selecting applicants

Selecting Applicants

Chapter 6

• Describe what the term validity means with regard to employee selection and how a company can achieve and document it

• Understand the legal constraints imposed by the EEOC guidelines, constitutional law, and tort law that companies face when selecting employees’

• Explain the various selection methods used by firms

Chapter 6 Objectives

• The effectiveness of a firm’s selection practices can impact an organization’s competitive advantage in a number of ways

Linking Selection Practices to Competitive Advantage

• Validity, the technical term for effectiveness, refers to the appropriateness, meaningfulness, and usefulness of selection inferences.

• extent to which scores on a test, interview or other selection process correspond to actual job performance

• The closer the actual job performances match the expected performances, the greater the validity of the selection process.

HRM Issues and PracticesTechnical Standards for Selection Practices

• To determine expected performance and validity:– Manager must have a clear notion of the needed job

qualifications, and must use selection methods that reliably and accurately measure these qualifications.


• Determining job qualifications– Job qualifications refer to the personal qualities an

employer seeks when filling a position.– Some qualifications, such as technical KSAs and

nontechnical skills are job-specific; other qualifications are universal.

– By basing qualifications on job analysis information, a company ensures that the qualities being assessed are important for the job.

– Job analyses are also needed for legal reasons.


• Choosing selection methods– The choice of selection

methods should reliably and accurately measure the needed qualifications.

– Reliability is the degree of self-consistency among the scores earned by an individual.

– Reliable evaluations are consistent across both people and time.



• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity


• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity• Content-oriented strategy

– Evidence would show that the selection devices were properly designed and were accurate measures of the needed worker requirements.

– The employer must demonstrate that:• The selection devices were chosen on the basis of an

acceptable job analysis. • They measured a representative sample of the KSAs

identified.


• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity• Criterion-related strategy

– Attempts to demonstrate statistically that someone who does well on a selection instrument is more likely to be a good job performer than someone who does poorly.

– To gather criterion-related evidence, two pieces of information are required : a predictor score and a criterion score.


• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity• A criterion-related validation study may

be conducted in one of two ways:– Predictive validation study: Information is

gathered on actual job applicants.– Concurrent validation study:

• Information is gathered on current employees.• More commonly used as they can be conducted

more quickly.


• Three ways of assessing and documenting validity• Validity generalization strategy

– Established by demonstrating that a selection device has been consistently found to be valid in many other similar settings.

Legal Constraints on Employee Selection

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Guidelines on Employment Discrimination

• The Uniform Guidelines• National Origin Discrimination Guidelines• Sexual Harassment Guidelines• Pregnancy Discrimination Guidelines• Age Discrimination Guidelines• Religious Discrimination Guidelines• Disability Discrimination Guidelines



The Uniform Guidelines:• Issued in 1978.• Apply to nearly all organizations employing 15 or more employees.• Designed to assist organizations in understanding the compliance

requirements imposed by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, primarily with regard to disparate impact claims.

• Outlines requirements necessary for employers to legally defend employment decisions

• Not in and of themselves legislation or law; however, through their reference in a number of judicial decisions, courts have used them



National Origin Discrimination Guidelines:• Individuals rejected for employment have just cause for

legal redress if their rejection was based on any of the following factors:

• Place of origin• Ancestor’s place of origin• Marriage to a person of a foreign origin• Membership in an association seeking to

promote the interests of a national origin group



Sexual Harassment Guidelines: The employer is liable for unlawful sex discrimination if:– An employment opportunity is granted because of a

candidate’s submission to an employer’s request for sexual favors.

– An employment opportunity is withheld because of the candidate’s refusal to grant such favors.



Pregnancy Discrimination Guidelines:• A female applicant who is temporarily unable to

perform some job function due to her pregnancy-related condition must be treated in the same manner as any other applicant with a temporary disability.

• The preferences of coworkers, clients, or customers would not serve as a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for rejecting such a candidate.



• Age Discrimination Guidelines– Prohibits disparate treatment directed towards applicants

aged 40 and above.– If charged with age-based disparate treatment, a firm must

demonstrate that:• The hiring decision was not based on age, but on some

“reasonable factor other than age,” such as lack of skill.• Age is a BFOQ (bona fide occupational qualification) for the

position.• It is a business necessity.



Religious Discrimination Guidelines:• Requires employers to accommodate a reasonable request

for religious accommodation, as long as the accommodation does not pose an undue hardship on their business operations.

• When judging a claim of undue hardship, the courts apply a standard called the “de minimis principle.”

• The principle states that to be declared an undue hardship, the cost of accommodation must be more than minimal.



Disability Discrimination Guidelines• The act defines ‘‘disability’’ as a physical or mental

impairment that substantially limits one or more of an individual’s major life activities.

• A summary of the ADA guidelines give a detailed account of what an organization may (or must) do and what it may not do when it considers employing a disabled applicant.


Constitutional constraints on selection – Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

• Pertains to an individual’s privacy rights.• Is the basis for workplace-related lawsuits

dealing with the use of certain physiological screening devices.

• Imposes constraints on the type of information that employers may lawfully collect about an applicant.


