Personnel selection, ( industrial and organizational psychology

Recruitment and selection

1. Introduction to Industrial/Organizational Psychology Bs Psychology, 8 th Semester Week 5 Palwasha Khan 1

2. COURSE BOOK “Industrial and Organizational Psychology : Research and Practice” by Paul E. Spector 2

3. “ PERSONNEL SELECTION” 3

4. Recruitment, Selection, & Placement

5. THE RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION PROCESS Employment planning and forecasting Recruiting: Build a pool of candidates Utilize various techniques to identify viable job candidates Selection: Interview final candidates to make final choice Placing the new employee at appropriate position

6. RECRUITMENT SELECTION AND PLACEMENT Recruitment is the process of finding and attracting the best-qualified candidate (from within or outside of an organization) for a job opening, in a timely and cost effective manner. Selection is the process of gathering legally defensible information about job applicants in order to determine who should be hired for long- or short-term positions. Placement is concerned with matching individual skills, knowledge, abilities, preferences, interests, and personality to a job.

7. In recruitment and selection, job related characteristics and KSAOs are to be assessed. The idea is to select or place people into jobs who have the necessary KSAOs. JOB RELATED CHARACTERISTICS

8. RECRUITMENT Recruitment involves searching for and obtaining qualified job candidates in such numbers that the organization can select the most appropriate person to fill its job needs. In addition to filling job needs, the recruitment activity should be concerned with satisfying the needs of the job candidates. Consequently, recruitment not only attracts individuals to an organization, but also increases the chance of retaining them once they are hired.

9. Sources of Applicants Advertising Employee referral Employment agencies Schools/Campus recruiters Walk-ins RECRUITMENT

10. Selection is using scientific methodology to choose one alternative (job candidate) over another. A scientific method of selection is important to: Decreases the likelihood of hiring “bad” employees Increases the likelihood that people will be treated fairly when hiring decisions are made Reduces discrimination Reduces likelihood of discrimination lawsuits Two important elements in employee selection are: Criterion Predictor SELECTION

11. SELECTION Criteria – the standards used to judge the quality of alternatives. When selecting new employees, I/O psychologists use criteria that will identify effective on-the-job performance Example: Good performance Predictor – any variable used to forecast a criterion KSAOs can be used as predictors of a criterion of job performance. Example: Knowledge of the subject matter should be a good predictor of job performance of a class room teacher.

12. SELECTION To determine if a given predictor actually relates to a criterion requires VALIDITY STUDY Validity Study is a research study that attempts to show that the predictor relates to the criterion.

13. VALIDITY STUDY Step 1 - Conduct Job Analysis Step 2 – Specify Job Performance Criteria “Define what you mean by success on the job." Example: for a manager who is required to manage budget, a criterion might be “staying within the budget” Step 3 – Chose Predictors Example: for the manager, mathematical knowledge may be a good predictor of criterion.

14. VALIDITY STUDY Step 4 – Validate the Predictors Concurrent validation: administer the tests to employees presently on the job. You then would compare their test scores with their current performance. Predictive validation: the test is administered to applicants before they are hired. After they have been on the job for some time, you measure their performance and compare it to their earlier tests. Step 5 – Cross-validate “to add confidence that the predictor can forecast the criterion of interest” In order to make sure that our predictors and criterion are truly related, the same process is repeated. For cross- validation purpose, two samples are needed; first sample to determine if the criterion and predictor are significantly correlated. Second sample, to see if significant relation found in the first sample can be repeated on the second.

15. A good means of obtaining information about applicants is through asking them about it. Organizations generally have standard application forms or “ Biographical Inventory” to ask applicants about their background, past work experiences et cetera. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

16. BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION

17. “A psychological test is a standardized series of problems or questions that assess a particular individual characteristic” In recruitment and selection, tests are commonly used to assess many KSAOs, attitudes, interests and personality. These tests are usually comprised of multiple items that are indicators of the characteristics of interest. PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS IN SELECTION AND RECRUITMENT

18. Group vs. Individually Administered Tests Group tests – time efficient Individual test – either the test administrator has to score the items as the test proceeds or it requires some apparatus Objective vs. Open-Ended Tests Objective test – MCQs Open-ended test – Writing ability test Paper & Pencil vs. Performance Tests Performance test – test taker’s ability is demonstrated using actual apparatus, equipment, material, or tools under standardized condition. CHARACTERISTICS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

19. Power vs. Speed Tests Power Test – contains items that vary in difficulty No subject is expected to get all items right even with unlimited time. In practice, a definite but ample time is set for power tests. Used to evaluate academic achievement Examples: Vocabulary Test (a difficult one) Speed Test – contains homogeneous, very easy content Tests of psychomotor abilities, e.g., eye–hand coordination, often involve speed.  Used to test mastery of material by testing how quickly someone can deal with it. And to test someone’s speed at a task (typing) . Examples:  For those who are competent at Math, a task where people are asked to solve a page of simple addition problems as fast as possible would be a speed test. CHARACTERISTICS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

