Reference no: EM133268845

The purpose of this discussion is to demonstrate your understanding and share your knowledge of assessing external candidates as part of the SELECTION process. Your textbook, Phillips, 5e, Strategic Staffing, covers a variety of evaluative assessment methods that involve some form of testing, simulation, or work sampling.

Personnel selection is the process by which companies decide who will or will not be allowed into organizations. Screening assessment methods narrow a pool of job applicants down to a smaller group of job candidates. Job candidates are then assessed in more depth using evaluative assessment methods to determine whom to hire.

Several generic standards should be met in any selection process. 

• Reliability and Validity were covered in Chapter 8 of the Phillips, 5e, textbook.
• Generalizability refers to the degree to which validity of a selection method established in one context extends to [or can be applied in] other contexts. Validity generalization is a three-step process:
  • First, the company provides evidence from previous validity studies conducted in other situations that shows that a specific test is a valid predictor for a specific job.
  • Second, the company provides evidence from a job analysis to document that the job it is trying to fill is like the job already validated elsewhere.
  • Finally, if the company can show that it uses a test that is the same as or like that used in the validated setting, then one can "generalize" the validity from the first context to the new context.
• Utility is the degree to which the information provided by selection methods enhances the bottom-line effectiveness of the organization. In general, the more reliable, valid, and generalizable the selection method is, the more utility [usefulness] it will have.
• Legality means selection methods should conform to existing laws and existing legal precedents. Employers who are taken to court for illegal discrimination experience high costs associated with litigation, settlements, and awards, and suffer potential damage to their social reputations as good employers, making staffing efforts--recruitment and selection--more difficult.

The first four build off each other in the sense that the preceding standard is often necessary but not sufficient for the one that follows. This is less the case with legal standards. However, a thorough understanding of the first four standards helps us understand the rationale underlying many legal standards.

Respond to this Question:

Assume that you were just rejected for a job based on one of the evaluative assessment [testing] methods explained in Chapter 9. Obviously, you might be disappointed and angry regardless of what method was used to make this decision but think of two or three methods that might leave you most distressed.  

• Identify which two or three evaluative assessment methods and why you would be upset for being rejected based on those methods.
• Explain why the Acceptability of the test to Applicants might be an important standard to add to the five described above.