2010 PTC -NC Conference

Last week I was fortunate to attend and present at the 2010 Personnel Testing Council of Northern California (PTC-NC) conference. Several of the presentation slides are now available.

My presentation was a legal update, primarily focusing on last year's big case, Ricci v. DeStefano. While I think the case received a fair share of its publicity simply because Sonia Sotomayor was one of the circuit court judges who ruled for the city, the case itself has some interesting implications for assessment. I gave my two cents last year after the decision.

Some of the points I made during the presentation included:

- Test validation standards as judged by the courts are generally very attainable. Following best practice (i.e., beginning with a thorough job analysis) is a recipe for a defensible process.

- Employers should spend the vast majority of their time before the assessment is given, figuring out what and how to test. Minimal time should be spent after the test making decisions about test usage--you should know that already.

- Employers, and assessment professionals, are expected to be familiar with and consider a wide range of testing mechanisms when planning a selection process. This includes non-cognitive assessments such as situational judgment tests, personality inventories, and biodata measures.

There were many great presentations; I always enjoy hearing what Wayne Cascio has to say, Dale Glaser has a way with statistics, and Deniz Ones and Stephan Dilchert's presentation on personality profiles of leaders was fascinating (they also happen to be very pleasant people to have lunch with). I plan on printing out slide 33 and placing it within reach--it does a great job of pointing out that criterion validity depends greatly on what you're trying to predict!

It's worth reviewing all the slides to get a flavor of what was discussed; there will likely be other presentations added over time.


On a side note, I'd like to acknowledge my readers at Baruch College -- thanks for reading!

Hiring Right Presentation

Late last year I did a webinar through BCGi titled "Hiring right: How to hire the right person for the job" and the slides are now available.

For many of you it will be review, but I tried to cover a variety of topics relevant for newer professionals as well as hiring supervisors, including:

- accuracy of our perceptions regarding hiring

- reviewing applications and resumes

- types of assessment

- interview questions

- best practices

You can see the PDF version here; content begins on page 5.

2009 IPMA/IPAC Conference Material

Just got back from Nashville after having attended the 2009 IPMA-HR/IPAC conference. Great information, great people, and really enjoyed Nashville.

For me, the conference was largely about one thing: leadership. Makes sense in times like these, people are focusing on how leaders can help guide organizations through rough waters. People like Bob Hogan made great arguments for the importance of leadership and how far we have to go in doing a good job selecting them.

If you weren't able to attend, you can see many of the presentations here. Here's a sampling of topics:

- The selection interview

- Assessment centers for supervisors and managers

- Employee engagement

- Online testing

Can't wait for next year's IPAC conference in Newport Beach!

Ricci presentation

On August 13th I gave a presentation at a PTC-NC luncheon about the Ricci decision. We had a great discussion about the implications (which remain to be seen) and dissected several passages from the decision.

One of the questions that came up had to do with the pass point. I didn't know the answer at the time, but looking back at the case it turns out that the City charter mandated a 70% pass point for these exams. Which is funny, because I made a joke about how 70% is the magic cutoff score given its ubiquity, particularly in the public sector.

In a perfect testing world would the pass point be based on an analysis of the minimum competency level required for the job? Yep. Did the 5-member majority in this case care? Nope.

You can view the (mostly visible) slides below.

SIOP offers multimedia presentations

As part of its learning center, SIOP is now offering audio and video content from its conferences and events. Price ranges from $100-150 depending on membership status and whether or not you attended the event.

You can hear/see samples here, including presentations on personality in the workplace, reducing turnover using selection, and global talent management.

Good stuff. Hope other professional organizations follow their lead.

Exploring the wild west of staffing

Last week I gave a presentation at the WRIPAC meeting in Burlingame, CA. The topic was "Using the Internet to effectively attract and screen the right applicants." Here are a few observations given my conversations with a very engaging group of participants:

1. There is immense interest in using the Internet for more than just posting jobs. But many folks are unsure how to start or what's out there. For individuals new to Web 2.0 concepts (e.g., social networking sites) there is a healthy--not necessarily unwarranted--skepticism.

