Chapter : 9_7

Assessing External Candidates

9-1
 Chapter Outline
• The Firm’s External Assessment Goals
• External assessment method
- Screening Assessment Methods
- Evaluative Assessment Methods
- Contingent Assessment Methods
 Introduction
• After strategic planning, writing a job description
and person specification, sourcing candidates, and
recruiting, the next step in the staffing process is.
assessing the degree to which job candidates
possess the required qualifications and
characteristics to perform the job well.
• The focus of this chapter is on the assessment of
external job candidates.
 The Firm’s External Assessment Goals
• As we have explained, the primary goal of job
candidate assessment is to identify the job
candidates who will be the best hires in terms of
meeting the organization's staffing goals.
• There are a variety of other important goals
organizations have when assessing external job
candidates, and we discuss several of them next.
 External Assessment Goals
• Maximize fit
• Accurate assessment
• Maximize return on investment
• Generate positive stakeholder reactions
• Support talent philosophy and HR strategy
• Establish and reinforce employer image
• Identify new hires’ development needs
• Assess ethically
• Ensure legal compliance
9-5
 Goal – 1: Maximizing Fit
• Why are some very talented people considered
undesirable hires despite their high level of skill?
• The answer lies in the many ways in which people
need to fit with an employment opportunity to be a
successful match.
• One goal of assessment is to maximize the degree
to which the person fits the organization, work
group, and job.
• Table 9-1 summarizes the four different types of fit
Dimensions of Fit
 Goal -2: Assessing Accurately
• Another goal of external assessment systems is to
accurately identify the candidates who would be
the best or worst employees.
• The wider the spread of talent in an applicant pool,
the greater the pressure on the assessment system
to weed out the bad fits and identify the good ones.
• Another way to express this idea is to think about
the possible outcomes of an assessment effort.
• Candidates are either hired or not hired, and will be
either good performers or poor performers on the
job. (Figure: 9-1)
Possible Assessment Outcomes
 Goal – 3: Maximize return on investment
• Another important goal is maximizing the firm's
return on its investment in its assessment system.
• The greater the return on the investment in an
assessment method, the greater the assessment
method's value.
• One assessment method may be slightly superior to
another in identifying the best candidates.
• But if its cost exceeds the gain to the organization
of hiring these slightly better candidates, then the
other method may be the better choice.
 Goal – 4: Generate positive stakeholder reactions
• Meeting the needs of different stakeholders in the
staffing process is another assessment goal.
• Recruits, hiring managers, and recruiters should all
be satisfied with the processes and outcomes
involved in using an assessment method.
• For example, requiring hiring managers to take
three hours out of their busy day to interview each
job candidate might not be practical or even
possible.
• Recruiters may feel that doing 20-minute phone
interviews to prescreen each job applicant is too
burdensome.
 Goal – 5: Support talent philosophy and HR strategy
• Another goal of an assessment system is to support
the organization's talent philosophy and HR
strategy.
• Viewing applicants and employees as investors
might stimulate a company to incorporate more
interviews into the assessment process
• Also develop a comprehensive careers section on its
Web site to allow candidates ample opportunity to
learn as much as possible about the company
before joining it.
 Goal – 6: Establish and reinforce employer image
• Another goal of external assessment can be to
establish and maintain an organization's employer
image.
• A company that wants to be known as an
innovative and engaging place to work might
reinforce that image during the assessment process
by asking applicants challenging interview questions
that require creativity.
 Goal – 7: Identify new hires’ development needs
• Assessment tests can also identify new hires'
developmental needs.
• If a top candidate's assessment scores show that
his/ her organization and time management skills
are good but his/ her customer service skills need
further development, post hire training can
improve these skills..
• Some assessment methods even identify applicant’s
preferred learning styles, which can reduce their
training time and improve effectiveness of training.
 Goal – 8: Assessing Ethically
• Ethics is an important issue in staffing, and
particularly in assessment.
• The entire selection process needs to be managed
ethically.
