Choosing Entrants into a Management Training Program - Come As You Are
Come As You Are, a convenience store chain headquartered in Fayetteville, Arkansas, has developed an assessment program to promote nonexempt employees into its management training program. The minimum entrance requirements into the program are five years of company experience, a college degree from an accredited university, and a minimum acceptable job performance rating (3 or higher on a 1-5 scale). Any interested applicant into the management program can enroll in the half-day assessment program, where the following assessments are made:
1. Cognitive ability test
2. Integrity test
3. Signed permission for background test
4. Brief (30-minute) interview by various members of the management team
5. Drug test
At the Hot Springs store, 11 applicants have applied for openings in the management training program. The selection information on the candidates is provided in the following exhibit. (The scoring key is provided at the bottom of the exhibit.) It is estimated that there are three slots in the program available for qualified candidates from the Hot Springs location.
EXHIBIT
Predictor Scores for Eleven Applicants to Management Training Program
Given this information and what you know about selection, as well as staffing decision making, answer the following questions:
1. How would you go about the process of making decisions about whom to select for the openings? In other words, without providing your decisions for the individual candidates, describe how you would weigh the various pieces of selection information to reach a decision.
2. Using the decision-making process from the previous question, which applicant would you select into the training program? Explain your decision.
3. Although the data provided in the exhibit reveal that all selection measures were given to all 11 candidates, would you advise Come As You Are to continue to administer all the predictors at one time during the half-day assessment program? Or, should the predictors be given in a sequence so that a multiple hurdles or combined approach could be used? Explain your recommendation.