CHAPTER 4

 ways to recruit employees

 explain job hunting methods
 discuss interviewing techniques
 offer some tips that you can use to help find and obtain a desired job.

WAYS TO RECRUIT EMPLOYEES

 Recruitment is attracting people with the right qualifications (as per indicated in the job
analysis) to apply for a job.
Steps in Selecting Employees:
Job Analysis -> Selection of Testing Methods -> Test Validation -> Recruitment ->
Screening -> Testing -> Selecting -> Hiring/Rejecting
External Recruitment - recruiting employees from outside the organization
Internal Recruitment - recruiting employees already employed by the organization
Internal promotions - either competitive or noncompetitive
- promotes employees from within
- risk of having a stale workforce that is devoid of the many new ideas
- balance between promoting current employees and hiring outside applicants is needed
Noncompetitive promotions – involve “career progression” positions
 usually result in a change of title as well as an increase in salary
Competitive Promotions – several internal applicants compete with one another (and
sometimes with external applicants) for a limited number of higher positions.

MEDIA ADVERTISEMENTS
Newspaper Ads
 a declining method of recruiting employees
 typically ask the applicant to respond in one of four ways:
1. respond by calling
2. apply-in-person ads
3. send-résumé ads: when the organization expects a large response and does not
have the resources to speak with thousands of applicants
4. blind box: Organizations use blind boxes for three main reasons: (1) the
organization doesn’t want its name in public; (2) the company might fear that people
wouldn’t apply if they knew the name of the company, and; (3) a company needs to
terminate an employee but wants first to find a replacement
Writing Recruitment Ads.
 realistic information and detailed descriptions of the job and organization provide
applicants with an idea of how well they would fit into an organization and result in
positive thoughts about it
Electronic Media
 can reach different types of audiences (ads can be easily targeted to the desired audience)
POINT-OF-PURCHASE METHODS
 job vacancy notices are posted in places where customers or current employees are likely
to see them (store windows, bulletin boards, restaurant placemats)
 advantage: inexpensive and it is targeted toward people who frequent the business
 disadvantage: only a limited number of people are exposed to the sign

RECRUITERS
Campus Recruiters
 many organizations send recruiters to college campuses to answer questions about
themselves and interview students for available positions
 Virtual job fair. A job fair held on campus in which students can “tour” a company
online, ask questions of recruiters, and electronically send résumés.
Other Recruiters
 More than 75% of organizations use such outside recruiting sources as private
employment agencies, public employment agencies, and executive search firms
 Private employment agencies and executive search firms are designed to make a profit
from recruitment activities, whereas public employment agencies are operated by state
and local public agencies and are strictly nonprofit

EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES AND SEARCH FIRMS

Employment Agencies
 operate in one of two ways: they charge either the company or the applicant when the
applicant takes the job.
Executive Recruiters
 better known as “head hunters,” differ from employment agencies in several ways.
1. the jobs they represent tend to be higher-paying
2. reputable executive search firms always charge their fees to organizations rather than
to applicants
3. fees charged by executive search firms tend to be about 30% of the applicant’s first-
year salary.
Public Employment Agencies
 can be of great value in filling blue-collar and clerical positions
 no cost involved and often government programs are also available that will help pay
training costs (recruiting kiosks are increasingly being used by employers that receive
large numbers of walk-in applicants)

EMPLOYEE REFERRALS
 A method of recruitment in which current employees recommend family members and
friends for specific job openings
 Most effective recruitment method according to a survey of HR professionals
  Some organizations provide financial incentives to employees who recommend
applicants who are hired but not all referrals are the same
 ex. explained by social psychology research, indicates that our friends tend to be similar
to us in characteristics such as personality, values, and interests.