• The people administering an assessment need to be
properly trained and appropriately qualified, and
applicants' privacy needs to be protected at all
times.
 Goal – 9: Complying with the Law
• Legal issues loom large when it comes to
assessment.
• Thus, companies have good reason to protect
themselves against potential charges of hiring
discrimination.
• In addition to the negative publicity generated by a
lawsuit, plaintiffs are often successful and court
awards regularly run into the hundreds of
thousands of dollars
 External assessment method
• Typically, job candidates  are assessed in waves.
• When people first apply for a job, they are job
applicants and are evaluated against the minimum
acceptable criteria for the job, such as relevant
education and skills.
• The purpose of these screening assessment
methods is to narrow a pool of job applicants down
to a smaller group of job candidates.
• The job candidates are then assessed in more depth
using evaluative assessment methods that
evaluate the pool of job candidates to determine
whom to hire.
 External assessment method
 
• Job offers may be made contingent on passing
contingent assessment methods.
• Contingent assessments are used when the firm has
identified whom it wants to hire. If the finalist
passes the contingent assessment their contingent
job offer becomes a formal job offer.
• Assessments tend to get more detailed and rigorous
as people move from being job applicants to
receiving job offers
 A. Screening Assessment Methods
A1. Resumes and Cover Letters:
• Although little research exists on the validity or
adverse impact of using resume as an assessment
method, resumes and cover letters have historically
been a core part the hiring process.
• Applicants volunteer information about themselves
and their interest in the position in a cover letter,
and provide a resume summarizing their relevant
education and work and non-work experiences.
• One of the biggest drawbacks of resumes and cover
letters is that applicants do not use the same format,
which can make it difficult to compare them.
 A. Screening Assessment Methods
A2. Job Applications:
• Job applications require applicants to provide
written information about their skills and education,
job experiences, and other job relevant information.
• Although the information on an application may
replicate information already contained on a
resume, applications help to ensure that consistent
information is collected.
• They also help HR professionals check the accuracy
of the information provided.
 
 A. Screening Assessment Methods
A3. Weighted Application Blanks:
• The information collected on a job application can be
weighted according to its importance.
• Having job experts participating in a job analysis rate
the relative importance of and the relative time spent
on each job duty can inform these weights.
• The degree to which different application-blank
information differentiates high and low performers
can also inform the weights to use for each item.
• When information receives different weights, the
assessment method is a weighted application blank.
 A. Screening Assessment Methods
A4. Biographical Information (Biodata):
• Biographical information, also referred to as
biodata, is collected via questions about
candidates' interests, work experiences, training,
and education.
• Biodata questionnaires allow people to describe
more personal aspects about themselves and their
experiences and successes in social, educational, or
occupational pursuits.
• Biodata can be collected as part of a job application
or via a separate questionnaire.
 A. Screening Assessment Methods
A5. Telephone Screens:
• Many firms use quick telephone interviews as a
screening assessment method to assess applicants'
availability, interest, and preliminary qualifications
for a job.
• Some recruiters use the phone interview to assess
an applicant's on-the-job critical screening factors
to prevent both parties from wasting time.
• Other recruiters use the telephone screen as a way
to develop a more thorough picture of the
individual and/or to give them a good impression of
the company.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
B1. Cognitive Ability Tests:
• Cognitive Ability Tests are computerized or paper-
and-pencil tests that assess candidates’ general
mental abilities, including their verbal and
mathematical reasoning, logic, and perceptual
abilities.
• Frank Schmidt and Jack Hunter‘s research suggests
that general cognitive ability influences job
performance largely through its role in the
acquisition and use of information about how to do
one's job.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
B2. NonCognitive Ability Tests:
• Tests can also measure psychomotor, sensory, and physical
abilities.
• Psychomotor tests assess a person's capacity to
manipulate and control objects. E.g., Reaction times,
manual dexterity, and arm-hand steadiness.
• Sensory tests assess candidates' visual, auditory, and
speech perception. E.g., The ability to speak clearly,
discriminate colors, and see in low light conditions.
