Employee Selection/Recruitment

Employee Selection/Recruitment

• Selection approach

• Training approach

• Planning —> Acquiring applicants —> Selecting applicants —> Hiring

Selection Approach

• Less expensive

• Letting go employees who are not showing good performance and finding new ones (Finding better employees)

Training Approach

• Use an internal source and offer them training to try to make them better so they have a better fit

Steps in Selecting Employees

• Job analysis

• Selection of testing methods

• Test validation

• Recruitment

• Screening

• Testing

• Selecting

• Hiring/rejecting

Planning and Recruitment

• Anticipating needs for human resources

  • Expansion vs replacements

• Recruitment

  • Advertising

  • Employee referral

  • Employment agencies

  • School recruiters

  • Walk-ins

  • The web

• In competitive jobs, many companies fight for the same employees

• Inside sources (i.e., referrals and transfers) perform better

• The web has made recruiting more efficient

Recruitment Methods: Ads, Agencies, and Recruiters

• Media advertisements

• Recruiters

• Employment agencies and search firms

• Employee referrals

• Direct mail

• Writing recruitment ads

Media Advertisements

• Newspaper ads

• Electronic media

Recruiters

• Campus recruiters

• Outside recruiters

Employement Agencies and Search Firms

• Employment agencies

• Executive search firms

• Public employement agencies

Writing Recruitment Ads

• Realistic information

• Detailed description of the job and organization

• Selection process information

Recruitment Methods: Online and In Person

• Internet

  • Employer-based websites

  • Job boards

• Social media

• Job marketplace

• Job fairs

Selecting Employees

• Hope to recruit numerous good applicants

• More selective an organization can be, greater change of hiring successful employees

• Criterion - definition of good employee performance on that specific position

• Predictor - anything that relates to the criterion

• Determine if predictor relates to criterion by using a validation study

Criterion and Predictor Examples

• Sales representative

  • C: Actual sales rates

  • P: Sales aptitude test

• Software developer

  • C: coding quality/efficiency, successful project completion

  • P: emotional intelligence test, customer interaction roleplay

Conducting a Validation Study

1. Conduct a job analysis

2. Specify job performance criteria

3. Choose predictors (i.e., psychological tests or interviews)

4. Validate the predictors (concurrent vs predictive)

5. Cross-validate (validity generalization

Using Predictor Information for Selection

• Multiple hurdles

  • Must pass each criterion cutoff to be considered

  • Can save expensive tests for only best applicants

• Regression approach

  • Uses scores from each predictor in an equation to estimate criterion

  • Low score in one area can be outweighed by other high scores in another

• Combination of hurdles and regression

• Alternatives to validation studies

  • i.e., previously validated selection tools

Getting Applicants to Accept Offers

• Selection is of little value if employees do not accept and keep job offers

  • Positive recruitment process

  • Comparable salary benefits

  • Cafeteria benefits

• Realistic Job Preview (RJP)

Realistic Job Preview (RJP)

• Give applicants accurate information about job and organization

• Reduce number of acceptances

• Increase job performance and job satisfaction

Establishing the Usefulness of a Selection Device

• Utility: the degree to which a selection device improves the quality of a personnel system, above and beyond what would have occurred had the instrument not been used

Selection Works Best When:

• You have many job openings

• You have many more applicants than openings

• You have a valid test

• The job in question has a high salary

• The job is not easily performed or easily trained

Utility

• Value of selection system to the organization

• Utility analysis: Taylor-Russell Tables

• Valid predictors increase true positives and reduce false positives

• Must determine if benefits to the organization outweigh the costs of the selection devices

Utility Analysis: Taylor-Russell Tables

• Utility is maximized by

  • Base rate - (successful employees + total employees)

  • Selection ratio (hired applicants + applicants)

  • Validity of selection device - should be high

Using the Utility Formula and Tables

• A hypothetical employment situation:

  • You have 500 applicants and 250 job openings. The validity of your proposed test, the Reilly Statistical Logic Test is .40, and the test costs $10 per applicant to administer.

  • You have 1000 current employees, 800 of whom are satisfactory.

  • The salary for the position is $70,000, and the typical employee stays for four years. Currently, you are using the Tribble Math test with a validity of .30, which costs $15 per applicant to administer.

• On the basis of the Taylor-Russell Tables, what percentage of future employees will be successful?

• Answer

  • Selection Ratio 250 ÷ 500 = 0.50

  • Base rate 800 ÷ 1000 = 0.80

  • Validity 0.40

  • % of future successful employees 89%

Proportion of Correct Decisions: Method

• Proportion of Correct Decisions with Test

• Baseline of Correct Decisions

 

Proportion of Correct Decisions with Test

• (Correct rejections + correct acceptances) ÷ Total employees

•  Quadrant IV                      Quadrant II               Quadrants I + II + III + IV

Baseline of Correct Decisions

• Successful employees ÷ Total employees

• Quadrants I + II                  Quadrants I + II + III + IV

Proportion of Correct Decisions: Computed

• Proportion of correct decisions with test

  • (10 + 11) ÷ (5 + 10 + 4 + 11)

  • Quad. II    Quad IV     Quadrants I + II + III + IV

  • = 21 ÷ 30 = 0.70

• Baseline of correct decisions

  • 5 + 10          ÷        5 + 10 + 4 + 11

  • Quad. I + II            Quad.  I + II + III + IV

  • = 15 ÷ 30 = 0.50

International Differences in Selection

• Personality and cognitive ability tests are the most popular

• Less valid procedures used more widely

• Laws and regulations

  • Laws shape selection in most developed countries

  • Unions in many European countries