DIRECT MAIL
 A method of recruitment in which an organization sends out mass mailings of
information about job openings to potential applicants.
 especially useful for positions involving specialized skills

INTERNET
 continues to be a fast-growing source of recruitment.
 reaches more people over a larger geographic area than do newspaper ads. Internet
recruiting efforts usually take one of three forms:
Employer-Based Websites
 an organization lists available job openings and provides information about itself and the
minimum requirements needed to apply to a particular job.
 level of sophistication varies across organization websites
 Research indicates that the effective employer-based websites contain information that
is detailed and credible, are easy to navigate, are aesthetically pleasing, are inter active,
and contain videos of employee testimonials regarding the company
Job Boards
 a private company whose website lists job openings for hundreds or thousands of
organizations and résumés for millions of applicants.
SOCIAL MEDIA
 With LinkedIn, an applicant can search for job openings by company and can email
professional connections
 With Twitter, applicants can connect to people that they may not know, but share
similar interests.
 On Facebook, applicants can inform their networks about status changes such as moving
or losing a job or about job openings with their company.

JOB FAIRS
 Typically conducted on one of three ways:
1. many types of organizations have booths at the same location
2. many organizations in the same field in one location
3. approach to a job fair is for an organization to hold its own
SPECIAL RECRUIT POPULATIONS
Increasing Applicant Diversity
 making efforts to recruit underrepresented groups; women, and minorities
 purpose is to highlight the organization’s openness to diversity in recruitment materials
NONTRADITIONAL POPULATIONS
 When traditional recruitment methods are unsuccessful, many organizations look for
potential applicants from nontraditional populations. (Ex. Borders teams with AARP to
actively recruit older, retired applicants to work at its bookstores.)

RECRUITING “PASSIVE” APPLICANTS

 the best” employees are already employed; recruiters try to find ways to identify this
hidden talent and then convince the person to apply for a job with their company.

EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF RECRUITMENT STRATEGIES

 to examine the number of applicants each recruitment source yields.
Ex. newspaper ad is better method than in-store sign
 to consider the cost per applicant. The amount of money spent on a recruitment
campaign divided by the number of people that subsequently apply for jobs as a result of
the recruitment campaign.
 to look at either the number of qualified applicants or the cost per qualified
applicant. The amount of money spent on a recruitment campaign divided by the
number of qualified people that subsequently apply for jobs as a result of the recruitment
campaign.
 to look at the number of minorities and women that applied for the job and
were hired.
 to determine differences in recruitment-source effectiveness
 Several theories might explain the superiority of inside sources.
1. The first theory suggests that rehires or applicants who are referred by other
employees receive more accurate information about the job than do employees
recruited by other methods (Wanous, 1980).
2. The second theory postulates that differences in recruitment-source effectiveness are
the result of different recruitment sources reaching and being used by different types
of applicants (Schwab, 1982).
3. A third theory might better explain the finding that employee referrals result in
greater tenure than do other recruitment strategies.

REALISTIC JOB PREVIEWS (RJP)

 A method of recruitment in which job applicants are told both the positive and the
negative aspects of a job; informed applicants will tend to stay on the job longer that
applicants who did not understand the nature of the job.
 A meta-analysis conducted by Earnerst, Allen, and Landis (2011): the perception of
company honesty was the driver of RJP success
 expectation-lowering procedure (ELP). A variation of the RJP. Unlike an RJP,
which focuses on a particular job, an ELP lowers an applicant’s expectations about work
and expectations in general
EFFECTIVE EMPLOYEE SELECTION TECHNIQUES
 valid, reduce the chance of a legal challenge, and cost-effective
 A valid selection test is one that is based on a job analysis (content validity), predicts
work-related behavior (criterion validity), and measures the construct it purports to
measure (construct validity).
 selection tests will reduce the chance of a legal challenge if their content appears to be
job related (face validity)

EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEWS
Types of Interviews
 Interviews vary on three main factors: structure, style, and medium.
Structure
 structured interview. one in which (1) the source of the questions is a job analysis
(job-related questions), (2) all applicants are asked the same questions, and (3) there is a
standardized scoring key to evaluate each answer
 unstructured Interview. one in which interviewers are free to ask anything they
want, are not required to have consistency in what they ask of each applicant, and may
assign numbers of points at their own discretion.
 highly structured (all three criteria are met), moderately structured (two criteria are
met), slightly structured (one criterion is met), and unstructured (none of the three
criteria are met).
Style
 One-on-one interviews involve one interviewer interviewing one applicant.
 Serial interviews involve a series of single interviews.
 Return interviews are similar to serial interviews with the difference being a passing of
time between the first and subsequent interview.
 Panel interviews have multiple interviewers asking questions and evaluating answers of
the same applicant at the same time, and
 group interviews have multiple applicants answering questions during the same
interview.
Medium
 face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews, videoconference interviews, and
written interviews