• Physical ability tests assess a person's strength, flexibility,
endurance, and coordination. E.g., The ability to lift certain
amounts of weight, exert yourself physically over extended
periods.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
B3. Values Assessments:
• Businesses often have key values and core competencies
tied to their business strategies.
• It is important to make sure new employees appreciate and
share these values.
• Some companies have improved corporate effectiveness by
actively matching their candidates' values to their
corporate cultures. E.g., J & J.
• Computerized or paper-and-pencil assessments of
candidates' values exist.
• Some firms try to evaluate them by watching groups of
candidates interact with one another on structured tasks
and exercises.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
B4. Personality Assessments:
• Personality tests can have low to moderate validity
(ranging from -.13 to .33), which improves when the
personality assessment is well matched to specific job
criteria.
• Because hundreds of different personality traits exist.
• Researchers combined related personality traits and
reduced this list into a few broad behavioral traits that
each encompasses many more specific traits.
• As a group, the Big Five factors of personality capture up to
75 percent of an individual's personality.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
The Big Five factors are:
• Extraversion: outgoing, assertive, upbeat, and talkative;
predicts salesperson performance.
• Conscientiousness: attentive to detail, willing to follow rules
and exert effort; predicts performance in all occupations.
• Emotional Stability: calm, optimistic, well adjusted, able to
allocate resources to accomplish tasks; predicts job
performance in most occupations like sales, and teaching.
• Agreeableness: sympathetic, friendly, cooperative; predicts
performance in jobs involving teamwork and interpersonal
interactions.
• Openness to Experience: imaginative, intellectually curious,
open to new ideas and change, predicts creativity.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
B5. Integrity tests: are typically written tests that use
multiple-choice or true/false questions to measure
candidates' attitudes about their trustworthiness,
honesty, moral character, and reliability.
B6. Polygraph test: measures and records
physiological factors thought to be indicators of
anxiety, including a candidates' blood pressure,
respiration, pulse, and skin conductivity while the
person answers a series of questions. Because
anxiety often accompanies the telling of lies,
polygraphs are thought to assess lying and honesty.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
B7. Interviews:
• Interviews can assess a variety of skills, abilities,
and styles, including people's communication skills,
interpersonal skills, and leadership style.
• Applicants react very well to interviews, and job
seekers often rate interviews as the most jobrelated
selection procedure.
• There are several types of interviews used for
candidate assessment
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
• Unstructured interviews ask questions that vary
from candidate to candidate and that differ across
interviewers. E.g., "tell me about yourself”
• Structured interviews are interviews in which
candidates are asked a series of standardized, job-
related questions with predetermined scores for
different answers.
• Behavioral interviews are based on the idea that
what applicants have done in the past is a better
indicator of their future job success than what they
believe, feel, think, or know.
 B. Evaluative Assessment Methods
B8. Graphology:
• Some employers use handwriting analysis in staffing
decisions.
• Graphology includes any practice that involves
determining personality traits or abilities from a
person's handwriting.
B9. Job Simulations:
• Job simulations measure people's job skills by
having them perform tasks similar to those
performed on the job.
• Simulations can be verbal, requiring interpersonal
interaction and language skills, such as a role-
playing test for a call center worker
 C. Contingent Assessment Methods
C1. Medical and Drug Tests:
• Because of the potential to violate applicants'
privacy and the importance of legal compliance,
medical tests, including drug tests, should be used
with great care.
• Medical exams are usually used to identify a job
candidate's potential health risks and must assess
only job-related factors consistent with a business
necessity.
 C. Contingent Assessment Methods
C2. Background Checks:
• A background check assesses factors such as a
person's personal and credit information, character,
lifestyle, criminal history, and general reputation.
• Unless a business is involved in national defense or
security, background checks must be relevant to
the nature of the job and job requirements.
• Employers must tell people when they apply for a
job that background checks will be conducted, and
the applicants must first give their written consent