Real world value of strategic HRM practices

In my last post I talked about two articles from the most recent issue of Personnel Psychology (August, 2008) that had to do with adverse impact.

In today's post I'd like to talk about three of the other articles in that issue that all have to do with strategic human resource management (SHRM; not that SHRM) practices and their bottom-line impact. These studies don't directly reflect recruitment or selection practices but will interest anyone with a broader interest in HR.

The first study (by Birdi, et al.) compared several common SHRM practices (empowerment, training, and teamwork) with several more operational-style initiatives (TQM, JIT, AMT, and SCP) and looked at their effect on company productivity. The authors had access to a great database that included data from 308 companies over 22 years (!).

So what did they find? Out of the SHRM practices and the operational-style initiatives, only two--both SHRM practices--had significant effects on productivity. Specifically, the effects of employee empowerment and extensive training represented a gain of approximately 7% and 6%, respectively, in terms of value added per employee. Interestingly, it took both empowerment and training a couple years to impact productivity.

The second study by Nishii et al. looked at the attributions employees make about the reasons why management adopts certain HR practices and how these impact attitudes, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and customer satisfaction. Data from over 5,000 employees of a supermarket chain were analyzed.

So what did they find? A significant and positive correlation between employee attitudes and an attribution to the employer that the adoption of HR practices was based on a concern for customer service quality or employee well-being. In turn, employee attitudes were significantly (although less so) positively correlated with OCBs. Finally, the OCB of helping behavior was significantly correlated with customer satisfaction. In other words, when employees felt HR practices were implemented with an eye toward improving service quality or their own well-being, this improved their attitudes, which in turn increased the likelihood they would demonstrate helping behavior toward coworkers, which increased customer satisfaction. On the other hand, when employees attributed HR practices to keeping costs down, getting the most work out of employees, or complying with union requirements, there was no impact on employee attitudes.

The third study looked at how changes in team leadership impacted customer satisfaction in branches of a regional bank. Walker et al. examined data from 68 branch managers over a four-year period. The authors performed two tests--one of the mean differences between time periods and a residual analysis.

Why does that matter? Because the first type of test (called a t-test) simply looked at whether managers improved their team leadership scores and whether customer satisfaction ratings, on average, went up during that period. The answer to these questions was no. But the residual analysis looked at whether specific managers who improved (or worsened) their team leadership scores saw parallel improvement (or declines) in customer satisfaction ratings. The answer to THAT question was yes--in two of the three time periods (r=.21 and .31, respectively).

So what does all this mean? These studies certainly suggest that strategic HRM initiatives such as empowerment, communication, and extensive training (for both leaders and subordinates) can have significant, practical impacts on outcomes important to the organization.

Adverse impact on personality and work sample tests

The latest issue (Autumn, 2008) of Personnel Psychology has so much good stuff in it that I'm going to split it into two parts.

The first part, which I'll do today, focuses on the more selection-oriented articles which have to do with adverse impact on personality tests and in work sample exercises. In my next post I'll talk about three more articles that have to do with strategic HRM practices.

Today let's talk about adverse impact. It's a persistent dilemma, particularly given many employers' desire to promote diversity and the legal consequences of failing to avoid it. One of the "holy grails" of employee assessment is finding a tool that is generally valid, inexpensive to implement, and does not result in large amounts of adverse impact.

One type of instrument that has been suggested as fitting these criteria is the personality test. They're easy to administer and can be valid predictors of performance, but our knowledge of group differences has up until now been limited. In this issue of Personnel Psych, Foldes, Duehr, and Ones present meta-analytic evidence that attempts to fill in the blanks.

Their study of Big 5 personality factors and facets is based on over 700 effect sizes. So what did they find? There is definitely value to separating the factors from the facets, as they show different levels of group difference. And most of the group differences (in cases with decent sample sizes) were small to moderate. Here are some of the largest and most robust findings (e.g., 90% confidence interval does not include zero):

- Whites scored higher than Asians on even-temperedness (an aspect of emotional stability; d=.38)
- Hispanics scored higher than Whites on self-esteem (an aspect of emotional stability; d=.25)
- Blacks outscored Asians on global measures of emotional stability (d=.58)
- Blacks outscored Asians on global measures of extraversion (d=.41)
- Hispanics outscored Blacks on sociability (d=.30)

The article includes a very useful chart that summarizes the findings and includes indications of when adverse impact may occur given certain selection ratios. What I take away from all this is the classic racial discrimination situation employers are worried about in the U.S. (Whites scoring higher than another group) is less of a concern with personality tests than with, say, cognitive ability tests. But (and this is a big but), it doesn't take much group difference to result in adverse impact (see Sackett & Ellingson, 1997)

The second article is also about group differences. This time it's work sample tests and it's a meta-analysis of Black-White differences by Roth, Bobko, McFarland, and Buster.