Advantages of Structure Interviews

 One, structured interviews are based on a job analysis.
 Two, structured interviews result in substantially lower adverse impact than do
unstructured interviews
 structured interviews can add predictive power (called incremental validity) to the use of
cognitive ability tests.
Problems with Unstructured Interviews
 eight factors that contribute to the poor reliability and validity of the unstructured
interview: poor intuitive ability, lack of job relatedness, primacy effects, contrast effects,
negative-information bias, interviewer-interviewee similarity, interviewee appearance,
and nonverbal cues.

Creating a Structured Interview

 To create a structured interview, information about the job is obtained (job analysis) and
questions are created that are designed to find out the extent to which applicants’ skills
and experiences match those needed to successfully perform the job.

Creating Interview Questions

 there are six types of interview questions: clarifiers, disqualifiers, skill-level determiners,
past-focused, future-focused, and organizational fit.
 Clarifiers allow the interviewer to clarify information in the résumé, cover letter, and
application, fill in gaps, and obtain other necessary information.
 Disqualifiers are questions that must be answered a particular way or the applicant is
disqualified.
 Skill-level determiners tap an interviewee’s level of expertise.
 Future-focused questions, also called situational questions, ask an applicant what
she would do in a particular situation.
 Past-focused questions. A type of structured-interview question that taps an
applicant’s experience (previous behavior), sometimes referred to as patterned-
behavior description interviews (PBDIs)
 Organizational-fit questions. A type of structured-interview question that taps how
well an applicant’s personality and values will fit with the organizational culture.

Creating a Scoring Key for Interview Answers

right/wrong approach
typical-answer approach
 to create a list of all possible answers to each question, have subject-matter experts
(SMEs) rate the favorableness of each answer, and then use these ratings to serve as
benchmarks for each point on a five-point scale.

key-issues approach.
 SMEs create a list of key issues they think should be included in the perfect answer. For
each key issue that is included, the interviewee gets a point.
 Psychologist Pete DiVasto uses the key-issues approach when he interviews
applicants for law enforcement positions.
Conducting the Structured Interview
 build rapport; do not begin asking questions until applicants have had time to “settle
their nerves.”
 set the agenda for the interview by explaining the process
 ask the interview questions
 provide information about the job and the organization.
 answer any questions the applicant might have.
 end the interview on a pleasant note by complimenting the and letting her know when
you will be contacting the applicant about job offers.
 At the conclusion of the interview, the scores from the questions are summed and the
resulting figure is the applicant’s interview score.

JOB SEARCH SKILLS

Successfully Surviving the Interview Process
 Receiving interview training and practicing interviewing skills are good ways to reduce
interview anxiety.
Before the Interview
 learn about the company
 dress neatly and professionally, and adjust your style as necessary to fit the situation
 avoid wearing accessories such as flashy large earrings and brightly colored ties
During the Interview
 nonverbal behaviors should include a firm handshake, eye contact, smiling, and head
nodding.
 desired verbal behaviors include asking questions, not asking about the salary, not
speaking slowly, and not hesitating before answering questions.
After the Interview
 write a brief letter or email thanking the interviewer for her time

Writing Cover Letters

 Cover letters tell an employer that you are enclosing your résumé and would like to apply
for a job. (should never be longer than one page)
 contain a salutation, four basic paragraphs, and a closing signature
Paragraphs
 The opening paragraph should be one or two sentences long and communicate three
pieces of information: the fact that your résumé is enclosed, the name of the job you are
applying for, and how you know about the job opening
 The second paragraph states that you are qualified for the job and provides about three
reasons why. This paragraph should be only four or five sentences in length and should
not rehash the content of your résumé.
  The third paragraph explains why you are interested in the particular company to which
you are applying.
 The final paragraph closes your letter and provides information on how you can best be
reached. Though your phone number will be on your résumé, this paragraph is a good
place to tell the employer the best days and times to reach you

