Project on Recruitment and Selection

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

The recruitment and selection process is a matching activity between applicant and job and is fundamental to the functioning of an organisation. Inappropriate selection decisions reduce organizational effectiveness, invalidate reward and development strategies, are unfair on the individual recruit and are distressing for managers who have to deal with the personnel department’s mistakes.

Definitions:
Recruitment is the process which aims to attract suitably qualified candidates for a job from which it is possible to select a competent person
Selection is the application of techniques with the aim of selecting and appointing a competent person.

Recruitment

Pre-recruitment activity: 3 elements:

1. Is there a prima facie case for recruitment? • Is there actually a job to be done or can elements be distributed, eliminated or achieved through alternative means, e.g. contracting out? • Can the budget handle it? • Do workload predictions justify recruitment? • Does the hiring fit in with the business plan?

2. Job analysis Once a prima facie case has been established, job analysis provides the opportunity for assessing whether the job has changed and for reviewing knowledge, skills etc. needed for the job. It is a process of collecting information about a job. Its outputs are job descriptions and person specifications.

3. Analysing the labour market Definition: the identified pool of potential employees from which it is possible to attract candidates of required calibre for a specific job.

Internal Labour Market: existing staff can apply for vacancies Advantages: Motivation, continuity & retention, lower cost of recruitment Disadvantages: Restricting pool of available talent; difficult to implement change.

External Labour Market: e.g. local, regional, occupational Dynamic.

Employer aims to increase the supply of labour to the firm, so they can pay less for any given quality person. How? E.g. B &Q now take on older workers; schoolteachers from Australia and New Zealand now common in inner city areas; locate in areas of high unemployment (e.g. call centres in north east). In terms of the internal labour market, promotion criteria might be eased a little as the firm gets to know the worker and vice versa – increase match.

Of course, much of the discussion around recruitment is probably really about turnover, so an alternative approach is to hire people who will stay longer, perhaps older rather than younger workers in some industries. Also the use of Realistic Job Previews to give candidates a frank view of the job and organisation (including its negative aspects) so as to lower their expectations and increase commitment to the firm.

Use of recruitment methods

Too long and boring to rehearse here.
ACAS has code of practice, e.g. in advertising:

• Recruitment advertising should be genuine in that either a vacant job actually exists or recruiters seriously intend to consider applicants for employment • A person specification should be the basis for outlining the job requirements • The description of the organisation should be realistic, factual and clear • Job location, pay and allowances should normally be specified • Clear procedure instructions should be given • Adverts should not discriminate on the basis of sex, race, disability and membership or not of a trade union (except statutory).

Clearly, as the applicant can exit at any point, it is in the firm’s interest to be professional in its methods.

Selection

A discrimination decision based on ability and suitability of the candidate. The discrimination should be based on criteria which are valid and job-related.

First stage – elimination and reduction. E.g. screening via application form, telephone; shortlisting

Second stage – selection. Two main concepts here are validity and reliability

Criterion-related validity refers to the strength of the relationship between a predictor of performance and a criterion of performance, e.g.

Traditional predictors include: test scores, educational qualifications, interviews, letters of reference, and more modern ones include: drug testing, personality tests, graphology, assessment centres.

Criteria are those aspects of job performance that tests (interviews, etc.) would predict. Validity is high if those who score highly on predictors then score highly on job performance, and is measured in terms of a correlation coefficient, which can range from a perfect positive correlation of +1 to a perfect negative correlation of –1, with no correlation at all being 0. Quite unusual to find valid coefficients in excess of 0.5

The following table shows the validity of various selection techniques
Source: Anderson and Shackleton

|Selection tool |Validity |
|Assessment centre (promotions) |0.68 |
|Structured interviews |0.62 |
|Work samples |0.55 |
|Ability tests |0.54 |
|Assessment centres (new recruits) |0.41 |
|Biodata |0.4 |
|Personality tests |0.38 |
|Unstructured interviews |0.31 |
|References |0.13 |
|Graphology |0.00 |
|Telephone role plays |0.44 |

One way of collecting criterion-related validity data is to use a predictive (follow-up) design. This involves collecting predictor information e.g. interview ratings, test scores, for candidates and then following up the candidates e.g. during their first year of employment to gather criterion data on their work performance.

An alternative is to use the concurrent design, where predictor data are collected from existing employees for whom performance (criterion) data are already available. This is a quicker method, but there are disadvantages: current employees are a different group from applicants and may not be representative of the potential workforce as they have undergone a period of training with the firm and their skills may be the result of experience in the job and not underlying ability.

Other types of validity include:
Face validity – if, on the face of it, the task the applicant is asked to do looks right, e.g. asking a typist to take a typing test.
Content validity – testing all those skills that are needed in a particular job, e.g. a driving test must include an emergency stop
Construct validity – identifying psychological characteristics “constructs” like intelligence, stability, extraversion – all unobservable – that underlie success in the job.

Suppose we do a concurrent test and find that, in two groups, the test scores do not vary with the performance rankings.
e.g. a high test score and low performance – Type I error or a low test score and a high performance – Type II error
In practice, Type I errors are more likely to be found out, as one is more likely to hire those with better scores. Clearly, one can’t do validation studies on people one does not hire.
What are the ramifications of these hiring errors?

Reliability

A very important characteristic of any measuring technique, reliability refers to the consistency with which a test or interview provides similar results with the same candidate regardless of the tester or interviewer.

Multiple vs. single criteria.