2. Our worlds can shift relatively rapidly from "how do we get more applicants?" to "how do we get fewer applicants?" and then back again. As recruitment and assessment professionals we need to be able to pivot quickly and make sure our organizations are up to snuff in both realms.

3. In order to use the Internet effectively, most of us need to work with our IT staff. But this can be challenging given built-in resistances to change, security concerns, and assumptions. My advice was to push them as long as you have a good business case.

4. We have a lot of work to do on the most basic use of the Internet for recruitment and self-screening: our career portals. Many are cluttered and most likely have not been reviewed critically. More white space, more links, more pictures and video.

5. Most folks have some type of applicant tracking system, but many are unsure what its capabilities are and are not 100% sure how to use it to screen applicants. Oftentimes we rush to use built-in training and experience questionnaire functionality without first understanding the best way to use them. I just hope we move away from time-in-grade.

6. People seem to be moving away from the big job boards and towards cheaper--and usually more effective--alternatives, like craigslist or more targeted postings. People are also taking a harder look at whether their advertising dollars are really bringing in the candidates they need.

7. The balance of power has shifted in some ways from the employer to the applicant. They're not just responding to our (often uninspired) job postings, they're asking their friends, looking us up on glassdoor, connecting to people through LinkedIn, etc. As partial keepers of the organization's reputation, we need to be aware of all the different ways applicants research us.

8. These are exciting times. At several points in the presentation I mentioned that right now we are in the Wild West of staffing. Technology changes constantly, and along with them so do expectations placed upon us. We learn as we go. And it's challenging, but opportunities abound for those that are willing to take some risks.

Hang on, we're in for a heck of a ride.

The future of selection

Last week I presented at the Personnel Testing Council of Northern California's monthly luncheon. The title was "Selection in a changing world: What will we be doing, and who will be doing it?"

The topic was motivated mostly by my own experiences related to what's going on in our field lately. With many of us facing severe budget challenges, I got to thinking about things like:

- What do we need to be doing, what should we be doing, and how can we add value in lean times?

- What impact does automation (e.g., applicant tracking systems) have on the work we do?

- What impact does automation have on the competencies we need?

The field of HR has been talking about transformation for years now, with IMHO only partial success. It's time for assessment professionals to take a look at ourselves and determine if we're where we need to be.

You can see the slides here:



They should also be posted soon on PTC-NC's website.

2008 IPMAAC Conference: Presentations

With memories of last week's IPMAAC conference fresh in my head (and what a great conference it was!), I thought I would mention that presentation slides have already started to appear at the website.

Here's a sample of what's already up:

Police recruiting and retention: "It's Showtime"

Implementing an assessment program for executive candidates

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Expect many more to pop up in the next few weeks.

Interested in becoming a member? Go here.

Web 2.0 Presentation

Last week I had the pleasure of presenting at WRIPAC's April meeting in beautiful Napa, CA.

The topic was "Recruiting in the Age of Web 2.0" and I covered topics such as wikis, social networking, and blogs (which, coincidentally, I'm sure they're talking about right now just over the hills in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Expo).

For those of you that weren't able to attend but are interested, you can view the slideshow below or here.

OFCCP Webinar on March 6

On Thursday, March 6, the U.S. Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) will be having a webinar. The webinar will start with an overview of the agency's policymaking agenda but the main event will be an extended Q&A session.

The presenters will be OFCCP Deputy Director David Frank and Lynn Clements, Acting Director of OFCCP's Division of Policy, Planning, and Program Development.

Reasons to care:

- They oversee several laws relating to recruiting and hiring

- They go after employers (PDF file)

- A little something called the Internet Applicant Rule

You can sign up here.