Writing a Résumé
 Résumés are summaries of an applicant’s professional and educational background.
Views of Résumés
 Résumés written as an advertisement of skills tend to be shorter and contain only
information that is both positive and relevant to a job seeker’s desired career.
Characteristics of Effective Résumés
 three rules that must be followed in writing résumés:
1. The résumé must be attractive and easy to read. To achieve this, try to leave at least
a 1-inch margin on all sides, and allow plenty of white space; that is, do not “pack”
information into the résumé by using smaller fonts and margins.
2. The résumé cannot contain typing, spelling, grammatical, or factual mistakes.
3. The résumé should make the applicant look as qualified as possible— without lying.
If including hobbies, summer jobs, and lists of courses will make you look more
qualified for this particular job, then by all means, include them.
Types of Résumés
1. Chronological résumé
 A résumé in which jobs are listed in order from most to least recent.
2. Functional résumé
 A résumé format in which jobs are grouped by function rather than listed in order by
date.
3. Psychological résumé
 A résumé style that takes advantage of psychological principles pertaining to memory
organization and impression formation.
CHAPTER 5
 discuss non-interview selection techniques used by I/O psychologists

PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING REFERENCES AND LETTERS OF

RECOMMENDATION
- Verifying previous employment is not difficult, but it can be difficult to verify the quality
of previous performance.
- reference check. the process of confirming the accuracy of information provided by an
applicant.
- reference. the expression of an opinion, either orally or through a written checklist,
regarding an applicant’s ability, previous performance, work habits, character, or
potential for future success.
- letter of recommendation. a letter expressing an opinion regarding an applicant’s
ability, previous performance, work habits, character, or potential for future success.

Reasons for Using References and Recommendations

Confirming Details on a Résumé
- résumé fraud—lying on their résumés about what experience or education they actually
have.
Checking for Discipline Problems
- determine whether the applicant has a history of such discipline problems as poor
attendance, sexual harassment, and violence.
Discovering New Information About the Applicant
- reference checkers should always obtain specific behavioral examples and try to get
consensus from several references.
Predicting Future Performance
- low validity is largely due to four main problems with references and letters of
recommendation: leniency, knowledge of the applicant, low reliability, and extraneous
factors involved in writing and reading such letters.
Leniency
- applicants choose their own references!
- confidentiality concerns can hold coworker’s negative things about employees
- A third cause of leniency stems from the fear of legal ramifications.
- A person providing references can be charged with defamation of character (slander if
the reference is oral, libel if written) if the content of the reference is both untrue and
made with malicious intent.
 - people providing references are granted what is called a conditional privilege, which
means that they have the right to express their opinion provided they believe what they
say is true and have reasonable grounds for this belief
- Negligent reference. An organization’s failure to meet its legal duty to supply relevant
information to a prospective employer about a former employee’s potential for legal
trouble.
Knowledge of the Applicant
- A second problem with letters of recommendation is that the person writing the letter
often does not know the applicant well, has not observed all aspects of an applicant’s
behavior, or both.
Reliability
- The third problem with references and letters of recommendation involves the lack of
agreement between two people who provide references for the same person.
- The problem with reliability is so severe that there is more agreement between
recommendations written by the same person for two different applicants than between
two people writing recommendations for the same person
Extraneous Factors
- The fourth problem with letters of recommendation concerns extraneous factors that
affect their writing and evaluation.
- A promising approach to increasing the validity of references is to increase the structure
of the reference check. This can be done by conducting a job analysis and then creating a
reference checklist that is tied directly to the job analysis results.
Ethical Issues
- Because providing references and letters of recommendation is a rather subjective
process, several ethical problems can arise involving their use.
- Raynes (2005) lists three ethical guidelines that reference providers should follow.
1. explicitly state your relationship with the person you are recommending.
2. be honest in providing details.
3. let the applicant see your reference before sending it, and give him the chance to
decline to use it.

PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT TRAINING AND EDUCATION

- A meta-analysis by Ng and Feldman (2009) found that better educated employees had
higher performance, were more likely to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors,
less likely to be absent, and less likely to engage in on-the-job substance abuse than were
employees with lower levels of education.

PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT KNOWLEDGE

- A meta-analysis by Dye, Reck, and McDaniel (1993) indicates that job knowledge tests
are good predictors of both training performance and on-the-job performance. Because
of their high face validity, they are positively accepted by applicants
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT ABILITY
- Ability tests tap the extent to which an applicant can learn or perform a job-related skill.
- Ability tests are used primarily for occupations in which applicants are not expected to
know how to perform the job at the time of hire. Instead, new employees will be taught
the necessary job skills and knowledge.

Cognitive Ability
- Abilities involving the knowledge and use of information such as math and grammar.
- Cognitive ability test. Tests designed to measure the level of intelligence or the amount
of knowledge possessed by an applicant.
- Cognitive ability is thought to predict work performance in two ways: by allowing
employees to quickly learn job-related knowledge and by processing information
resulting in better decision making
- Because cognitive ability tests have the highest level of adverse impact of any employee
selection method, it is not surprising that they also are frequently challenged in court.
- Wonderlic Personnel Test. The cognitive ability test that is most commonly used in
industry. (12mins; group setting; popular)
- A potential breakthrough in cognitive ability tests is the Siena Reasoning Test (SRT).
The developers of this test theorized that the large race differences in scores on
traditional cognitive ability tests were due to the knowledge needed to understand the
questions rather than the actual ability to learn or process information (intelligence).
Perceptual Ability
- Perceptual ability consists of vision (near, far, night, peripheral), color discrimination,
depth perception, glare sensitivity, speech (clarity, recognition), and hearing (sensitivity,
auditory attention, sound localization)
Psychomotor Ability
- Psychomotor ability includes finger dexterity, manual dexterity, control precision,
multilimbed coordination, response control, reaction time, arm-hand steadiness, wrist-
finger speed, and speed-of-limb movement
Physical Ability
- Physical ability tests measure an applicant’s level of physical ability required for a job.
- Job Relatedness
- Passing Scores
- When the Ability Must Be Present

PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING APPLICANT SKILL

Work Samples
- With a work sample, the applicant performs actual job-related tasks.
- Work samples are excellent selection tools for several reasons.
1. because they are directly related to job tasks, they have excellent content validity
2. scores from work samples tend to predict actual work performance and thus have
excellent criterion validity
 3. because job applicants are able to see the connection between the job sample and the
work performed on the job, the samples have excellent face validity
4. work samples have lower racial differences in test scores than do written cognitive
ability tests
- drawback: can be expensive to both construct and administer
- Limit: best used for well-paying jobs for which many employees will be hired
Assessment Centers
- selection technique characterized by the use of multiple assessment methods that allow
multiple assessors to actually observe applicants perform simulated job tasks
- advantage: all job-related and multiple trained assessors help to guard against many (but
not all) types of selection bias
- According to the International Task Force on Assessment Center Guidelines (2009), for
a selection technique to be considered an assessment center, it must meet the following
requirements:
o The assessment center activities must be based on the results of a thorough job
analysis.
o Behaviors displayed by participants must be classified into meaningful and
relevant categories such as behavioral dimensions, attributes, characteristics,
aptitudes, qualities, skills, abilities, competencies, or knowledge.
o Multiple assessment techniques must be used and the assessments must provide
information about the applicant that was determined as being important in the
job analysis.
o At least one of the assessment techniques must be a job simulation.
o Multiple trained assessors must be used.
o Behavioral observations must be documented at the time the applicant behavior
is observed.
o Assessors must prepare a report of their observations.
o The overall judgment of an applicant must be based on a combination of
information from the multiple assessors and multiple techniques.
Development and Components
- From job analysis, exercises are developed that measure different aspects of the job.
Common exercises include:
- In-basket technique. An assessment center exercise designed to simulate the types of
information that daily come across a manager’s or employee’s desk in order to observe
the applicant’s responses to such information
- Simulation. An exercise designed to place an applicant in a situation that is similar to the
one that will be encountered on the job.
- Work sample. A method of selecting employees in which an applicant is asked to
perform samples of actual job-related tasks
- Leaderless Group Discussions. In this exercise, applicants meet in small groups and are
given a job-related problem to solve or a job-related issue to discuss.
 - Business game. An exercise, usually found in assessment centers, that is designed to
simulate the business and marketing activities that take place in an organization.

