1. Personnel Psychology: Employee Recruitment and Selection
Guide for SHP 1313 students at UTM, Malaysia
Prepared by : Siti Rokiah Siwok ,

2. Recruitment
Revision: Job analysis is the cornerstone of personnel selection. Unless a complete an accurate picture of a job is done, it would be difficult to select excellent employees.
During the job analysis process, in addition to identifying the important task and duties, it is crucial to identify knowledge, skills and abilities needed to perform the job.

3. Recruitment
Methods used to select employees must be directly tied to the results of the job analysis.
Every essential knowledge, skill and ability identified in the job analysis should be tested and every test must relate to the job analysis.

4. Recruitment
Recruitment is attracting the right people for a certain job.
Two types of recruitment :
Internal
External
There is a need to balance between internal and external recruitment.

5. Effective Recruitment Methods Should be:
Valid : A valid selection test is based on a job analysis (content validity), predicts work behaviour (criterion validity) and measures the construct it purpots to measure (construct validity).
Cost effective : in all terms, that is to purchase or create, to administer and to score.

6. Effective Recruitment Methods Should:
Get the attention of the public
Screen unqualified applicants
Motivate qualified people to apply
Timely
Reduce the chance of legal challenge

7. Recruitment Methods Formal or Direct Informal or Indirect
Media advertisements
Point of purchase
Direct mail
Employment agencies
College recruiters
Computer databases
Special events
Employee referral programs
Informal or Indirect
Situation-wanted ads
Direct applications
Employee referrals

8. Special Populations The retired The mentally or physically challenged
Ex-convicts
Current convicts
People on welfare assistance
Employees in other organizations
People in foreign countries
Temporary employees

9. Effective Employee Selection Techniques

10. Optimal Employee Selection Should be:
Valid
Based on a job analysis (content validity)
Predict work-related behavior (criterion validity)
Able to Reduce the Chance of a Legal Challenge
Face valid
Don’t invade privacy
Don’t intentionally discriminate
Minimize adverse impact
Cost Effective
Cost to purchase/create
Cost to administer
Cost to score

11. Effective Employee Selection Techniques
Interviews
Résumé
References and Recommendations
Training and Education
Applicants’ Ability
Applicant’s Skills
Prior experience
Personality, Interest and Character

12. Employee Selection Techniques: Interviews

13. Interviews Structure Style Medium Structured Unstructured
Semi structured
Style
One to one
Serial
Return
Panel
group
Medium
Face to face, telephone, video conference, in writing etc

14. Unstructured Interviews are Not Optimal
Because they:
Poor intuitive ability
Lack of job relatedness
Legally problematic
Rely on intuition, “amateur psychology,” and talk show methods
Suffer from common rating problems
Primacy
Contrast
Interviewer-interviewee similarity
Interviewee appearance
Non-verbal clues

15. Examples of Common Unstructured Interview Questions
Where do you see yourself five years from now?
What are your greatest strengths?
What are your greatest weaknesses?
What subject did you most enjoy in college?
Why should I hire you?
Why are you interested in this job?

16. Structured Interviews are Optimal
Because they are :
Reliable
Valid
Are based on a job analysis
Ask the same questions of each applicant
Have a standardized scoring procedure
Not as prone to legal challenge

17. Goals of Structured Interview
Understand the Applicant
Clarify and confirm resume information
Obtain new information
Predict Job Performance
Ask questions focused on past behavior
Ask questions focused on knowledge and skills
Ask questions focused on future behavior
Predict Organizational Fit
Use several interviewers
Combine interview impression with test scores
Sell the Organization to the Applicant
Provide information about the position/organization
Answer the applicant’s questions

18. Creating the Structured Interview
Conduct a thorough job analysis
Determine best way to measure each KSAO
Construct Questions
Determine rating anchors for each question
Choose two or more members for the interview panel

19. Employee Selection Techniques: Résumés

20. Résumés
Résumés are summaries of an applicant’s professional and educational background.
Commonly asked by employers but little is known about the value of predicting employee performance.
It is unclear how much predictive value résumés have.

21. Résumés
Résumés may not predict performance partly because they are meant to “advertise” an applicant; making the “strengths of the applicant more obvious and weaknesses hard to find”.
Result: many résumés contain inaccurate information.
Aamodt and Williams (2005) found that 25% of résumés contained inaccurate information.
No best way to write résumés.

22. More of Employee Selection Techniques

23. References and Recommendations
Common belief in psychology is : the best predictor of future performance is past performance.
Verifying previous employment is not difficult but DIFFICULT to ascertain the QUALITY of previous performance.