Webinar on Assessment Best Practices

On July 25, 2007, Dr. Charles Handler of rocket-hire.com gave a very good overview of best practices in a webinar titled Screening and Assessment - Best Practices for Ensuring a Productive Future.

Some of the topics he covered included:

- Different types of assessment
- Planning for assessment
- Validity and prediction
- Screening out vs. screening in

You can view a pdf of the slides here, and listen to an mp3 of his presentation here.

July 2007 Hogan Assessments Newsletter

The July 2007 version of the Hogan Assessment newsletter is out with some interesting stuff:

Why is personality testing important to recruitment?

The EEOC hearing on employment testing

Dr. Robert Hogan was quoted in this article: "Are you management material?"

You can sign up for the newsletter here.


p.s. Bob Hogan made a great presentation at this year's IPMAAC conference. His talk was titled "Personality, leadership, and organizational effectiveness."

IPMAAC Presentations + Cheaper Membership

I posted earlier about presentations from the 2007 IPMAAC conference going up online. Well now there's a whole gaggle of 'em and there's some really great content. Check out these sample titles (PDF):

Applicant Reactions to Online Assessments

Succession Planning and Talent Management

2007 Legal Update

Potholes on the Road to Internet Applicant Compliance

Measuring Complex Reasoning

Tips on Writing an Expert Witness Report

And that's just the beginning. For all the goodies, check out the full list.

But wait, there's more...

In addition, IPMAAC recently enacted a change to its membership categories & fees. You can now become an IPMAAC member for only $75! Talk about cheap. $75 pays for the difference in conference fees between a member and a non-member! And you get all this to boot. Plus, you're "affiliated" with IPMA-HR, which means you get the awesome weekly HR newsletter and discounts on all sorts of IPMA-HR stuff (that's a technical term). And you DON'T have to work in the public sector to join.

There really aren't that many professional organizations associated with assessment. There's SIOP, but they're about a lot more than just staffing. There are local groups. But when it comes to national or international groups, IPMAAC is it. Which is a good thing, because it's a great group of people (not that I'm biased or anything).

2007 IPMAAC Conference Presentations

The 2007 IPMAAC Conference in St. Louis was great this year, with tons of informative and entertaining presentations, including great talks by Wayne Cascio, Bob Hogan, and Nancy Tippins.

The presentations are starting to roll in. Right now there's only one up--Michael Harris' great presentation titled Disparate Impact and Employment Testing: A Legal Update--but I expect more to show up this week and the next, so keep checking.

Next year I am co-chairing the program committee along with Carl Swander of Ergometrics. We're going to attempt to match the quality of this year's conference and plan on putting together an outstanding program. It's never too early to start thinking about presenting at next year's conference, to be held on June 8-11 in beautiful Oakland, California. Mark it on your calendars!

2007 SIOP Conference: Highlights, Part 2

This is the third in a series of posts about the 2007 SIOP Conference. In Part 1 I talked about some of the new products out there and in Part 2 I went over some of the research that was presented. In this post I'll point out some more research that you may find interesting...

Legal risks and defensibility factors for employee selection procedures

Posthuma, Roehling, and Campion analyzed nearly 600 federal district court cases and came up with some very interesting results:

- Employers are most likely to win (by far) when defending tests of math or mechanical ability. Employers also fare well when defending assessments of employment history and interviews.

- Employers did worst when defending physical ability tests and medical examinations. Tests of verbal ability and job knowledge were also more likely to result in a plaintiff win.

Predicting Internet job search behavior and turnover

Using a sample of 110 nurses in Texas, Posthuma et al. found using longitudinal survey data that (among other things) Internet job search behavior was related to turnover--folks weren't just surfing for fun. This suggests that organizations need to pay close attention to job searching behavior among employees; not necessarily to curtail it but instead to figure out why high performers want to leave.