20. Ability/Aptitude Tests – are designed to assess a person’s capability of learning a particular task or his potential. Cognitive ability tests – such as intelligence or IQ test, is relevant to tasks that involve information processing and learning Paper-pencil tests, verbal, non-verbal. Used by organizations for employee selection Psychomotor ability – such as manual dexterity, involves body movement and manipulation of objects. They involve both, the coordination between senses and movement (eye-hand coordination) and the accuracy of movement Mainly performance tests and speed tests Which ability test to choose depends upon the nature of task of interest. Example: Computer programmer? Sweeper? Repair of an equipment? TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

21. Knowledge And Skill Or Achievement Tests – are designed to assess a person’s present level of proficiency. TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

22. Personality Tests – measure predispositions or tendencies to behave in a particular way across situations The use of personality tests for selection purpose has been highly criticized on two grounds: Possibility of Response Bias Low Job Relevance (what an assessment tool measure is obviously related to specific job tasks) compared to other assessment tools. Meta-analysis have found low validities for personality tests as predictors of job performance. However, personality tests designed especially for organizational settings have been proven good predictors. Trait based testing TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

23. Openness Highs : imaginative, creative, and to seek out cultural and educational experiences. Lows : more down-to-earth, less interest in art & more practical. Conscientiousness Highs : methodical, well organized and dutiful. Lows : less careful, less focused & more likely to be distracted Extraversion Highs : energetic and seek out the company of others. Lows (introverts): tend to be more quiet and reserved. Agreeableness Highs : tend to be trusting, friendly and cooperative. Lows : tend to be more aggressive and less cooperative Neuroticism Highs : prone to insecurity and emotional distress. Lows : more relaxed, less emotional and less prone to distress. Conscientiousness show consistent correlation with job performance across jobs, across cultures Emotional stability and agreeableness predict performance in customer service jobs THE BIG FIVE INVENTORY

24. 4. INTEGRITY TESTS – designed to predict whether employee will engage in counterproductive work behavior (CWB) CWB usually include cheating, poor performance, sabotage, theft, absenteeism, and turnover The overt integrity test assesses a person’s attitude and prior behaviour. It asks a person to indicate agreement or disagreement with statements concerning honesty and moral behaviour (It is all right to lie if you know you won’t get caught) The personality integrity test (covert) assesses personality characteristics that have been found to predict counterproductive behavior. EmployeeReliabilityInventory.pdf TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

25. 5. VOCATIONAL INTEREST TEST – matches either the interests and personality of the test taker to those of people in a variety of different occupations. Most popular vocational interest test is “Self-Directed Search” by Holland. TYPES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS

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27. It’s a face to face meeting between one or more interviewers who are collecting information or making hiring decisions and an interviewee. Interview can be Unstructured or Structured Interview can be used as an alternative to written application form, that is, it can be used for Information gathering or it can be used to infer a person’s suitability for a job . Benefit of interview is its flexibility. Issue with interviews is that the interviewer can affect the answers of interviewee However, meta-analysis has indicated the validity of structured interview for selecting employees. INTERVIEW

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29. Behavioral interviews Behavioral interviews, as you might guess from their name, focus on past behavior.  However, they involve more than just recapping what a candidate has written on their CV: They’re an opportunity to dig into how the candidate has responded to challenges in their working life. In the social media manager example we gave earlier, your list of questions might include : Tell us about a time when you failed to reach a target. How did you handle it? Can you give us an example of a campaign that wasn’t working? What did you do to rectify it? Tell us about a time when you misunderstood an important task. How did you handle that situation? 29 There are two main types of questions in structured interviews: behavioral and situational. 

30. Whereas behavioral questions ask candidates how they have   reacted to past work dilemmas, situational interview questions propose hypothetical scenarios and ask your candidate to describe how they would react  if  they were to happen . The advantage of including situational questions in structured interviews is that you can discuss the optimal answers with your team in advance and use their answers as a benchmark . Here is a sample list of questions you might use in a situational interview : What would you do if you made a mistake in your work but no one else on your team noticed? How would you respond if a client asked you to allocate extra time to their project without speaking to your supervisor first? How would you go about measuring the performance of our company 30 Situational interviews

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32. It is designed to measure the skill level of the applicant. It requires a person to perform a task under standardized conditions. The basic procedure of work sample tests is to choose several tasks crucial to performing the job in question and test applicants on each. Their performance on each task is monitored by a trained observer who indicates on a checklist how well the applicant performs that tasks. Example: Driving test WORK SAMPLE/SIMULATIONS

33. An assessment center measures how well a person is able to perform the tasks of a specific job. Realistic tasks are done in groups and are assessed by multiple of raters rating multiple domains Assessment center may contain many different activities and exercises. Assessee might be interviewed, take a battery of psychological tests, and complete simulation exercises. Simulation exercises may be in the form of in basket exercise leaderless group exercise problem solving exercise role-play exercise ASSESSMENT CENTERS

34. Strong criterion validity (e.g., teachers, police) overall scores predict job performance Measurement issues costly to administer different ratings on a task too highly correlated dimension ratings not correlated strongly across tasks ASSESSMENT CENTERS