24. References and Recommendations
Reasons
Issues, ethics and considerations
Negligent reference
Potential to be charged with slander or a legal action taken.

25. Using Applicants’ Training and Education
Using applicant Training and Education
Min level of education and training
Inconsistent results regarding validity
However, meta-analysis of the relationship between education and police performance found education was a valid performance in the police academy, and performance on the job.
Student’s GPA and

26. Using Applicant’s Knowledge about the Job applied for
Job performance can also be predicted using applicants’ knowledge; hence job knowledge tests are designed to measure how much a person knows about a job.
Examples : computer programming knowledge etc
Standardised tests are also available .
Excellent content and criterion validity.

27. Using Applicants’ Ability
Ability tests taps the extent to which an applicant can learn or perform a job-related skill. Upon hire, new employees will be taught the necessary job skills and knowledge.
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. Eg: police officers, fire fighters, military personnel.

28. Using Applicants’ Ability: Cognitive Ability
Includes oral and written comprehension, oral and written expression, numerical etc.
Important for professional, clerical and supervisory jobs.
Meta-analyses suggests that cognitive ability is one of the best predictors of performance across all jobs, but job-specific meta-analyses raise doubts about the assumptions.
E.gs of cognitive ability test : Wonderlic Personnel Test, Miller Analogies Test and Quick Test

29. Using Applicants’ Ability
Other ability tests are : Perceptual Ability Psychomotor Ability Physical Ability

30. Using Applicant’s Skills
This method measures the extent to which an applicant has already a job-related skill.
Two most common methods are work sample and assessment centre.
With work-sample, the applicant performs actual job-related tasks; excellent selection tools and has high validity. Applicants also see the direct connection.

31. Assessment Centers
An assessment centre is a selection technique characterized by the use of multiple assessment methods that allow multiple assessors to actually observe applicants perform simulated tasks.
Major advantage:
Assessment methods are all job related and multiple assessors help guard against some types of biases.

32. Using Personality, Interest and Character
Personality Inventories
Interest inventories
Integrity Tests
Graphology

33. Personality Inventories
Increasingly popular as an employee selection method.
Falls into 2 categories based on their intended purpose:
1) normal personality
2) abnormal personality (psychopathology)

34. Personality Inventories: Normal Personality
Tests of normal personality measures traits exhibited by normal individuals in everyday life. Eg. of such traits are: extraversion, shyness, assertiveness and friendliness.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Edwards Personal Preference Schedule
16 PF
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI)
Many more….

35. Personality Inventories: Normal Personality
There are 100s of personality inventories, there is a general agreement that most personality traits can be placed into one of the five personality dimensions, known as the “BIG FIVE” or the five factor model.
Openness to experience (bright and inquisitive)
Conscientiousness (reliable, dependable)
Extraversion (outgoing, friendly)
Agreeableness (works well with others)
Emotional stability

36. Personality Inventories: Psychopathology
Tests of abnormal personality determine whether individuals have serious psychological problems such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
Seldom used in IOP unless required as part of medical examinations .

37. Interest Inventories Designed to tap vocational interests.
Most commonly used is the Strong Interest Inventory(SII) which asked individuals to indicate whether they like or dislike items such as bargaining, repairing electrical wire and taking responsibility.
Answers provide profile of the person.

38. Integrity tests
Informs the employer of the applicant’s honesty; such as the probability that an applicant will steal money or merchandise
One study estimates that 50% of employees access to cash steal from their employers (Wimbush and Dalton, 1997).

39. Graphology Handwriting analysis . Used 8% in the UK and 75% in France.
The idea behind it is that the way people write reveals their personality, which in turn indicates work performance.

40. Comparison of Techniques

41. Typical Corrected Validity Coefficients for Selection Techniques
Method
Validity
Structured Interview
.57
College grades
.32
Cognitive ability
.51
References
.29
Biodata
Experience
.27
Job knowledge
.48
Conscientiousness
.24
Work samples (verbal)
Unstructured interviews
.20
Assessment centers
.38
Interest inventories
.10
Integrity tests
.34
Handwriting analysis
.02
Situational judgment
Projective personality tests
.00

42. Main references:
Aamodt, M. G ( 2010). Industrial/Organizational Psychology. An Applied Approach.( 6th Ed) USA: Wadsworth
Spector, P. E. ( 2008). Industrial and Organizational Psychology (5th ed). USA: Wiley
Employee Recruitment (2010). Cengage Learning