Intro to work psy chapter 3

Dr. Stavroula Leka – Introduction to Work Psychology

CHAPTER 3: Employee Selection Principles and Techniques

When you leave college to take a full-time job, there is a 50% chance that you will
quit your first job within 3 to 5 years > variety of reasons > both the employee and the
organization lose -> importance of employee selection principles and techniques.

Improper matching of the person and the job, of the person’s skills and characteristics
with the job’s demands and requirements leads to dissatisfaction and poor
performance in the work situation.

Organizational Entry

A study of managerial, professional and technical employees of a large oil company
found that those who demonstrated success early in their career were more likely to be
promoted than those who were less successful early in their career (Dreher & Bretz,
1991).

Initial job challenge has a positive impact on employee performance and success.
The challenge should be compatible with your expectations and preferences.

Employee preferences

Challenging, interesting and meaningful work
High salary
Opportunities for advancement
Job security
Satisfactory working hours
Pleasant working conditions
Compatible co-workers
Feeling of being respected and appreciated
Opportunity to learn new skills
Fair and loyal supervision
Being asked one’s opinion on work issues
Assistance with personal problems

A study of business students showed the most important consideration to be the
company’s location, followed by salary and benefits (Barber & Roehling, 1993).

Another factor that affects employee preferences is level of education. College
graduates have different preferences from high school graduates and there are also
differences btw college graduates. Engineering majors differ from liberal arts majors
and students differ from C students. Age also plays an important role as well as
specialization.

Employee preferences change as a function of economic conditions. When jobs are
difficult to obtain, new employees may be more interested in pay and job security. In
a better economic climate when there are plenty of jobs, issues such as challenging
work or the opportunity to develop new skills rank higher.

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Chapter 3 – Page 1 of 16


Preferences also differ as a function of race. A survey comparing job preferences of
black and white women college students, found that more blacks than whites wanted a
high-paying job rather than interesting work (Murrell, Frieze & Frost, 1991).

The recruitment process

Sources of potential employees
Recruiter characteristics
College campus recruiting
Information provision to job recruits

Sources of recruiting:

Formal > ads in newspapers, referrals from employees, employment agencies, search
services, placement services of professional associations, job fairs, outplacement
agencies, college campus, online recruiting (e.g. several major newspapers including
the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune have jointly
begun an online career employment service).

Informal > contacting friends and acquaintances > more accurate information and
more often lead to hiring.

A study of 186 students at universities and training schools found that the longer the
job search, the less the students used formal recruiting sources. However, those who
remained unemployed 3 months after the study began significantly increased their use
of formal sources > the use of formal sources was high in the early stages of a job
search and again later if the search proved unsuccessful (Barber, Daly, Giannantonio
& Phillips, 1994).

Recruiter characteristics

Recruiter characteristics like smiling, nodding, maintaining eye contact,
demonstrating empathy and warmth and showing thoughtfulness, competence and
personableness are important and influence applicants to accept jobs.

College men expressed the same likelihood of job acceptance whether their recruiter
was male of female, but college women said they would be much more likely to
accept a job offer if the company recruiter was male.

Research has shown that 50% of women interviewed are offended by gender-related
comments made to them by male recruiters about their personal appearance.

Also, job applicants prefer recruiters to spend time during the interview to provide
information about the company, to seek information about the applicant (give the
chance to the applicant to speak about their achievements), and answer applicant
questions.

Also issues like how comfortable the applicant feels in the presence of their
prospective superiors and the location of the company are important.

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Campus recruiting

Fewer than half of the corporate recruiters have received training in the proper
techniques for interviewing job applicants > problems with the success of campus
recruiting.

Many organizations are turning to computerized recruitment databases: compilations
of student resumes.
Colleges and universities also maintain online resumes of graduating seniors as well
as listings of companies that are hiring.
Also students can access information about alumni who will serve as mentors.

Universities also offer computerized videoconferencing facilities in which companies
can conduct long-distance interviews with college seniors > company access to
schools they may not visit.