Evaluation of Assessment Centers

- Though assessment center scores are good predictors of performance, it has been argued
that other methods can predict the same criteria better and less expensively than
assessment centers
PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING PRIOR EXPERIENCE
Experience Ratings
- The basis for experience ratings is the idea that past experience will predict future
experience.
- In giving credit for experience, one must consider the amount of experience, the level of
performance demonstrated during the previous experience, and how related the
experience is to the current job.
Biodata
- a biodata instrument is an application blank or questionnaire containing questions that
research has shown measure the difference between successful and unsuccessful
performers on a job. Each question receives a weight that indicates how well it
differentiates poor from good performers. The better the differentiation, the higher the
weight. Biodata instruments have several advantages:
o Research has shown that they can predict work behavior in many jobs, including
sales, management, clerical, mental health counseling, hourly work in processing
plants, grocery clerking, fast-food work, and supervising.
o They have been able to predict criteria as varied as supervisor ratings,
absenteeism, accidents, employee theft, loan defaults, sales, and tenure.
o Biodata instruments result in higher organizational profit and growth (Terpstra &
Rozell, 1993).
o Biodata instruments are easy to use, quickly administered, inexpensive, and not
as subject to individual bias as interviews, references, and résumé evaluation.

PREDICTING PERFORMANCE USING PERSONALITY, INTEREST, AND

CHARACTER
Personality Inventories
- A psychological assessment designed to measure various aspects of an applicant’s
personality
Tests of Normal Personality
- measure the traits exhibited by normal individuals in everyday life.
- Determination of the number and type of personality dimensions measured by an
inventory can usually be (1) based on a theory, (2) statistically based, or (3) empirically
based.
Tests of Psychopathology (abnormal behavior)
- determine whether individuals have serious psychological problems
 - Though used extensively by clinical psychologists, these tests are seldom used by I/O
psychologists except in the selection of law enforcement officers.
- Projective tests provide the respondent with unstructured tasks
- Objective tests are structured so that the respondent is limited to a few answers that will
be scored by standardized keys.
Interest Inventories
- Strong Interest Inventory (SII), most commonly used interest inventory, asks
individuals to indicate whether they like or dislike 325 items such as bargaining,
repairing electrical wiring, and taking responsibility.
- Interest inventories are useful in vocational counseling (process of helping an individual
choose and prepare for the most suitable career).
Integrity Tests (honesty tests)
- tell an employer the probability that an applicant would steal money or merchandise.
Conditional Reasoning Tests
- initially developed by James (1998) to reduce these inaccurate (faking) responses and get
a more accurate picture of a person’s tendency to engage in aggressive or
counterproductive behavior.
Credit History
- conducted for two reasons: (1) Employers believe that people who owe money might be
more likely to steal or accept bribes, and (2) employees with good credit are more
responsible and conscientious and thus will be better employees.
Graphology
- Also called handwriting analysis, a method of measuring personality by looking at the
way in which a person writes

PREDICTING PERFORMANCE LIMITATIONS DUE TO MEDICAL AND

PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
Drug Testing
- most controversial testing methods used by HR professionals
Psychological Exams
- usually consist of an interview by a clinical psychologist, an examination of the
applicant’s life history, and the administration of one or more of the psychological tests
discussed earlier in this chapter.
- Useful in jobs involving public safety
Medical Exams
- In jobs requiring physical exertion, many employers require that a medical exam be
taken after a conditional offer of hire has been made.
Comparison of Techniques
Validity
- the most valid selection battery includes a cognitive ability test and either a work sample,
an integrity test, or a structured interview
Legal Issues
REJECTING APPLICANTS
- Rejection letter. A letter from an organization to an applicant informing the applicant
that he or she will not receive a job offer.
- Rejected applicants should be treated well because they are potential customers and
potential applicants for other positions that might become available in the organization