Chapter 7

decision making
Recruiting
and Selection

7- 1
Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives
1. Describe the relationship among planning, recruiting, and
selection.
2. Identify and discuss the basic sources for recruiting; discuss
realistic job previews and their role in effective recruiting.
3. Describe the steps in the selection process and identify and
summarize basic selection criteria that organizations use in hiring
new employees.
4. Discuss popular selection techniques that organizations use to
hire new employees.
5. Discuss the selection decision itself.
6. Describe reliability and validity and their importance in employee
selection.
7. Identify and summarize the basic legal issues in selection and
discuss the importance of evaluating recruiting and selection
activities.
7- 2
Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Big 5 Personality Traits
 Big 5 Personality Traits: These tend to be
more behavioral than cognitive or
emotional and are likely to be more
important for job performance than more
traditional personality traits:
1. Neuroticism
2. Extraversion
3. Openness to experience
4. Agreeableness
5. Conscientiousness
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Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Employment Applications (con’t)

 Weighted application blanks rely on the

determination of numerical indices to
indicate the relative importance of various
personal factors for predicting a person’s
ability to perform a job.
 Biodata application blanks focus on the
same type of information that is found in a
regular application, but go into more
complex detailed background assessment.
7- 4
Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Employment Tests
 Employment tests are a device for measuring the
characteristics of an individual, such as personality,
intelligence, or aptitude.
 Cognitive ability tests measure mental skills whereby the
applicant is not required to do anything physical, only to
demonstrate some type of knowledge.
 Psychomotor ability tests measure physical abilities such
as:
 Strength
 Eye-hand coordination
 Mental dexterity

7- 5
Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Employment Tests (con’t)

 Personality tests measure traits, or tendencies

to act, that are relatively unchanging in a person.
A self-report inventory is a paper-and-pencil
measure where an applicant responds to a series
of statements that might or might not apply to the
applicant.
The projective technique involves showing an
individual an ambiguous stimulus, such as an ink
blot or a fuzzy picture, and then asking what he
or she “sees.”
7- 6
Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Interview Errors

 First impression error occurs when an

interviewer makes a decision too early in the
interview process.
 Contrast error is when the interviewer is
influenced by other interviewees.
 Similarity error occurs when the interviewer
is influenced because the interviewee is similar
to the interviewer.
 Non-relevancy is when the interviewer does
not know enough about the job.
7- 7
Copyright © 2012 by Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.