PRESENTER: After the recruitment process has produced a pool of qualified candidates, the selection process is used to determine which applicants have the best chance of performing well on the job. Selection is the process of gathering information about job applicants to decide who should be offered a job.

To make sure that selection decisions are accurate and legally defendable, the EEOC's-- or Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's uniform guidelines on employee selection procedures recommend that all selection procedures be validated. Validation is the process of determining how well a selection test or procedure predicts future job performance. The better or more accurate the prediction of future job performance, the more valid a test is said to be.

The next selection devices that the most job applicants encounter when they seek a job are application forms and resumes. Both contain similar information about an applicant, such as a name, address, job educational history, and so forth.

Though an organization's application form often asks for information already provided by the applicants' resumes, most organizations prefer to collect this information in their own format for entry into a human resource information system, known as an HRIS.

Employment laws apply to application forms, just as they do all other selection devices. Application forms may ask applicants for only valid, job related information. Nonetheless, application forms commonly ask applicants for non-job related information, such as marital status, maiden name, age, or date of high school graduation.

Nearly all organizations ask an applicant to provide employment references such as the names of previous employers or coworkers whom they can contact to learn more about the candidate. Background checks are used to verify the truthfulness and accuracy of information that applicants provide about themselves and to uncover negative job related background information not provided by applicants.

Background checks are conducted by contacting educational institutions prior to employers, court records, police and government agencies, and other informational sources, either by telephone, mail, remote computer access, or through in-person investigations.

Unfortunately, previous employers are increasingly reluctant to provide references or background check information for fear of being sued by previous employees for defamation. If former employers provide potential employers with unsubstantiated information that damages applicants' chances of being hired, applicants can and do sue for defamation.

As a result, 54% of employers will not provide information about previous employees. Many provide only dates of employment, positions held, and date of separation.

When previous employers decline to provide meaningful references or background information, they put other employers at risk of negligent hiring lawsuits, in which an employer is held liable for the actions of an employee who would have not have been hired if the employer had conducted a thorough reference search and background check.

Selection tests give organizational decision makers a chance to know who they're likely to do the best job and who won't. Pre-hiring assessments are growing in popularity, with 57% of large US employers using some sort of pre-hiring test to ensure better fit.

Specific ability tests measure the extent to which an applicant possesses a particular kind of ability needed to do a job well. Specific ability tests are also called aptitude tests because they measure aptitude for doing a particular task well.

Cognitive ability tests measure the extent to which applicants have abilities in perceptual speed, verbal comprehension, numerical aptitude, general reasoning, and spatial aptitude. Biographical data, or biodata, are extensive surveys that ask applicants questions about their personal backgrounds and life experiences. The basic idea behind biodata is that past behavior, personal background, and life experience is the best predictor of future behavior.

An individual's personality is made up of a relatively stable set of behaviors, attitudes, and emotions displayed over time. In short, it is personality that makes people different from each other. A personality test measures the extent to which an applicant possesses different kinds of job related personality dimensions.

Work sample tests, also called performance tests, require applicants to perform tasks that they actually do on the job. So unlike specific ability tests, cognitive ability tests, biographical data surveys, and personality tests, which are indirect predictors of job performance, work sample tests directly measure job applicants' capability to do the job.

Assessment centers use a series of job specific simulations that are graded by multiple trained observers to determine applicants' ability to perform managerial work. Unlike the previously described selection tests that are commonly used for specific jobs or entry level jobs, assessment centers are most often used to select applicants who are high potential to be good managers.

Assessment centers often last two to five days and require participants to complete a number of tests and exercises that simulate management work.

In interviews, company representatives ask job applicants job related questions to determine whether they're qualified for a job. Interviews are probably the most frequently used and relied upon selection device. There are several basic kinds of interviews-- unstructured, structured, and semi-structured. In unstructured interviews, interviewers are free to ask applicants anything they want. And studies show that they do.

Because interviewers often disagree about which questions should be asked during interviews, different interviewers tend to ask applicants very different questions. Furthermore, individual interviewers seem to have a tough time asking the same questions from one interview to the next. The high level of variety can make things difficult.

As a result, while unstructured interviews do predict job performance with some success, there are about half as accurate as structured interviews at predicting which job applicants would be hired.

By contrast with structured interviews, standard interview questions are prepared ahead of time so that applicants are asked the same job related questions. Structuring interviews also ensures that interviewers ask only important, job related information. Not only are the accuracy, usefulness, and validity of the interview improved, but the chances that interviewers will ask questions about topics that violate employment laws are reduced.

Semi-structured interviews lie between structured and unstructured interviews. A major part of the semi-structured interview, perhaps as much as 80%, is based on structured questions. But some time is set aside for unstructured interviewing, to allow the interviewer to probe into ambiguous or missing information uncovered during the structured portion of the interview.

How well do interviews predict future job performance? Contrary to what you've probably heard, recent evidence indicates that even unstructured interviews do a fairly good job. When conducted properly, however, structured interviews can lead to much more accurate hiring decisions than unstructured interviews do. In some cases, the validity of structured interviews can rival that of cognitive ability tests.