Major problem for campus recruiting is finding job candidates who have a realistic
view of the business world.

Both applicants and recruiters may present misleading images in order to attract
attention > high incidence of turnover in the first 3-5 years of the first job entry.

Realistic job previews: provide information that is as accurate as possible about all
aspects of a job.

Such information can be supplied through a brochure or other written description of
the job, through a film or videotape, or through an on-the-job sample of the work to
see if the applicant can perform the required tasks > reduction of unrealistic
expectation about jobs.

Research shows that realistic job previews correlate positively with job satisfaction,
job performance and reduced turnover rates.
Also they reduce the number of applicants accepting jobs.
Their effect varies as a function of the prior exposure applicants have had to the job in
question > a study of 1,117 applicants for positions as correctional officers found that
applicants with previous experience at prison work were far less likely to accept job
offers after watching a realistic job preview on videotape than were applicants who
had no such prior experience (Meglino, DeNisi & Ravlin, 1993).

After the recruiting process has been completed and applicants and organizations have
decided that each meets the other’s needs, the selection process formally begins.

The Selection Process

Job and Worker analysis > I/O psychologists must investigate the nature of the job.
The organization will not know what abilities potential employees should have unless
it can describe in detail what they are expected to do to perform the job effectively >

Job Analysis: the study of a job to describe in specific terms the nature of the
component tasks performed by the workers.

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A job analysis determines the specific skills necessary to the job and from it a profile
of worker qualification can be developed.

Once these abilities have been specified, the human resource manager or the
occupational psychologist must determine the most effective means of identifying
these characteristics in potential employees, and evaluate them in each applicant.

Then a score or level for the various abilities is established > the I/O psychologist
may look at the present workers of the company to determine the cutoff scores that
should be set.

Recruitment decisions

The company should then decide what recruitment method they will use to recruit
new employees > ads, employment agencies, referrals from current employees.

The response number of potential employees affects the criteria set for their selection
> The selection ratio: the relationship between the number of people to be hired
and the number available to be hired ( the potential labor supply).

If there is a shortage of applicants and the jobs must be filled within a few weeks,
some requirements will have to be changed (e.g. the cutoff score on an intelligence
test).
A shortage of applicants may also force the company to expend its recruiting
campaign and to offer higher wages, enhanced benefits or improved working
conditions to attract and retain new employees.

Selection techniques

Application blanks, interviews, letters of recommendation, assessment centers and
psychological tests. Usually a combination of techniques is used.

In the U.S. testing for drug use is now widespread for all types of jobs.

Also, there is an increased concern for AIDS and some organizations screen their
applicants for the HIV.

Some scientists have suggested that in the future, genetic testing may be applied to
identify applicants who may be sensitive to certain chemicals used in the workplace
and to predict those individuals who are likely to develop specific diseases.

Testing the Selection Techniques

Every new selection program must be investigated to determine its predictive
accuracy or validity.

This is done by evaluating the performance of the employees selected by the new
procedures, through e.g. Supervisor ratings of their performance. By comparing these
ratings with the performance on the selection techniques we can determine how the 2

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measures correlate. Did the selection techniques predict which of the applicants
turned out to be the better workers?
Based on the results, we either keep or modify our selection procedures.

Fair Employment Practices

1972: regulations of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) > all
job applicants regardless of race, religion, sex or national origin are guaranteed equal
opportunities for employment > discrimination on such grounds is illegal.

Adverse impact

When a minority group of applicants or employees is treated markedly worse than
the majority group in personnel decisions, that minority group is said to be the
target of adverse impact in the selection process.

Any selection rate for a minority group that is less than 80% of the selection rate for
the majority group is evidence of adverse impact > the company could be challenged
in court for maintaining different rejection rates for minority and majority applicants,
but other evidence would also have to be presented and not just statistical
documentation.

Discriminatory Questions

Interviews and application blanks have been greatly affected by antidiscrimination
legislation because questions that discriminate against a particular group can lead to
lawsuits.

