Predictors: Résumés are among the most popular screening methods

1. Predictors: Résumés are among the most popular screening methods • This makes sense • Applicants perceive them as fair (Steiner & Gilliland 1996) • Detailed background on what a person has done • Can be linked to job analysis information • No cost to collect them • This also seems strange • Easy to fake • Biased information (only good things are mentioned) • Hard to compare • Expensive in terms of employee time Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

2. Predictors: Seniority and Experience • Definitions • Seniority • Length of service with organization, department, or job • Experience • Not only length of service but also kinds of activities an employee has undertaken • Why so widely used? • Direct experience in a job content area reflects an accumulated stock of KSAOs necessary to perform job • Information is easily and cheaply obtained • Protects employee from capricious treatment and favoritism • Promoting senior or experienced employees is socially acceptable -- viewed as rewarding loyalty Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

3. Predictors: Seniority and Experience • Employees typically expect promotions will go to most senior or experienced employee • Relationship to job performance • Seniority is unrelated to job performance • Experience is moderately related to job performance, especially in the short run • Experience is superior because it is: • a more valid method than seniority • more likely to be content valid when past or present jobs are similar to the future job • Experience is unlikely to remedy initial performance difficulties of low-ability employees • is better suited to predict short-term rather than long-term potential Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

4. Predictors: Seniority and Experience • Experience is nearly universally used to select individuals • There are many different ways to conceptualize experience however • Levels of specificity: do you measure just the specific tasks (from job analysis) the person is doing, or do you measure the entire scope of the job? • Measurement mode: do you measure quantity, quality, or type of experience? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

5. Predictors: Seniority and Experience Quinones, Ford, & Teachout (1995) showed that work experience is not a unitary concept by demonstrating by meta-analysis that the overall correlation of experience and job performance is .27 (Time = number of years, months practiced, times performed. Type = experience similar in type and size to target job. Athe the unit of analys of task, job, organization Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

6. Predictors: Seniority and Experience (McDaniel, Schmidt, & Hunter, 1988) N = 16,058 The correlation between job experience and job performance moderated by two variables: length of experience job complexity The highest correlations were found for those with low mean levels of job experience for jobs that place low levels of cognitive demands on employees Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

7. Predictors: Education and Job Performance • Arguments for using education (Roth & Bobko, 2000) • Indicator for job skills • Measures how smart people are (r=.50+) • Measures conscientiousness (r=.35) • Cheap and objective • Arguments against using education • Why not measure intelligence and skills directly? • Years of education is vague • Potential for adverse impact against minorities Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

8. Predictors: Education and Job Performance Correlations between Education and Performance (Roth, BeVier, Switzer, & Schippmann, 1996) Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

9. Predictor: Job Specific Knowledge and Aptitude Tests • Work samples • Actual physical mock up of job tasks • In-basket exercises for managerial tasks • Relationship with job performance r=0.54 • Job knowledge • Questions regarding factual and procedural elements of the job • Relationship with job performance r=0.48 • Advantages and disadvantages of testing directly? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

10. Predictor: Situational Judgment Tests • Present job applicants with realistic, job related scenarios and evaluate their responses based on a careful analysis of the tasks performed on the job • Scores are relative to those provided by experts in the content area • Results from studies of organizations show that SJTs • are predictive of job performance • are related to traits like general mental ability and personality Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

11. Predictor: Situational Judgment Tests • Sales Scenario • You are a Business Representative in the MSD Group. You have been in contact with an import company, CREO Imports, that is developing its electronic equipment import business. This company has never had any personal contact with XYZ and has never shipped with XYZ. Most of its shipments have been truck to local markets, but the company is very interested in extending its reach. Its orders in these new markets correspond to 45 loads worth $110,000 in the first month, which represents a significant opportunity for XYZ.The only relationship between CREO Imports and XYZ is your series of phone calls. You feel that a face-to-face meeting with them will be the most effective way to further the relationship and help them feel comfortable with using your services.For each of the following questions, choose the best possible response.1. What information would MOST help you to convince your management of the potentialopportunity at CREO?A. Comparison numbers for electronic equipment traffic vs. other traffic.B. A review of XYZ’s service capabilities from the ports.C. The customer’s projected shipping volume and the revenue generted.D. Revenue and volume information on all electronic equipment import customers.2. What would be the MOST important thing to ask the customer to help you plan themost productive first meeting?A. What the customer hopes to accomplish at the meeting.B. What the customer’s strategic market goals are.C. What the customer takes into consideration when choosing a transportation provider.D. How the company is currently shipping.3. What should be the primary focus of your initial meeting with the customer?A. The benefits XYZ can offer the company as it moves into new markets.B. Basic shipping information for inexperienced shippers.C. Potential problems that may occur.D. Other electronic equipment traffic that XYZ ships from ports. Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

12. Predictor: General mental ability for selection • Critical area for measurement • Everyone agrees that they want smarter employees • Intelligence would seem to matter for every single aspect of job performance • There is evidence that this is something that is fairly stable within a person • Why are intelligent individuals better at their jobs? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