The authors analyzed 40 effect sizes in their quest to dig further into this subject--and it's a good thing they did. A group difference (d) benchmark often cited for these exercises is .38 in favor of Whites. These authors obtained a value of .73, but with an important caveat--this value depends greatly on the particular work sample test.

For example, in-basket and technical exercises (e.g., reading a construction map) yielded d values of .74 .76, respectively. On the lower end, oral briefings and role-plays had d values of .22 and .21, respectively. Scheduling exercises were in the middle at d=.52.

Why the difference? The authors provide data that indicates the more saturated with cognitive ability/job knowledge the measure, the higher the d values. The more the exercise requires demonstrating social skills, the lower the d values.

Bottom line? Your choice of selection measure should always be based on the KSAs required per the job analysis. But given a choice between different exercises, consideration should be given to the group differences described above. Blindly selecting a work sample over, say, a cognitive ability test, may not yield the diversity dividends you anticipate (in addition to the fact that they may not be as predictive as we previously thought!).

Some important caveats should be noted about both of these pieces of research: (1) adverse impact is heavily dependent on factors other than group differences, such as applicant population, selection ratio, and stage in the selection process; and (2) from a legal perspective, adverse impact is only a problem if you don't have the validity evidence to back it up. Of course you should have this evidence anyway, because that's how you're deciding how to filter your candidates...right?

Tracking down the "Internet Applicant Rule"

When the OFCCP's Internet Applicant Recordkeeping Rule first came out it generated a lot of discussion.

You don't hear much about it now, even though it's one of the most important regulations that covered employers need to be concerned about when it comes to electronic recruiting. It specifies information that must be collected and retained about applicants and permissible screening criteria to filter down candidates.

Why the drop in popularity? Sure, it's not a new and sexy topic anymore. But another reason might be that the OFCCP doesn't make it easy to find information on the rule and they don't publicize it prominently anymore. There's no link to it on their homepage; the actual Federal Register rule is nowhere to be seen.

And the pretty-darn-helpful FAQs? Moved. Here. (granted it IS in the FAQ section)

Let's not forget about this particular regulation, as it impacts recruitment and selection (for those it applies to) just about as much as anything out there, including the Uniform Guidelines.

9th Circuit decision good news for employers

On August 7, 2008, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals joined many other Circuits in deciding that in cases involving constitutional discriminatory hiring claims, the accrual period begins when candidates find out they aren't hired, or when a reasonable person would have realized this. The case is Zolotarev v. San Francisco.

Okay, so let's back up a second...what's a discrimination claim under the constitution? What we're talking about here are claims filed under Title 42 (Chapter 21) of the U.S. Code, such as Sections 1981 and 1983. These cases are typically brought against private sector employers (although as this case makes obvious, not always), and are sometimes combined with claims under other, more common, statutes, such as Title VII.

Why would someone want to bring a claim under these Sections? Several reasons:

- Unlike Title VII, ADA, or ADEA, there are no administrative requirements--in other words someone can file directly in court rather than going through, say, the EEOC

- Unlike discrimination cases brought under other laws, there are no caps to compensatory and punitive damages (of course no punitive damages are available from public sector entities)

- Also unlike cases brought under other statutes, there can be individual liability in these cases--specific hiring supervisors and HR staff can be held liable (of course this is pretty rare and most folks are indemnified, but still, having your name in a lawsuit isn't much fun)

So what's accrual? The statute of limitations specifies how long plaintiffs have to file a suit. Accrual refers to when this period starts. So in California, where this case was filed, the statute of limitations for these types of cases is one year (reiterated in this decision). When that year starts is the take home from this case--according to the 9th Circuit, it starts when the plaintiffs found out they weren't hired, or when a reasonable person would have realized this. It does not start when they later suspect they were wronged.

This is in line with what many of the other Circuit courts have decided. So why is this good news for employers? Because it means these types of cases cannot be successfully brought longer than one year after candidates are informed they weren't chosen. Not only does this mean you can breathe a sigh of relief, it limits how long you need to retain your records (although you will want to check to see what other laws apply to you and how long their statute of limitations are).