No questions can be asked that identify applicants’ national origin, race, or color.
Applicants cannot be asked to name their birthplace or that of their relatives, to
identify their religious affiliation, or to give the maiden names of female relatives. It
is also unlawful to inquire about the clubs or societies to which the applicants belong
and to ask them to submit photographs with their employment applications.

It is lawful to ask if applicants have ever been convicted of any crime (as conviction
could be considered relevant to job performance in certain instance – such as when
someone convicted for embezzlement applies for a job as a bank teller), but it is
unlawful to ask if someone has ever been arrested because members of certain
minority groups are much more likely to be arrested on suspicion of wrongdoing.

Reverse Discrimination

Equal Opportunities legislation has sometimes resulted in discrimination against
members of the majority group > reverse discrimination: the phenomenon that may
occur when recruiting, hiring, promotion and other personnel decisions in favor of
members of a minority group result in discrimination against members of the
majority group.

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A 4-year study of 13,509 employees in scientific and engineering occupations found
that women and blacks had greater promotion opportunities than equally qualified
white men (Shenhav, 1992).

Persons hired or promoted on an affirmative action basis may be stigmatized in this
way.

New legislation notes that the rights of the majority group must not be unnecessarily
restrained in the effort to help minorities and that minorities should not be hired or
promoted solely on the basis of percentages.

Other targets of discrimination

Older workers

The work force is aging. Life expectancy is increasing and health in later life is
improving. At the same time, working lives have been getting shorter with a trend
towards early retirement. Old age formally starts at the point of retirement: 60 for
women, 65 for men, but older workers are considered the ones who are above 50
years of age.

However, management still prefers to hire younger workers, despite consistent
evidence from I/O psychology research that older workers are as productive and
sometimes more so, as younger workers and have lower absenteeism and turnover
rates. In general, older employees do not suffer from poorer health, diminished vigor
or declining mental abilities when compared with younger employees.

Studies of about 24,000 persons in nonmanagerial jobs in the manufacturing, clerical
and service sectors of the work force found that age was positively related to
performance in highly complex and cognitively challenging jobs and that performance
declined with age only in less demanding jobs such as low-level clerical or repetitive
assembly-line work (Avolio, Waldman & McDaniel, 1990).

However, the stereotypes about older workers persist. They receive more negative
performance evaluations than younger workers > a meta-analysis of studies of ratings
of older employees found that workers 34 years old and younger tended to give less
favorable ratings to workers aged 55 and older than they did to younger workers
(Finkelstein, Burke & Raju, 1995).

Older workers are protected by law against ageism (discrimination in hiring and
promotion with regard to age).

The emphasis in the developed world should shift from planning for early retirement
towards encouraging longer working lives.

In Finland, the government has taken an active approach towards the employment of
older people for some years > longitudinal research program: the ‘FinnAge project’
> developed the concept of work ability to assess the ability of workers to do their
job and to predict quality of life > increasing heterogeneity in work ability amongst
older groups of workers > Nation-level action programs to promote health and

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lifestyle, to make adjustments to the physical work environments and to design work
and organizational systems more carefully to the needs of older workers (adjustments
include improved workplace design to reduce the physical workload, regular updating
of professional skills and knowledge, and the introduction of more flexible scheduling
of work, for example, by introducing micro-pauses following peak loads).

Different countries have adopted different approaches to the issue of ageing, work and
health due to their policies towards labor market intervention as well as the
organization of their health care systems. A major factor is whether health care is
supported through employer-funded insurance or through general taxation.

Workers with disabilities

Employees with physical and mental disabilities are protected by law against job
discrimination. Employers are required to make reasonable accommodations to the
physical or mental impairments of a qualified applicant or employee with a disability
if it would not impose an undue hardship on normal business operations.

Defining the term disability has proven difficult and requires some 60 pages of
government regulations: in general, a person is considered disabled if s/he has a
physical or cognitive impairment that limits one or more major life activities.
[sensory impairment: vision or hearing disabilities, motor impairment, cognitive
impairment: learning disabilities, speech impairment, mental retardation].