Gender differences in career choice influences

After analyzing survey data from nearly 1,400 fourth-year medical students from two U.S. schools, Behrend et al. found a gender difference in preferred career: specifically, female medical students valued "opportunities to provide comprehensive care" when choosing a specialty much more than men. This is consistent with other work that has showed women to be more "relationship-oriented" than men when it comes to choosing a career.

Portraying an organization's culture through properties of a recruitment website

In this study of 278 undergraduate students, Kroustalis and Meade found that inclusion of pictures on a website that were intended to portray a certain organizational culture did so--but only for certain cultural characteristics. Specifically, pictures that implied a culture of either innovation or diversity had the intended effect--but pictures representing a team orientation did not. Interestingly, "employee testimonials" designed to emphasize these cultural aspects failed to do so for any of the three aspects studied. Finally, individuals who perceived a greater fit between themselves and the organization (in terms of the three cultural aspects) reported being more attracted to the organization.

Recruiting solutions for adverse impact: Race differences in organizational attraction

Last but definitely not least, Lyon and Newman gathered data from nearly 600 university students on their reactions to 40 hypothetical job postings...and came away with some very interesting results. For example:

- Conscientious individuals were more likely to apply to postings that explicitly stated a preference for conscientious applicants.

- Conscientious individuals were more likely to apply to postings that described the company as results-oriented.

- Black applicants with higher cognitive ability were more likely to respond to ads seeking conscientious individuals while White applicants with higher cognitive ability were less likely to do so.

- When a company was described as innovative, Black applicants high on conscientiousness were more likely to apply; this was not the case for White applicants.

Recruiting 2007 Conference

Not only is it journal time these days, it's conference time.

Kennedy Information is holding its Recruiting 2007 Conference and Expo at the Las Vegas Hilton on May 9-11.

Price: $1095 for the whole shebang, cheaper for solo days. $495 for pre- and post-conference workshops.

Focus: Internet recruiting, using the Internet for recruiting, and recruiting over the Internet. Oh yeah, with a special focus on health care recruiters. On the Internet.

Who's presenting: Practically everyone you can think of, including:

Steven Pemberton from Monster about its diversity survey;

Steven Rothberg (CollegeRecruiting) about social networking sites;

Jason Goldberg (Jobster) about how to use Web 2.0;

Shally Steckerl and Dave Mendoza (JobMachine) about using LinkedIn;

Carol Mahoney from Yahoo! about building a talent acquisition organization;

Peter Weddle about best practices in online recruitment;

Those two guys from CareerXroads about building relationships;

John and Bridget Sumser on generational recruiting;

Paul Forster (Indeed) on Web 2.0 (again...hey, I smell a trend);

...and that's just the beginning. There's a whole mess 'o content being presented here.

Wait...where's Joel Cheesman? Oh there he is...at the very end of the regularly scheduled conference. At 4:45. In May. In Vegas. Heck, it's worth going just for that!

Anxiety Impacts Test Scores

One of the (many) news articles that came out of this years' AAAS meeting has to do with anxiety's impact on test performance.

Specifically, a panel titled "Interplay of Emotion and Cognition: Implications for Learning and High-Stakes Testing" included a presentation by Dr. Mark Ashcraft on "How Math Anxiety Compromises Performance: The Role of Working Memory."

Dr. Ashcraft (note the article has this misspelled "Ashcroft") noted that math anxiety takes up working memory that is particularly important for complex math problems.

I'm not quite sure how "math anxiety" differs from plain 'ol test anxiety, but it looks like Ashcraft has written quite a bit about it.

Frankly, this finding is not particularly surprising given all we know about stress' impact on the body, but it does serve to highlight that there are many things that can introduce error variance into someone's test score.

So what can we do about it? The research suggests that orientation/training programs can help with reducing people's anxiety. There are also simple steps you can take as part of the testing process, such as:

- Letting people know exactly what the testing process will be like

- Being available for questions about the process

- For interviews, doing things like offering water, pre-exposing some (or all) of the questions, and telling the candidate to take their time

- Using multiple assessment methods so if a candidate "blows it" on one method they can shine elsewhere

On a related note, although taking these steps can help, they probably won't decrease any differences typically observed between different groups (e.g., men/women, White/Black).