Can the Dewey Color System be used for hiring?

Recent articles in ERE (and elsewhere) have pointed out that CareerBuilder recently integrated the Dewey Color System into their site.

What is the Dewey Color System? As you might guess, it's a brief "test" where you choose your preference between various colors. It then provides you with a report that purports to describe your personality.

Pro? It's easy. It's much more easily digestible to most people than something like a traditional Big 5 test (and this is certainly not the first more "user friendly" personality test to emerge).

Con? We're far from being able to recommend this as a selection or hiring tool.

Some problems I have:

1) the entire basis of research support (according to their website) is this single article.

2) correlations with the Strong Interest Inventory reported in this article aren't terrible, but aren't outstanding either (median of .68).

3) correlations with the 16PF, which actually is used for hiring, were worse--median correlation was .51 with a range of .33-.68.

4) the results in this article are based on a single sample in a single location--no generalizability here.

5) to their credit, the authors of the article point out "what we have not yet established is that the Dewey Color System Test also predicts the behaviors for which these personality tests are typically used. Thus, more extensive validation should consider using color preferences directly to predict variables such as job satisfaction, leadership potential, etc."

6) beware any testing instrument that is described as "valid" or "validated." Tests aren't validated. Interpretations of them are. Read the Principles, folks (if you must, skip to page 4).

Is it easy? Yup. Might there be something to this? Yup. Is this another example of the P.T. Barnum effect? Yup. Should we be very careful and conduct good research before using personality tests? Yup.

Are we at a point where we can say this should be used for personnel selection? Nope.

p.s. speaking of personality tests, did you know Hogan Assessment Systems has their own blog? I didn't until now--check it out.

Speed v. power

Part of my job is constantly trying to figure out how to communicate better with our customers (hiring supervisors). Discussions about validity and reliability may interest me, but it's a guaranteed recipe for blank stares from most people. So we think of other ways to talk about the pros and cons of tests.

This document is one attempt at communicating assessment research in layperson terms. It graphs power (validity) on the Y-axis and speed of administration on the X-axis. We could easily have chosen other criteria, such as adverse impact or applicant acceptance, but we felt when you get right down to it, these are the factors customers care about most.

So what do you see when you look at this graph? Do you think it communicates what we should be communicating? Have we over- or under-stated the case on any of the methods? Does this detract from basing the decision on job analysis?

Resumes? Applications? Or something in between?

A recent item in a newsletter published by ESR issued a recurring recommendation in HR: employers should use standard applications, not resumes. I'd like to take the opposite viewpoint. Well, not opposite, but, well...you'll see.

The newsletter contains many good reasons for requiring a standard application. For example, applicants often provide you with information you may not want (e.g., membership in advocacy organizations). Applicants also use the most positive spin possible, (over)emphasizing accomplishments and leaving employment gaps. In addition, applicants may not give you all of the information you require, such as dates and salaries.

These are good reasons for requiring a standard application over a resume. But let me play devil's advocate for a minute. Think about the modern candidate experience. In order to apply for a job, you have to oftentimes spend hours--days--searching through job boards and employer "career portals." If you're lucky enough to find a job that appears to be what you want (because of course employers' worst kept secret is they don't tell you the bad parts of a job), you have to complete a lengthy application (each time), or navigate your way through a "modern" applicant tracking system (read: GUI designed by IT).

Qualified candidates--who are hard to find in the first place--get fed up. They don't want to waste their time filling out applications or entering information into your ATS. They may just look for an opportunity that doesn't require them to describe their entire life experience. Hence the resume, which they already have on file and simply requires a quick update.

So how do we reconcile the needs of the employer, who are doing their best to make sure they get the information they need, and the employee, who is trying to efficiently provide the information? I see several solutions:

1) The employer accepts resumes but makes very clear what the resume should contain. No unexplained employment gaps. Salary must be included. Etc.

2) Employers and candidates take advantage of a standardized third-party site that many folks already use for networking purposes (e.g., LinkedIn), again making clear what the profile must contain.

3) Employers use an ATS that takes less than 10 minutes for an applicant to apply.

Or how about a combination? How about giving the candidate options. The candidate must "register" with the employer's ATS but all this takes in an email address. Then the candidate can either:

a) upload their resume (which must include all the information the employer needs)

or

b) route the employer to their on-line profile--which must exist on a prescribed set of sites (e.g., no MySpace pages).