Research has shown that disabled employees perform as well as or better than
nondisabled employees do.

Job opportunities for disabled persons vary as a function of type of disability: ppl with
impairments of vision, hearing or motor skills experience greater difficulty obtaining
employment than ppl with less disabling conditions.

Women workers

Women face discrimination particularly when applying for what are still considered to
be traditionally male jobs.
Once hired, women receive lower wages than men with similar skills and
qualifications that are performing the same jobs do.

Gender-based wage discrimination: lower pay for comparable worth.

Comparable worth: the idea that jobs that require comparable or equivalent skills
should receive comparable compensation.

Thus, discrimination against women today may occur less in the hiring process but
more in terms of pay and promotion.

Discrimination based on sexual orientation

Gay men and lesbian women face discrimination in hiring in public agencies and
private companies.

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Some companies, such as AT&T, Xerox and Levi Strauss actively sponsor support
groups and networks for their gay employees.

Discrimination based on physical attractiveness

Beautyism: judgment based on a pleasing physical appearance > has shown to
affect hiring and promotion decisions.

Many ppl believe that physically attractive persons also possess more desirable
personality and social traits.

A bias against overweight job applicants has also been found.

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Job Analysis

Job analysis: the study of a job to describe in specific terms the nature of the
component tasks performed by the workers.

Includes information about the tools or equipment used, the operations performed, the
education and training required, the wages paid and any unique aspects of the job
such as safety hazards.

Essential for employee selection and the design of training programs. Also, it helps in
the design of jobs and workspaces for more efficient performance.

Example: if an operator has to walk a long distance from the machine to the storage
shelves every time it is necessary to replenish the supply of raw material, this wasted
time and effort can be eliminated be redesigning the work area.

Job analysis can also uncover safety hazards or dangerous operating procedures.

It can also be applied to the development of job evaluations which are used to
determine appropriate wages for various jobs > in order to determine fair pay,
judgments are made by experts that are based on job analyses after the collection and
evaluation of data from large numbers of employees on such job-related factors as the
specific skills required, the level of education, the level of responsibility and the
consequences of making errors.

2 basic approaches to job analysis: the job-oriented approach and the worker-
oriented approach.

The job-oriented approach: focuses on the specific tasks involved in performing a
job and on the job outcome or level of productivity.

The worker-oriented approach focuses on worker behaviors on the job and on the
specific skills, abilities and personal traits needed to perform the job.

Most job analyses involve a combination of job-oriented and worker-oriented data.

Interviews: used in job analysis and involve extensive meetings with the persons
directly connected with the job: the workers performing the job and their supervisors,
and sometimes the instructors who trained the workers for the job. These interviews
may be supplemented by questionnaires.

Questionnaires: 2 types used: the unstructured one and the structured one.
In the unstructured or open-end approach, the subject matter experts describe in
their own words the components of the job and the tasks performed.

In the structured approach, workers and supervisors are provided with
descriptions of tasks, operations and working conditions and are asked to rate the
items or to select those items that characterize their jobs.

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Length of job experience and race have been shown to influence the content of the job
analysis. Level of education and gender have only minimal effects.

A widely used questionnaires is the PAQ: Position Analysis Questionnaire:
consists of 194 job elements related to specific behaviors. These elements are
organized into 6 categories of job behavior: information input, manila processes, work
output, relationships with other persons, job context and other job activities and
conditions. Subject matter experts rate each element for its importance to the job in
question. Such quantifiable ratings have an advantage over the kind of information
yielded by the unstructured questionnaire.

Direct observation: direct observation of the workers on the job.

But ppl may behave differently when they are being watched, so it is necessary for the
job analysts to remain as unobtrusive as possible. Also, they should observe a
representative sample of workers and make observations at various times throughout
the workday to take account of changes caused by such factors as fatigue.

Systematic Activity Logs: workers maintain a detailed written record of their
activities during a given period.

