Employee Testing Selection

Unit 5.1: Selection & its Importance

Why Careful Selection is Important
• Process of choosing individuals who have relevant
qualifications to fill jobs in an organization.
• Selecting the appropriate set of knowledge, skills,
and abilities (KSAs)
• Fit between the applicant and organization affects
both employer’s willingness to make a job offer
and applicant’s willingness to accept a job.
• Fitting a person to the right job is called
placement.
 Avoiding Negligent Hiring Claims
• Carefully scrutinize information on employment
applications.
• Get written authorization for reference checks, and
check references.
• Save all records and information about the applicant.
• Reject applicants for false statements or conviction
records for offenses related to the job.
• Balance the applicant’s privacy rights with others’ “need
to know.”
• Take immediate disciplinary action if problems arise.
 Unit 5.2: Basis of Testing and Selection

• While testing and selecting the employee, one

must know that if the candidate has required:
– Knowledge
– Skill
– Ability
• If not, Is he able to learn so?
 Basic Testing Concepts
Reliability
• Describes the consistency of scores obtained by the
same person when retested with the identical or
alternate forms of the same test.
• Are test results stable over time? (f.e: SAT)
Validity
• Indicates whether a test is measuring what it is
supposed to be measuring.
• Does the test actually measure what it is intended to
measure?
Types of Validity
 Types of Validity
Criterion validity
• means demonstrating that those who do well on the test also do well
on the job, and that those who do poorly on the test do poorly on the
job.
• In psychological measurement, a predictor is the measurement (in this
case, the test score) that you are trying to relate to a criterion, such as
performance on the job.
Content Validity
• Employers demonstrate the content validity of a test by showing that
the test constitutes a fair sample of the job’s content.
• The basic procedure here is to identify job tasks that are critical to
performance, and then randomly select a sample of those tasks to test.
Evidence-Based HR: How to Validate a Test
FIGURE 6–2 Examples of Web Sites Offering Information on Tests or Testing Programs
 Test Takers’ Individual Rights and Test
Security
Under the American Psychological Association (APA)’s standard
for educational and psychological tests, test takers have the
following rights:
• The right to the confidentiality of test results.
• The right to informed consent regarding use of these results.
• The right to expect that only people qualified to interpret the
scores will have access to them, or that sufficient information
will accompany the scores to ensure their appropriate
interpretation.
• The right to expect the test is fair to all. For example, no one
taking it should have prior access to the questions or answers.
 How Do Employers Use Tests at Work?
Major Types of Tests
• Basic skills tests (the ability to read instructions, write
reports, and do arithmetic adequate to perform common
workplace tasks)
• Job skills tests
• Psychological tests
• Why Use Testing?
• Increased work demands = more testing
• Screen out bad or dishonest employees
• Reduce turnover by personality profiling
Unit 5.3: Types of Tests
Cognitive abilities
• include tests of general reasoning ability (intelligence) and tests of specific
mental abilities like memory and inductive reasoning.
Motor and Physical abilities
• Tests of motor and physical abilities measure motor abilities, such as finger
dexterity, manual dexterity, and reaction time.
Personality and interests
• Personality tests measure basic aspects of an applicant’s personality, such as
introversion, stability, and motivation.
Current achievement
• Achievement tests measure what someone has learned.
• Most of the tests you take in school are achievement tests. They measure your
“job knowledge” in areas like economics, marketing, or human resources.
Sample Test
 Computerized and Online Testing
Online tests
• Telephone prescreening
• Offline computer tests
• Virtual “inbox” tests
• Online problem-solving tests
Types of Tests
• Specialized work sample tests
• Numerical ability tests
• Reading comprehension tests
• Clerical comparing and checking tests
Unit 5.4: Work Samples and Simulations
 Work Samples and Simulations
• Work Sample tests are based on the premise that
the best predictor of future behavior is observed
behavior under similar situations. These tests require
the examinee to perform tasks that are similar to
those that are performed on the job
• Simulation tests are used to assess how you would
react to situations you can encounter while working
and how you would solve problems.
Video- based situational testing
• Presents the candidate with several online or
PC- based videos scenarios, each followed by
multiple choice question.
Miniature job training and evaluation
• Means training candidates to perform several
of job’s tasks, and then evaluating the
candidates’ performance prior to hire.
Unit: 5.5: Background information
Limitations on Background Investigations and
Reference Checks
 Making Background Checks More Useful
1. Include on the application form a statement for applicants
to sign explicitly authorizing a background check.
2. Use telephone references if possible.
3. Be persistent in obtaining information.
4. Compare the submitted résumé to the application.
5. Ask open-ended questions to elicit more information from
references. (How much structure does the applicant need
in his/her work?)
6. Use references provided by the candidate as a source for
other references.
The Polygraph and Honesty Testing
• Polygraph (or lie detector) is a device that measures
physiological changes like increased perspiration.
• The assumption is that such changes reflect changes in
emotional state that accompany lying.

 Paper and pencil honesty tests

 Psychological tests designed to predict job applicants’
proneness to dishonesty and other forms of counter
productivity.
 Most of these tests measure attitudes regarding things like
tolerance of others who steal, acceptance of rationalizations
for theft.
 Honesty Testing Programs:
What Employers Can Do
• Antitheft Screening Procedure:
 Ask blunt questions.
 Have you ever stolen anything from an employer?
 Have you ever been fired or asked to leave a job?
 Listen, rather than talk.
 Do a credit check.
 Check all employment and personal references.
 Use paper-and-pencil honesty tests and psychological tests.
 Test for drugs.
 Establish a search-and-seizure policy and conduct searches.
 Graphology
• Graphology refers to the use of handwriting
analysis to determine the writer’s basic
personality traits.
• Graphology has some resemblance to
projective personality tests, although
graphology’s validity is highly suspect.
 Physical Examinations
• Reasons for preemployment medical examinations:
 To verify that the applicant meets the physical requirements of the
position.
 To discover any medical limitations to be taken into account in
placing the applicant.
 To establish a record and baseline of the applicant’s health for
future insurance or compensation claims.
 To reduce absenteeism and accidents.
 To detect communicable diseases that may be unknown to the
applicant.
 Substance Abuse Screening
• Types of Screening
 Before formal hiring
 After a work accident
 Presence of obvious behavioral symptoms
 Random or periodic basis
 Transfer or promotion to new position
• Types of Tests
 Urinalysis
 Hair follicle testing