Speaking of group differences, one of the other presenters on the AAAS panel was Dr. Joshua Aronson (of Steele & Aronson fame), who presented on "Stereotype Threat and Sex Differences in Math Performance: New Findings"--looks like he's done some research lately on this topic.

Talent Unconference Videos Available

Several videos from January 25th's "Talent Unconference", the brainchild of Jeff Hunter and hosted at Electronic Arts in California, are now available at the official website.

Topics include:

- Dealing with skills shortages and our educational system (The Big Pipe)

- Process excellence

- Talent planning and strategy

- Value of talent

- Sustainable solutions

- Meaningful connections

- Future tech

Using social networking sites and video

I just attended another good HCI webinar titled "The Next Generation Resume."

Rather than focusing on resumes per se, the presenters covered two main topics:

-Steven Rothberg, President and founder of CollegeRecruiter.com presented on "Facebook, MySpace, and Other Social Networking Sites: Are They Dangerous, Opportunities, or Both?"

- Peter Altieri, Founder and CEO of RecruiTV/wetjello, presented on "Video Resumes/eprofiles...Fad or Reality?"

Major take-aways

1. There are big generational differences in what is perceived as "acceptable" content. What may seem questionable or offensive to a Boomer (e.g., someone in their underwear posted on MySpace) may seem perfectly normal to a Gen Y'r.

2. Evaluating user-generated content on social networking sites (e.g., as part of a background check) may be perceived as offensive and may do you more harm than good.

3. Because of these issues as well as some potential legal complications (e.g., you can never be sure who posted the content), social networking sites are probably best used for sourcing rather than screening out. George Lenard has posted extensively about this on his site. If you do find some negative content, give the candidate an opportunity to explain.

4. You probably already know this, but of the social networking sites, MySpace dwarfs the competition with an 80% share. Even Facebook, which has been getting a lot of press, only has an 8% share.

5. For an example of how to use something like MySpace for recruiting, check out the page the Marines have created, which has been very successful.

6. Job search engines and social networking sites are hookin' up. MySpace and LinkedIn use SimplyHired, Facebook just hooked up with Jobster, etc.

7. There's no case law on misuse of social networking site information (that the speakers knew about), but it may be coming...

8. If you're recruiting for college folk, Facebook is the way to go, with 90% of students using it. For general recruitments, MySpace is superior, with an average user age of 35.

9. If you're interested in posting video to job search pages (I hope that's a big YES), both Jobster and CollegeRecruiter welcome videos from employers. Vault is another popular option.

10. Great suggestion from Altieri for introducing video into your recruiting process: Ask a supervisor what sort of person they're looking for. Get it on video. Share with second round candidates. Or: Ask them to ID a star player. Interview said player. Share with potentials.

While the presentations are available only to "professional" HCI members, Rothberg's presentation was similar (if not identical) to the one he gave at last year's Onrec conference that Joel Cheesman generously posted.

MSPB Releases Report on Practice of Merit

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) last week released a report that chronicles proceedings from a conference it held last year titled, "The Practice of Merit: A Symposium."

Contents of the proceedings are available by topic here, including a session devoted to hiring.

A report of the entire proceedings, including all comments, is available here.

Topics include:

- How the Department of Veterans Affairs recruits, assesses, and retains health care professionals and shies away from written tests

- How the State Department recruits and assesses Foreign Service professionals, including brand establishment and relying on test results over resumes

- How the Office of the Director of National Intelligence recruits, screens, and retains intelligence professionals

Each contributor emphasized the importance of establishing and maintaining relationships with educational institutions and maintaining a commitment to a merit-based system when given more flexibility in hiring.