Critical Incidents: The critical-incidents technique is a means of identifying
specific actions or behaviors that lead to desirable or undesirable consequences on
the job.
It is based on identification of those incidents that are necessary to successful job
performance. The goal is to have subject matter experts indicate the behaviors that
differentiate good from poor workers. A single critical incident is of little value, but
hundreds of them can effectively describe a job task sequence in terms of the unique
behaviors required to perform it well.

Research comparing the effectiveness of various approaches to job analysis indicates
that they vary in their usefulness. The choice of a specific technique must depend on
the organization’s reasons for conducting the analysis in the first place. Unless the
purpose of the job analysis is stated (e.g. Refining a selection or training program),
the company cannot make an informed decision about which technique to use or what
kind of information to seek. But generally, a combination of methods provides for the
most accurate and comprehensive job descriptions.

Job analysis also prevents discrimination against groups of workers > equal
employment opportunity and successful selection programs are not possible without
it.

Selection techniques currently in use: biographical information forms, interviews,
references and letters of recommendation, assessment centers, polygraphs, integrity
tests, handwriting analysis, psychological tests.

Biographical information

Sometimes called biodata > standard application blanks and biographical inventories.

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Standard application blanks: a technique for compiling biographical information
about a job applicant.
Name, address, education, work experience, medical history, specific skills, criminal
convictions, interests, hobbies, reading habits, career goals.

Each relevant item on the application blank must be correlated with a later measure of
job success. If a high positive correlation is found, them that item can be used with
confidence to select new employees.

One problem is the honesty of the applicant’s responses. Some of this faking can be
reduced by follow-up interviews and by issuing advance warnings to the effect that
the information provided is subject to verification.

Many organizations attempt to confirm the accuracy of biographical information by
contacting former employers and the persons named as references. Nowadays,
however, many companies are reluctant to release personal information for fear of
lawsuits > hesitation to supply more than limited factual data. Few give evaluative
information such as performance ratings and responsibilities, or answer questions
such as why the employee left or whether the company would rehire the employee >
difficult to verify certain kinds of information obtained from an application.

Biographical inventories (or biographical information blank): an employee
selection technique covering an applicant’s past behavior, attitudes, preferences
and values. These questions are longer and more extensive than standard application
blanks.

Eg. How often have other students come to you for advice? How often do you feel
you needed more self-discipline?
(Human Relations) How do you regard your neighbors?
a. Not interested in your neighbors
b. Like them but seldom see them
c. Visit in each others’ homes occasionally
d. Spend a lot of time together

(Values, opinions and preferences) Which one of the following seems most important
to you?
a. A pleasant home and family life
b. A challenging and exciting job
c. Getting ahead in the world
d. Being active and accepted in community affairs
e. Making the most to your particular ability

Again to validate the items, each one is correlated with a measure of job performance.
They have high predictive value.
A study involving 2,535 US Army recruits found that many of the items asked on a
biographical inventory could be grouped into 4 personality factors: rugged/outdoors,
solid citizen, team sports/group orientation, and intellectual/achievement orientation.
The individual responses or scores on these factors showed a strong correlation with
the recruits’ identification with military service and their later decision to leave the
army before their term of enlistment was up (Mael & Ashforth, 1995).

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In a study of 1,523 college graduates, their responses on a biographical inventory
taken as first-year college students proved to be valid predictors of occupational status
16 to 21 years later. The data of greatest predictive value included academic
achievement, scientific interests, popularity and social activity (Snell, Stokes, Sands
& McBride, 1994). Faking occurs when applicants deliberately distort their responses
by giving answers they believe are more acceptable or desirable or that will present
them in a more favorable light.
To avoid it you can tell ppl that a scale to detect faking is built into the questionnaire
or that a special scoring system will lower their scores if they answer dishonestly.

In general, biographical inventories are not widely used in the world of work > a gap
btw research and application in I/O psychology.

Interviews

Last from a few minutes to a few hours.
It is a 2-way process: it provides a situation for the evaluation of a candidate’s
suitability for employment, but it also offers the opportunity for the candidates to
determine whether the company and the job are right for them.