13. Predictor: General mental ability for selection • What is it? • It goes by many names: g, general mental ability, IQ, intelligence • A general measure of cognitive functioning that should work across several different domains • First proposed by Francis Galton, an English geneticist and relative of Darwin • It remains one of the most studied of all human characteristics • Is it really a trait? Is it stable? • Test re-test (age 6 to 18=0.77; age 12 to age 18=0.89) • Estimates of heritability range as high as h2=0.75 • So what’s the alternative? • The SAT/GRE dimensions • Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

14. Predictor: General mental ability for selection • After taking into account gender and physical stature, brain size is correlated about .40 with IQ • The speed of nerve conduction is also correlated with IQ • Energy expended during problem solving is inversely related to IQ levels • The brain waves of individuals with higher IQs respond more quickly to simple sensory stimuli (clicks, lights) Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

15. Predictor: General mental ability for selection • Data clearly show that general mental ability as measured by the ASVAB is correlated with education levels, income, self-esteem, and weeks of unemployment even with a 10-year gap between measures Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

16. Predictor: General mental ability for selection (Hunter and Hunter, 1984; Ree and Earles, 1990) Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

17. Predictor: General mental ability for selection Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

18. Predictor: Personality • We can train people to do things where skills are concerned. But there is one capability we do not have and that is to change a person’s attitude. So we prefer an unskilled person with a good attitude…to a highly skilled person with a bad attitude • Herb Kelleher, CEO, Southwest Airlines • Most organizations want to hire people based on their personalities, but personality is notoriously difficult to measure Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

19. Predictor: Personality Dimensions of personality: Meta-analytic results Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

20. Predictor: Personality Conscientiousness • Tendency towards orderliness, dutifulness, achievement striving, self-discipline, and caution • Are there positive features of this trait? • Are there drawbacks? • When do you think this would be most important? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

21. Predictor: Personality Conscientiousness • Summary of processes • Increases goal setting behaviors • Increases self-efficacy • Increases value placed on social order and conformity • Summary of situational effects • Stronger effects when situations are weak or when supervision is non-existent • Average conscientiousness of a group is related to group performance • Can actually decrease performance for novel tasks • More likely to be entrepreneurs Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

22. Predictor: Personality Extroversion • A tendency towards friendliness, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, and excitement seeking • Are there positive features of this trait? • Are there drawbacks? • When do you think this would be most important? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

23. Predictor: Personality Extroversion • Summary of processes • Decreases blood flow to frontal lobes • Both introverts and extraverts are trying to regulate their level of psychological arousal • Associated with increased self-efficacy • Linked to achievement motivation • Summary of situational effects • More important in social situations like leadership • Can increase citizenship behavior (helping) in some social situations • Extraversion is a hindrance in distributive bargaining • Higher variability in extroversion linked to superior group performance Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

24. Predictor: Personality Agreeableness • A tendency towards trust, morality, altruism, cooperation, modesty, and sympathy • Are there positive features of this trait? • Are there drawbacks? • When do you think this would be most important? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

25. Predictor: Personality Agreeableness • Summary of processes • Associated with values of benevolence and traditionalism • Has a relatively large negative relationship with goal-setting • Breaks into two dimensions—morality and conflict avoidance • Summary of situational effects • Agreeable individuals are more helpful in minimally constrainted situations • Agreeable individuals prefer tasks calling for helping, but dislike tasks calling for conflict • Agreeableness does not moderate helping friends or family—but agreeableness does moderate helping strangers • Agreeableness is related to citizenship and helping performance in groups (not surprisingly) • Agreeableness is a hindrance in distributive bargaining Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

26. Predictor: Personality Openness to experience • A tendency towards imagination, artistic interests, emotionality, adventurousness, “intellect”, and liberalism • Are there positive features of this trait? • Are there drawbacks? • When do you think this would be most important? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

27. Predictor: Personality Openness to experience • Summary of processes • Increased activity in the dopamine systems • More flexible organization of ideas • Mildly linked to goal setting motivation • Place more value on universalism and self-direction; tend to distain conformity and tradition • Summary of situational effects • Open individuals learn faster in situations calling for change • Openness is very strongly linked to creativity • More likely to be entrepreneurs Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

28. Predictor: Personality Neuroticism • Summary of processes • Increased sensitivity to environmental stimuli due to activation of the sympathetic nervous system • Linked to worry, negative emotional states, and increased use of avoidance coping strategies • Negatively linked to all aspects of motivation • Summary of situational effects • Less likely to do well as entrepreneurs • Higher variability in neuroticism negatively linked to team performance • Interesting—not more likely to turnover from jobs and relationships with performance as a whole are weak Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

29. Predictor: Personality Core Self-Evaluations • Scale items • I am confident I get the success I deserve in life. • I am capable of coping with most of my problems. • There are times when things look pretty bleak and hopeless to me (R). • When I try, I generally succeed. • I determine what will happen in my life. • I am filled with doubts about my competence (R) Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

