substantial correlation between
test scores and job-performance scores
• Validity coefficient
• Predictive validation
• Concurrent validation

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 Figure 6.3 Graphic Depiction of Concurrent and
Predictive Validation Designs 1 of 2

Jump to long description in appendix

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 Figure 6.3
Graphic Depiction
of Concurrent and
Predictive
Validation
Designs 2 of 2

Jump to long description in appendix

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 Table 6.1 Required Level of Correlation to Reach
Statistical Significance as a Function of Sample Size

Sample Size Required Correlation

5 .75
10 .58
20 .42
40 .30
80 .21
100 .19

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 Selection Method Standards 5 of 11
Content Validation
• A test-validation strategy performed by
demonstrating that the items, questions, or
problems posed by a test are a representative
sample of the kinds of situations or problems that
occur on the job
• Best for small-sample settings

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 Selection Method Standards 6 of 11
Generalizability
• The degree to which the validity of a selection
method established in one context extends to
other contexts.
• Different situations
• Different samples of people

• Validity generalization

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 Selection Method Standards 7 of 11
Utility
• The degree to which information provided by
selection methods enhances the effectiveness of
selecting personnel
• Utility is impacted by
• Reliability
• Validity
• Generalizability

LO 6-2

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 Selection Method Standards 8 of 11
Legality
• All selection methods should adhere to existing
laws and legal precedents.
• Federal legislation
• Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1991
• Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1991

LO 6-3

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 Selection Method Standards 9 of 11
Legality continued
Civil Rights Act of 1991
• Protects individuals from discrimination based
on race, color, sex, religion and national origin.
• Differs from the 1964 act in three areas
1. Establishes employers' explicit obligation to
establish neutral-appearing selection method.
2. Allows a jury to decide punitive damages.
3. Explicitly prohibits granting preferential treatment to
minority groups

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 Selection Method Standards 10 of 11
Legality continued
Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
• Outlaws “mandatory retirement programs”
• Covers over age 40 individuals
• No protection for younger workers

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 Selection Method Standards 11 of 11
Legality continued
Americans with Disabilities Act
• Protects individuals with physical or mental disabilities (or
with a history of the same).
• Reasonable accommodations are required by the
organization to allow the disabled to perform essential
functions of the job.
• An employer need not make accommodations that
cause undue hardship.
• Restrictions on pre-employment inquiries

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 Types of Selection Methods 1 of 12

Interviews
References, Application Blanks, Background
Checks
Physical Ability Tests
Cognitive Ability Tests
Personality Inventories
Work Samples
Honest Tests and Drug Tests
LO 6-4

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 Types of Selection Methods 2 of 12
Interviews
Selection Interviews
• Should be structured, standardized, and focused on
goals oriented to skills and observable behaviors.
• Interviewers should be able to quantitatively rate each
interview.
• Interviewers should have a structured note-taking
system that will aid recall to satisfying ratings.

LO 6-5

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 Types of Selection Methods 3 of 12
Interviews continued
Situational Interviews
• Confronts applicants on specific issues, questions, or
problems likely to arise on the job
• Experience-based questions
• Future-oriented questions

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 Table 6.2 Examples of Experienced-Based and
Future-Oriented Situational Interview Items 1 of 2
Experience-based
Motivating employees “Think about an instance when you had to
motivate an employee to perform a task that
he or she disliked but that you needed to
have done. How did you handle that
situation?”
Resolving conflict “What was the biggest difference of opinion
you ever had with a co-worker? How did you
resolve that situation?”
Overcoming resistance to “What was the hardest change you ever had
change to bring about in a past job, and what did you
do to get the people around you to change
their thoughts or behaviors?”

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 Table 6.2 Examples of Experienced-Based and
Future-Oriented Situational Interview Items 2 of 2
Future-Oriented
Motivating employees “Suppose you were working with an employee
who you knew greatly disliked performing a
particular task. You needed to get this task
completed, however, and this person was the
only one available to do it. What would you do
to motivate that person?”
Resolving conflict “Imagine that you and a co-worker disagree
about the best way to handle an absenteeism
problem with another member of your team.
How would you resolve that situation?”
Overcoming resistance to “Suppose you had an idea for a change in
change work procedures that would enhance quality,
but some members of your work group were
hesitant to make the change. What would you
do in that situation?”