The impression you make during an interview will be a decisive factor in whether the
organization offers you a job. Research has shown that interviewers’ assessments of
job applicants often are influenced more by their subjective impression of the
applicants than by such factors as work history, academic qualifications or
extracurricular activities. Personal qualities such as perceived attractiveness, likability
and skill at self-promotion are the key factors in the interviewers’ hiring
recommendations.
Impression management: acting deliberately to make a good impression, to present
oneself in the most favorable way.

Applicants usually take 2 approaches: ingratiation and self-promotion.
Ingratiation refers to behaviors that attempt to persuade the interviewer to like
you.
Self-promotion tactics include making comments about your accomplishments,
character traits or goals. Research has shown that these techniques are effective in
significantly influencing interviewers’ judgments. Self-promotion tactics are used
more frequently.

Unstructured interviews: interviews in which the format and questions asked are
left to the discretion of the interviewers.

It is possible that 5 interviewers conducting separate unstructured interviews with the
same applicant will receive 5 different impressions, as they might be interested in
different aspects of an applicant’s background, experience, attitudes >
Basic weakness: its lack of consistency (low reliability) in assessing candidates. Also
its predictive validity is low. But still most frequently used by organizations.

Structured interviews: interviews that use a predetermined list of questions that
are asked of every person who applies for a particular job.

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The procedure is standardized and the resulting assessment of the applicant is less
open to interviewer bias > higher predictive validity and high reliability.

Situational interviews: interviews that focus not on personal characteristics or
work experience but on the behaviors needed for successful job performance.
Questions about the behaviors needed to perform the job in question. These behaviors
are determined by a job analysis conducted by the critical-incidents technique. The
incidents are rephrased as questions to be used in the situational interview. Then the
responses indicate how the applicants would actually behave and they are scored
against the responses displayed by successful employees.

Situational interview results have been found to correlate positively with measures of
later job performance and to be more valid than structured interviews.
The best kind of interview for predicting job success would be both situational and
structured.

Another way to increase the predictive validity of interviews is to have them
conducted by a panel of 3 to 5 interviewers instead of one person > minimization of
possible bias.
Also, computer software has been used to conduct the initial interviews > computer-
assisted interviewing: applicants answer a fixed sequence of multiple-choice
questions at a computer terminal > is impersonal and is not favored by applicants for
high-status executive jobs, but other applicants tend to like it.

Biasing effects in interviews

3 factors can bias an interviewer’s judgment about a job applicant: a. prior
information, b. the contrast effect, c. interviewers’ prejudices >
we can reduce them by training interviewers to recognize their effects.

Prior information

May come from recruiter’s evaluations, applications or psychological tests. It may
predispose an interviewer to have a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward an
applicant.

In a study, 3 interviewers for a large energy corporation received the application and
test scores on 79 applicants prior to their interviews. Toward applicants the
interviewers were impressed with because of this prior information, the interviewers
behaved differently than they did toward those applicants they found not so
impressive. The interviewers showed a more positive regard, agreed with them more,
laughed, and were more encouraging, warm, understanding, approving and friendly.
They also spent more time selling the company and providing job information
(Dougherty, Turban & Callender, 1994).

The contrast effect

Interviewers see many job applicants, often one after another, and how they evaluate a
particular applicant may depend on their standards of comparison; that is, the
characteristics of the applicants they have interviewed previously. This shows that

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interviewers often do not have objective standards for the type of person considered to
be a suitable employee.

Interviewers’ prejudices

Men interviewers sometimes think that women employees are incapable of
performing certain jobs. Interviewers of both sexes are more likely to hire women for
so-called traditional female jobs, such as schoolteacher or nurse.
Older job applicants and persons with disabilities tend to receive lower evaluations
from interviewers. Interviewers have been found to show a same-race bias.
Halo effect: the tendency to judge all aspects of a person’s behavior or character
on the basis of a single attribute.

References and Letters of Recommendation

Not reliable as the persons providing them often present a false picture of the
applicant > past employers want to be kind, current employers who hope to get rid of
undesirable employees are harsh, professors write positive letters because they know
the students would be able to read their files in the university placement center. Fear
of lawsuits prevents organizations to supply evaluative information about former
employees. So, they are not used frequently anymore.