Constitutional constraints on selection – Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

• Provides citizens with equal protection under the law.

• Fifth Amendment applies to federal employees, while the Fourteenth Amendment applies to state employees.


Tort Law Constraints on Selection

• Refers to civil laws designed to discourage individuals from subjecting others to unreasonable risks and to compensate those who have been injured by unreasonably risky behavior.

• Two areas that bear the most influence on employee selection are negligent hiring and defamation.

• Defamation – The unprivileged publication of a false oral or written statement that

harms the reputation of another person.– Claims often arise when giving reference information.


Tort Law Constraints on Selection

Negligent hiring:• Refers to situations in which employers hire an applicant who is

somehow unfit for the job, and because of this unfitness, commits an act that causes harm to another.

• An individual would be considered unfit in a negligent hiring case if he or she:

• Lacked the necessary training and experience.• Had a physical or mental infirmity.• Was frequently intoxicated.• Experienced constant forgetfulness.• Liked to engage in horseplay or was reckless or malicious.

Selection Methods

• Application blanks• Biodata inventories• Background investigations• Reference checks• Employment interviews• Employment tests• Assessment centers• Screening for dysfunctional behavior

Selection MethodsApplication Blanks

Purpose:• To determine whether candidates meet the

minimum qualifications for the job.• Help employers judge the presence (or absence)

of certain job-related attributes.• Used to “red flag” any potential problem areas

concerning the applicant.

Selection MethodsExamples of Potentially Unlawful Questions

Selection MethodsBiodata Inventory

• Responses are objectively evaluated.• The two types of biodata inventories are weighted

application blanks and biographical information blanks.• Weighted application blank: A biodata inventory

containing the same questions as an application blank.• Biographical information blank: A biodata inventory

consisting of a set of questions designed to cover a broad array of background information.

Selection MethodsBiodata Inventory

• Used as a prescreening device to predict tenure.• Excellent predictors of job success.• Few companies use this method.• Have some legal concerns that may be justified.

Selection MethodsBackground Investigations

• Serve two purposes – Screen applicants for: • Positions of trust in occupations such as law enforcement,

private security, and nuclear power.• “Special duty of care” positions in order to satisfy requirements

imposed by negligent hiring law.

• Employers must avoid violating the legal rights of applicants; the primary law being Fair Credit Reporting Act. • This law is designed to protect applicants’ rights in the event of a

background investigation conducted by an investigative agency.

Selection MethodsReference Checks

• Involve collecting information from applicants’ previous employers.

• Provide another potentially useful means of assessment.• Serve two important purposes:

– Verify information provided by applicants to ensure that they have not fabricated their qualifications or work history.

– Provide additional information about applicants, which may be predictive of job performance.

Selection MethodsEmployment Interviews

• Provide an opportunity for applicants to describe their previous work experience, educational history, career interests, and likes and dislikes among others.

• Four types of valuable information sought during an interview:– Technical knowledge– Self-evaluative information– Situational information– Behavior description information

• Raise the same legal concerns as application blanks.

Selection MethodsEmployment Tests – Mental Ability Tests

• Designed to measure intelligence or aptitude.• Used primarily for assessing entry-level applicants for

jobs that do not require specific job-related skills.• Determine whether applicants have the capacity to learn

job skills successfully.• Often have a disparate impact on certain protected

groups; some employers are thus reluctant to use mental ability tests.

Selection MethodsEmployment Tests – Personality Tests

• Provide a more objective way to gauge personality.

• The validity of a personality test is situation specific; a well-designed test can be a valid predictor of job performance for some jobs, but not for others.

• There are few legal problem associated with their use.

Selection MethodsThe “Big Five” Personality Types

Selection MethodsEmployment Tests – Work Sample Tests

• Require applicants to perform some of the actual (or simulated) duties of the vacant position.

• Used to assess manual skills, clerical skills, and managerial skills.

• The tests are quite valid, if properly constructed and implemented, as they provide direct measures of job performance.

• Are quite expensive.• Could have possible safety problems.

Selection MethodsAssessment Centers

• A selection technique that consists of work samples and other assessment techniques.

• Is primarily used to select managers.• Work sample tests are often administered as part of an assessment

center. • The most commonly used work sample tests are:

– Leaderless group discussion– Management games– In-basket

• Have been found to be quite valid when appropriately developed and used.

Selection MethodsScreening for Dysfunctional Behavior

• Polygraph tests: Designed to ascertain truthfulness of the information given by the examinee.– The Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) of 1988 bans

most private-sector employers from using polygraph tests in the selection of candidates.

• Paper-and-pencil honesty tests: Written tests that employers use to estimate an applicant’s propensity to steal from an employer.– Paper-and-pencil honesty tests may either be overt or

personality-based measures.

Employee Selection and the Manager’s Job

• Determining needed competencies• Assessing job candidates• Providing input into selection

decisions• Making job offers

Employee Selection and the Human Resource Department

• HR professionals play two primary roles:– Providing technical

support.– Helping managers

conform to legal and technical standards throughout the selection process.

selecting applicants

Documents

selection devices

selection process

selection practicesto

employee selection

selection instrument

selection practiceshrm

practicestechnical standards

various selection methods