Comprehensive Overview of Personnel Selection Methods

1. Personnel Selection and Training Chapter 18 in text

2. Selecting workers with the right skills • Visual search • Decision making • Interpersonal skills • Motivation

3. Poorest Method? • Interviews and References • Why? • However, most common used.

4. Employment Laws • Require hiring choices to be justified • Proven not to be • Arbitrary • Discriminatory • Hence, wealth of selection methods

5. Selection Testing • Based on a signal detection idea • HIT: hiring a person good at the job • MISS: not hiring someone who would have been good at the job • FALSE ALARM: hiring someone who does a poor job • CORRECT REJECTION: not hiring someone who would have done a poor job

6. Signal Detection Idea MISS HIT Acceptable Job Performance Expensive! FA Job Performance CR Don’t Hire Hire Test Score Test score cutoff

7. Tests of Cognitive Ability • Verbal ability • Perceptual speed • Memory • Spatial or mechanical ability • Reasoning or analytical ability • Ability to pay attention

8. Example: Picture Memory Test • Look at the following picture for 30s

10. Write down all the objects you saw

11. How did you do?

12. Mental Rotation Test Which is the same as the object on the left, A or B?

13. Mental Rotation Test Which is the same as the object on the left, A or B?

14. Perceptual Speed Test Match the house in the top left with its identical match. Put up your hand when you have found the match. Used for inspection jobs (airport screeners, xray techs etc.)

15. Object Displacement Test Observe the following objects for 15s Used for determining ability to find objects, follow maps, remember landmarks

16. Object Displacement Test Which object is missing? Used for determining ability to find objects, follow maps, remember landmarks

17. Which one was it? • Car • Leaves • Frog • Horse • Chair • Plane • Computer • Snowman • Truck • Lion

18. Personality Testing • Usually looking for • Neuroticism • Extroversion • Openness • Agreeableness • conscientiousness

19. Eysenck Personality Test • Sample questions for “extroversion” • ARE YOU INCLINED TO BE SLOW AND DELIBERATE IN YOUR ACTIONS? • Y?N • DO YOU OFTEN BUY THINGS ON IMPULSE? • Y?N • DO YOU OFTEN CHANGE YOUR INTERESTS? • Y?N • ARE YOU RATHER CAUTIOUS IN NOVEL SITUATIONS? • Y?N

20. Catell 16PF Test • I am carefree. • Very inaccurate 1 2 3 4 5 Very Accurate • I don’t mind eating alone. • Very inaccurate 1 2 3 4 5 Very Accurate • I take things personally • Very inaccurate 1 2 3 4 5 Very Accurate

21. Problems with “Personality Tests” • Want to test yourself? • www.similarminds.com

22. Work Sample Tests • Ask candidate to do a work type problem • Or watch other workers and critique their work • Usefulness depends on relevance of the problem • Fairly strong predictive validity

23. Example: Case Interviewing • You are called in by Pizza Hut to help them develop a strategy for entering the home delivery market in which Domino's has the dominant position. As lead consultant on this project, what would you do?"

24. Suggested Solutions • Identify the appropriate framework or interpretation of the problem. • Identify the key issues and state them to show you understand the problem. • Dig deeper into the key issues, ask questions, clarification, listen carefully.

25. Structured Interviews • Ask all candidates the same questions • “Critical behaviour” interview • Built on eliciting past behaviour • Tell me about a time when you had to facilitate the operation of a team. How did you get involved? What did you do? How did it turn out?"

26. The MIT “STAR” method for behavioral interview answers • Situation • Task • Action • Results

27. Example of a STAR AnswerDescribe a time when a team member came to you for help. What was the situation? How did you respond? • Situation: I was a member of a UROP group within MIT's Media Lab where we were working on a virtual reality project. The team was comprised of one professor, three graduate students, and two undergraduates (including myself). • Task: The undergraduates were primarily responsible for a specific part of the program coding. I noticed that an undergraduate team member was having trouble with their coding and it looked like he wasn't going to be able to meet the deadline for the next day. • Action: I noticed that he was getting frustrated but I didn't want to upset him by asking if he needed help. I casually went by and began some small talk. Eventually he asked me a few questions about the project and as we talked further he felt more comfortable to ask more and more questions. I spent the rest of the afternoon coaching him through the project. • Result: He was able to submit his portion of the project on time. The professor was extremely happy with the results and he consulted with us on future coding segments of the project.

28. Preparing for Behavioural Interviews • Anticipate the critical behaviours • Identify a few key stories from your past • Identify negative and positive stories • Formulate STAR answers • Practice them