TABLE OF CONTENTS When you have read this chapter and carried out the activities, you will be able to:
Explain the aims of the selection process.
Identify the different methods employed in the selection process.
Understand the purpose, value and drawbacks of the interview.
Carry out an interview and review its success.
Demonstrate the difference between ability and personality tests.
Assess the value of references and understand the circumstances where they may be successful.
Before we move into these areas in detail, let us examine, as a snapshot, the research carried out by Mike Smith and his colleagues at UMIST on the predictive accuracy of various selection methods. This is set out in Figure 5.1.
| 1.0 | Perfect prediction |
| 0.9 | ____________________________________ |
| 0.8 | ____________________________________ |
| 0.7 | ____________________________________ Assessment Centres promotion 0.68 |
| 0.6 | Structured Interviews 0.62 Work samples 0.55 |
| 0.5 | Ability tests 0.54 Assessment centres performance 0.44 |
| 0.4 | Biodata 0.40 Personality tests 0.38 |
| 0.3 | Unstructured interviews 0.31 |
| 0.2 | ____________________________________ |
| 0.1 | References 0.11 |
| 0 | Astrology 0.0 Graphology 0.0 |
It can be seen straight away that the traditional approach using unstructured interviews and references come out of this research very badly. (Incidentally, early research published in 1989 showed the conventional interview at an even more lowly 0.18!) Testing in one form or another achieve much better results. Having said this, it is worth reflecting on the fact that even the best methods achieve success in only around three out of four cases. We...