Assessment centers: Selection by simulation

Assessment center: a method of selection and training that involves a simulated job
situation in which candidates deal with actual job problems.

Situational testing: an early term for the assessment-center approach to employee
selection and performance appraisal in which subjects act in a simulated job setting
so that their behavior under stress can be observed and evaluated.
It was developed by the German army in the 1920s to select officer candidates of high
quality. It was first used in the US by psychologists during WWII by the forerunner of
today’s CIA (the Office of Strategic Services – OSS).

The use of situational testing in industry was pioneered by AT&T in the mid-1950s
and since then it was adopted by more than 2,000 organizations, including IBM, Ford
and Kodak.

Assessment centers usually involve 6-12 candidates at a time who are evaluated as
they work through a series of exercises over several days. Candidates are interviewed
extensively and may be given intelligence and personality tests, but most of their time
is devoted to exercises that are designed to simulate the actual problems of high-level
jobs. The major techniques for eliciting these work samples are the in-the-basket
exercise and the leaderless group discussion.

The in-basket technique: an assessment center exercise that requires job
applicants to process memos, letters and directives found in a typical manager’s in-
basket.
The applicants must process this material in a fixed period of time, demonstrating
precisely how they would handle the questions and problems on the job. After the

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exercise, they may be required to justify their decisions during interviews with the
assessors.

AT&T relies heavily on this exercise: each candidate playing the role of a manager
must process 25 items (memos, orders and correspondence) in 3 hours. The assessors
observe the candidates to see if they are systematic, establish priorities, decide to
delegate authority to subordinates, or become enmeshed in trivialities.

High degree of reliability but moderate validity in predicting managerial success.

The Leaderless Group Discussion: an assessment center exercise in which job
applicants meet to discuss an actual business problem under the pressure of time;
usually a leader emerges from the group to guide the discussion.

Check for leadership and communication skills each person displays. Some
participants become angry and their behavior may disrupt the group’s ability to
function. The contrast between those who can operate well under stress and those who
cannot becomes obvious.

The assessment center method sometimes uses oral presentations and role-playing.
In the oral presentation exercise, candidates are given a packet of information about
some aspect of corporate operations and they must organize this material and present
it to the group.
In role playing, the candidate acts out the role of manager in a simulated job situation.

Assessment centers have moderate predictive validity and less than 20% of companies
using them has evaluated their programs.

Some ppl believe that success in the assessment center depends more on being
articulate and personable than on actual competence at managerial tasks.

The assessment center experience also serves as a training exercise > managerial and
interpersonal skills are developed and refined by the feedback candidates receive from
their assessors.

Other selection techniques

Tests of physical strength: for jobs that require heavy labor (e.g. Firefighters).

Isometric tests are used: tests that include pitting one muscle against another or
against an immovable object.
I/O psychologists have suggested that occupational tasks can be described in terms of
3 components: a. muscular strength, b. cardiovascular endurance, and c. movement
quality.

Polygraphs: so-called lie detector machines that purport to measure deception and
dishonesty; they have no predictive value for employee selection.
Mostly used in the 1980s. They detect deception and dishonesty by measuring
physiological changes in heart rate, blood pressure, breathing rate and the galvanic
skin response (the electrical conductivity of the skin). Research has shown that the

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polygraph can easily be defeated through the use of such simple actions as pressing
the toes against the floor or counting backward by seven.
In 1988, the US Congress forbid private employers, but not the federal government,
from using the polygraph to test job applicants and employees. Exceptions were
allowed for drug companies, private security firms, and organizations whose work
involves public health, safety and national security.
Since then, the use of polygraphs has been virtually eliminated, replaced by the
integrity test: a paper-and-pencil test to predict and detect employee dishonesty.

Graphology: the study of handwriting; although proponents claim that graphology
is a valid predictor of job success, scientific research does not support this claim.
Still used a lot (France).

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