30. Predictor: Personality Core Self Evaluations: Normal Personality • These are measures of core self-evaluations • Typical features • Positive self image (self-esteem and self-efficacy) • Internal locus of control • Low neuroticism • Stability can be inferred from self-esteem measures • Test-retest correlations among adults over periods around two years typically average around 0.60 • Lower stability in very young and very old individuals Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

31. Predictor: Personality Core Self Evaluations: Performance • People with positive self-evaluations set higher goals for themselves, which is a major reason for their higher levels of performance (Erez & Judge, 2001) Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

32. Predictor: PersonalityBig Five Personality Traits at Work Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

33. Predictor: Interviews Questions • Would you ever work at a company that didn’t interview you first? • Why or why not? • What do you try to learn in an interview? • Would you ever hire an applicant that hadn’t been interviewed first? • Why or why not? • What do managers try to learn in an interview? • As an applicant, what are the best and worst interview experiences you’ve had Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

34. Predictor: Interviews Interviews are very familiar and very important • Applicants typically like them • Asked applicants to rate lots of methods of selection • They liked interviews, simulations, and job knowledge tests the best • They liked personality and life history items the least • Organizations typically like them too • Interviews are the most common selection method in real organizations • Managers may prefer candidates they have met prior to hiring Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

35. Predictor: Interviews What do interviewees say that they’re looking for? • In general, research suggests that applicants prefer: • Non-invasive questions • Interviewers who know something about the job (preferably not someone from HR) • Interviewers’ general interpersonal skills • Warmth • Sincerity • Listening skills • However, job characteristics are much more predictive of applicant intentions to take a job than are their perceptions of interviewers • Interviewers are seen as signals of the company’s culture Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

36. Predictor: Interviews Huffcutt, Conway, Roth, & Stone:Constructs Measured in Interviews • Tried to build up a taxonomy of constructs that might be relevant for job performance • Mental capability, since most jobs obviously involve some mental operations • The actual declarative information a person has stored regarding the job (knowledge and skills) • Personality traits as represented by the FFM • Applied social skills, which are apropos because interviews might be especially good for measuring these • Fit with the values of the organization, that again might be difficult to assess outside of a conversation Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

37. Research Had Demonstrated GMA Loadings for Interviews Predictor: Interviews • Interviews are correlated with GMA • More structured interviews are less correlated with ability • Situational interviews are more correlated with ability • When scores are available, interviewers engage in confirmatory biases • It may be that structured interviews are sometimes designed to avoid ability. • Huffcutt & Roth, 1996 Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

38. Huffcutt, Conway, Roth, & Stone: Constructs Measured in Interviews Predictor: Interviews • Interviewers are basically looking for the same things that most tests are • Results suggest that structured interviews may do a slightly better job at getting personality Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

39. Predictor: Interviews Huffcutt, Conway, Roth, & Stone:Constructs Measured in Interviews • Structured interviews appear to be better at measuring several constructs that are important for job performance • Unstructured interviews appeared to show larger race and sex differences • Interviews are not really completely different from tests, they measure many of the constructs we try to assess with tests Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

40. Are there trade offs in which interview methods are best? Predictor: Interviews • Legal defensibility? • Face validity? • Content validity? • Criterion-related validity? Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

41. Predictor: Interviews Methods for structured interviews • Behavioral interviews • Tell me about a time that you showed leadership skills… • Premise: past behavior predicts future behavior • Development • Get lists of critical behaviors through interviewing incumbents and SMEs • Develop scoring systems based on points for quality of each response • Situational interviews • Calculate a product demand forecast given this raw data… • Premise: performance best demonstrated by real life situation • Development • Get lists of typical tasks through interviewing incumbents and SMEs • Develop scoring systems based on points for each response Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

42. Predictor: Interviews Very common, but hopelessly vague questions • Tell me about yourself… • Problem: Totally unstandardized • What would you say is your greatest strength? • Problem: Again, unstandardized; difficult to define what a “good” answer is • Describe a challenge you faced at your last job; how did you overcome it? • No assurance this challenge is similar to the current job Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

43. Predictor: Interviews Common behavioral interview questions • Describe a time when you independently decided that something needed to be done, and you independently took responsibility for making certain it was done. • Tell me about a problem that you tried to solve (at work) related to task xxx on the job description. How did you identify and solve the problem? • Describe a time when you tried to persuade someone to do something that he/she was unwilling to do. • Describe a time when you had to do task xxx on the job description. Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques

44. Predictor: Interviews Example: Developing a behavioral interview • Tell me about a time when you have worked with customers who were angry. If you haven’t worked with customers, tell me about another time you dealt with an angry person. • Examples of behaviors: • 0 points: complained about customers and explained how they refused to back down • 1 point: gave a full refund or caved in completely without any supporting information; described feeling stressed out • 2 points: politely told the person that policy says no refunds are given; note customer seemed to be happy in the end • 3 points: apologize and explain that while store policy requires a receipt, the person is welcome to contact the manager with further questions; note a positive feeling from the customer at the end Unit 2, Lecture 4: Initial Selection Techniques