How popular are selection methods?
Shackleton and Newell (1991)

|Selection tool |UK average popularity |
|Interviews |100% |
|References |96% |
|Application forms |93% |
|Ability tests |70% |
|Personality tests |64% |
|Assessment centres |59% |
|Biodata |19% |
|Graphology |3% |

How well do they work? I.e. are they: ← Sufficiently discriminatory between candidates ← Valid and reliable ← Fair ← Convenient ← Beneficial vs costly

Validation studies are often undertaken in order to assess the selection method used. Any one validation study is unable to provide a definite answer because it is done on a sample of relevant people in a specific organisation at a specific time. There may be problems with small sample size; there may be random errors in the measurement of psychological qualities which leads to no proper correlations; there may be a limited range of scores on a test which will also reduce the magnitude of the observed correlation coefficient.

How do we get round this? Meta—analysis — estimate the amount of sampling error in a set of studies and calculate a more accurate coefficient.

Taking each of the main selection tools in turn:

Interview

Most popular method in UK — >80% of organisations say they always use them, cf. only 60% in Germany. One management consultant says in a recent book that there are three things people think they’re good at: driving, making love and interviewing.

Meta—analysis shows that unstructured interviews are very unreliable. Structured interviews using job related questions only are better predictors. This is probably because it forces the interviewer to concentrate on the job and there is therefore less room for biased questioning.

Evidence shows that interviewers often make up their minds in the first few minutes, and spend the rest of the time confirming those first impressions.

Other problems with interviews:

1. Halo or horns effect — a single good or bad characteristic is given disproportionate weight.
2. Interviewer treats candidates better/worse on basis of similarity/dissimilarity to themselves.
3. Positive or negative expectancy — if interviewer has prior access to personal information re candidate.
4. Stereotypical assumptions.
5. Recency effect — the influence of earlier candidates clouds proper assessment of the current candidate.
6. Risk aversion — interviewer guards against making the wrong decision and places more emphasis on negative indicators at expense of positive.

Psychometric testing

5 broad categories:
1. Attainment tests — measure current levels of knowledge and skills.
2. General intelligence tests — measures intellectual capacity for thinking and reasoning.
3. Specific cognitive ability tests — e.g. verbal reasoning.
4. Trainability test — responsive to instruction.
5. Personality questionnaire — to infer individual’s personality traits.

It is generally agreed that the first four have good validity
Personality questionnaires are more controversial.

Popular tests include: Myers Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI) Cattell’s 16 Personality Factor (16PF) Saville and Holdsworth Occupational Personality Questionnaire

These tests are held to be more scientifically rigorous methods of assessing personality than, e.g. Freudian analysis. There is a belief that there are underlying personality traits that can be measured. A profile is obtained for each individual and then compared to the “best type” for a job.

It is generally agreed that there are the “big five” factors which explain the basic dimensions of personality:
1. Extraversion—introversion
2. Neuroticism
3. Conscientiousness
4. Agreeableness
5. Openness to experience

There is evidence to suggest that these are cross—cultural.

If done properly, and if used in conjunction with other tests, personality tests have fairly good validity. They can be cost—effective in large groups.

But there are problems with psychological tests:

1. Are they really scientifically rigorous?
2. Do they produce disparate outcomes on the basis of race/gender?
3. Are they Tayloristic, i.e. don’t take account of contingency factors as the firm wants one best personality type, possibly leading to the organisation demanding slavish conformity to established norms?
4. Do they measure only stated preferences, not behaviour?

Work sampling

e.g. ask a chef to prepare a meal. Can have high predictive validity and high face validity.
But very expensive in terms of time, resources.

Assessment Centres

A process whereby many selection techniques are integrated. Can include: group activity, presentation, in tray exercise, role play, interviews, psy. test.
Cost is considerable — only practical when there are a no. of candidates for critical positions. Eg. Ratio of assessor: candidate is often 1:2
Useful to discover behaviour relating to leadership, relationships, competitiveness, etc.

Biodata

Short for biographical data. Candidates are asked about family circumstances, attitudes, accomplishments, etc. and these are linked to effective performance. They are organisation specific, job specific and resource intensive. They have low construct validity.
The main objection to biodata is that this method is at odds with equal opportunities. E.g. if living in a certain part of town is correlated with good performance, it is probably that this is a proxy for something else, e.g. wealth.
They are very intrusive.

Graphology

Very low usage in UK but popular in France and Switzerland (75% or organisations use this)
Cheap and easy.
Not much research on its validity.

References

Widely used, but not very reliable.

Cost effectiveness

Using selection methods with good predictive validity is important but this does not guarantee that the procedure will be cost effective.

If validity were perfect, error—free selection could be achieved. The performance of candidates on scores would be reproduced in their work performance. Look up candidates’ z scores and adjust for validity coefficient.

(zs)(r)(T)(N) = financial benefit

where: zs = average z—score of group r = validity coefficient for selection procedure T = no. of years recruits will stay N = no. of recruits taken in one year

Can use this equation to calculate gains to be made from changing from one method to another, or the gains to be made by attracting a wider field of candidates via extensive advertising and offset the cost of the advert against financial gain derived from improved selection.

References: Widely used, but not very reliable. Cost effectiveness Using selection methods with good predictive validity is important but this does not guarantee that the procedure will be cost effective. If validity were perfect, error—free selection could be achieved. The performance of candidates on scores would be reproduced in their work performance. Look up candidates’ z scores and adjust for validity coefficient. (zs)(r)(T)(N) = financial benefit where: zs = average z—score of group r = validity coefficient for selection procedure T = no. of years recruits will stay N = no. of recruits taken in one year Can use this equation to calculate gains to be made from changing from one method to another, or the gains to be made by attracting a wider field of candidates via extensive advertising and offset the cost of the advert against financial gain derived from improved selection.