Personnel Selection Effectiveness

In the Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, the American Educational Research Association (1999) denotes five forms of evidence for use in evaluating a selection procedure for a specific application:

(a) relationships between predictor scores and other variables (e.g., test-criterion relationships),

(b) content,

(c) internal test structure,

(d) response processes, and

(e) testing consequences. Industrial/Organizational (I/O) practitioners need to be mindful of these considerations in test development and in choosing standardized tests for employee selection.

Effective personnel selection processes entail systematically implementing assessments to evaluate job-related knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs), and personality traits (Arabian, 2008). Establishing job requirements provides a firm foundation for selection, and it facilitates identifying appropriate assessments to cover all dimensions of a given job and the results of performing that job (outcomes).

Consequently, an effective selection process should include a variety of assessments measuring different aspects of a candidate with the ultimate goal of providing as full and accurate an assessment of as many job dimensions as possible (Arabian, 2008). Consider the assessments that you encountered before you were hired at a recent job.

Do you believe they were effective in capturing the multiple dimensions of that job? If outcomes were included, do you think they were necessary?

Post an explanation of what process should be used to determine the effectiveness of personnel selection effectiveness. Then, provide your position on whether multiple outcomes should be used in personnel selection. Provide concrete examples and citations from the Learning Resources and current literature to support your post.

Example:

According to the American Educational Research Association's (2014) Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing, the validation of employment testing begins with job analysis. It is necessary to identify the job behaviors and outcomes specified for the job employees are being selected for. This job analysis provides the empirical evidence necessary to link employment testing with job performance. There are two basic types of job analysis- deductive and inductive. Deductive job analysis utilizes extant knowledge of specific job that are available for use. Inductive job analysis develops new data about the specific job of interest (Whetzel& Wheaton, 2016).

The goal of selection testing is to draw inferences that test performance will predict job performance. This relationship can be established by identifying the link between predictors and performance and behavioral measures. A predictor construct domain is established by determining the knowledge, skills, abilities (KSAs), and traits that are included with certain constructs (e.g., reading comprehension).

Criterion constructs are job behaviors or outcomes such as performance and attendance (American Educational Research, 2014). There are a number of methods for establishing the validity for linking predictors and job criteria. Perhaps the most direct way is to validate evidence based on test content.

Test content is one form of employment-test validation established by American Educational Research Association's (2014) Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing. For example, a test for team leader position be to provide previous examples of how the candidate dealt with difficult team issues or how they would deal with challenging teamwork scenarios in the future. The content of such a test would directly relate to the necessary criterion of managing effective teams.

There are often many criteria established to determine the performance expectations of employees. Therefore, several job outcomes should be considered for selection purposes. All individuals have different strengths and taking a more holistic approach to selection should provide for a more diverse workforce.

With that said, employers should focus on key criteria that are important to their organization. An organization may have issues with attendance and therefore be interested in using a tool that will predict future attendance.

Only focusing on predicating attendance and turnover could be very problematic. The individuals selected may have good attendance but may not have the necessary skills and abilities to adequately perform their duties. Additionally, attendance may be related to an underlying organizational issue that needs to be addressed rather than the selection procedures.

References

American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, National ouncil on Measurement in Education, Joint Committee on Standards for Educational, & Psychological Testing (US). (2014). Standards for educational and psychological testing. American Educational Research Association.

Whetzel, D. L., & Wheaton, G. R. (Eds.). (2016). Applied measurement: industrial psychology in human resources management. Routledge.