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 Types of Selection Methods 4 of 12
References, Application Blanks, and Background
Checks
• Reference checks are weak predictors of future job
success
• Background information from applicants is low-cost
and useful
• Educational information not always valid
• Resume fraud

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 Types of Selection Methods 5 of 12
Physical Ability Tests
1. muscular tension
2. muscular power
3. muscular endurance
4. cardiovascular endurance
5. flexibility
6. balance
7. coordination

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 Types of Selection Methods 6 of 12
Cognitive Ability Tests
• Verbal comprehension
• Quantitative ability
• Reasoning ability
• Have adverse impact on some minority groups
• Race norming

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 Types of Selection Methods 7 of 12
Personality Inventories
• Five major dimensions of personality, known as the
“Big Five”
• extroversion
• adjustment
• agreeableness
• conscientiousness
• openness to experience

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 Table 6.3 The Five Major Dimensions of
Personality Inventories
1. Extroversion Sociable, gregarious, assertive,
talkative, expressive
2. Adjustment Emotionally stable, nondepressed,
secure, content
3. Agreeableness Courteous, trusting, good-natured,
tolerant, cooperative, forgiving
4. Conscientiousness Dependable, organized,
persevering, thorough,
achievement-oriented
5. Openness to Experience Curious, imaginative, artistically
sensitive, broad-minded, playful

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 Types of Selection Methods 8 of 12
Personality Inventories continued
• Emotional Intelligence
• Self-awareness (knowledge of one’s strengths and
weaknesses)
• Self-regulation (the ability to keep disruptive emotions in
check),
• Self-motivation (the ability to motivate oneself and
persevere in the face of obstacles)
• Empathy (the ability to sense and read emotions in
others)
• Social skills (the ability to manage the emotions of other
people)

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 Types of Selection Methods 9 of 12
Personality Inventories continued
• Validity in terms of predicting job performance is
higher when scores are taken from other people
• People tend to lack insight into their own personalities
• Personalities vary across contexts
• It is easy to fake traits on tests

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 Types of Selection Methods 10 of 12
Work Samples
• Can vary greatly
• May include role-play, interactive videos,
simulations, or competitions
• Since tests are job-specific, generalizability is low
• Tests are expensive to develop
• Used in assessment centers

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 Types of Selection Methods 11 of 12
Honesty Tests and Drug Tests
• Polygraph Act of 1988 banned the use of
polygraph tests for most private companies
• Paper-and-pencil honesty testing attempts to
assess the likelihood that employees will steal.
• Also test social conformity, conscientiousness, and
emotional stability

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 Types of Selection Methods 12 of 12
Honesty Tests and Drug Tests continued
• Drug-use tests tend to be reliable and valid
• May represent an invasion of privacy, an
unreasonable search and seizure, or a violation of
due process
• Tests should be administered systematically to all
applicants applying for the same job
• Testing is likely to be more defensible with safety
hazards associated with failure to perform
• Test results should be reported to applicants, who
should have an avenue to appeal

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 Appendix of Image Long
Descriptions

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 Appendix 1 Figure 6.3 Graphic Depiction of Concurrent
and Predictive Validation Designs 1 of 2

Concurrent validation involves measuring all current job

incumbents on an attribute, then measuring all current job
incumbents' performance, and obtaining a correlation
between these two numbers.

Return to original slide

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 Appendix 2 Figure 6.3 Graphic Depiction of Concurrent
and Predictive Validation Designs 2 of 2

 Predictive validation involves measuring all job applicants

on an attribute, hiring some applicants and rejecting others,
waiting for some period of time, measuring all newly hired
job incumbents' performance, and finally obtaining a
correlation between these two sets of numbers.

Return to original slide

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