These are just some (not particularly creative) ideas. I'm sure somebody out there has even better ones. But isn't it about time we figure out how to meet both candidate and employer needs when it comes to applying?

July 2008 Issues of Merit

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) just released its July 2008 Issues of Merit and there's at least three articles worth taking a look at:

- Using engagement strategies to retain retirement-ready employees (page 1)

- An overview of accomplishment records (page 6)

- Reference checking: beware speed over quality (page 7)

Font matters

When preparing a resume there are a few guiding principles. Don't make it too long. List only experience that's relevant. Organize the information in a logical way.

Now we can add a new one: use the right font.

In a recent study published on Usability News, the authors found that the font chosen for a resume has a significant impact on how the applicant is perceived.

Using the job of webmaster, the authors presented participants with resumes identical in content but varying in appropriateness of font, from most appropriate (Corbel) to least (Vivaldi).

Results? "Applicants" that used the most appropriate font were judged to be more professional, knowledgeable, mature, experienced, believable, and trustworthy than those that used less appropriate fonts.

Not only that, but those that used Corbel were more likely to be called for an interview!

So think about that the next time you're about to send out an email in pink Comic Sans MS.

EEOC releases guidance on religious discrimination

Yesterday the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released new guidance documents intended to help individuals learn more about preventing discrimination based on religion.

The new documents include:

- A new Compliance Manual section regarding workplace discrimination based on religion; check out this example from the section on recruitment, hiring, and promotion:

"Darpak, who practices Buddhism, holds a Ph.D. degree in engineering and applied for a managerial position at the research firm where he has worked for ten years. He was rejected in favor of a non-Buddhist candidate who was less qualified. The company vice president who made the promotion decision advised Darpak that he was not selected because “we decided to go in a different direction.” However, the vice president confided to co-workers at a social function that he did not select Darpak because he thought a Christian manager could make better personal connections with the firm’s clients, many of whom are Christian. The vice president’s statement, combined with the lack of any legitimate non-discriminatory reason for selecting the less qualified candidate, as well as the evidence that Darpak was the best qualified candidate for the position, suggests that the proffered reason was a pretext for discrimination against Darpak because of his religious views."


- A Q&A fact sheet that includes this information about when employers need to accommodate applicants and employees:

"Title VII requires an employer, once on notice that a religious accommodation is needed, to reasonably accommodate an employee whose sincerely held religious belief, practice, or observance conflicts with a work requirement, unless doing so would pose an undue hardship. Under Title VII, the undue hardship defense to providing religious accommodation requires a showing that the proposed accommodation in a particular case poses a more than de minimis cost or burden. Note that this is a lower standard for an employer to meet than undue hardship under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which is defined in that statute as significant difficulty or expense."


- Best practices on eliminating discrimination, including the following:

• "Employers can reduce the risk of discriminatory employment decisions by establishing written objective criteria for evaluating candidates for hire or promotion and applying those criteria consistently to all candidates.
• In conducting job interviews, employers can ensure nondiscriminatory treatment by asking the same questions of all applicants for a particular job or category of job and inquiring about matters directly related to the position in question."

Sounds like an endorsement of structured interviews if I ever saw one!

New blog in town: HRLitehouse

It's always a pleasure welcoming other blogs to the fold. Particularly when they're written by intelligent people with a perspective that should be shared.

So I'm very happy to say that Dr. Dennis Doverspike of the University of Akron and his colleagues have started HRLitehouse. In their own words,

"In deciding to create this blog, our goal was to do our small part to attempt to contribute to the ongoing conversation on the management of people at work. In order to do so, we hope to share our views through short reports and commentary on critical issues and current research in the areas of human resource management, personnel recruitment and testing, and organizational business consulting and coaching."

The I/O Psychology program at the University of Akron is one of the top in the country, consistently ranked in the top 10. It's refreshing to see an academic institution take the plunge into this form of knowledge sharing--and they'll probably get a decent amount of social networking out of it as well for their students (see I/O careers for an example of what can be done).

So welcome! Here's the feed.

Broadband adoption in U.S.: A mixed bag

A new study out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project shows that while 55% of all Americans have a broadband connection at home, up from 47% in early 2007, poorer Americans saw no increase during this time and their access rates are under 50% compared to more than 80% of upper-income Americans.

Why does this matter? In this age of bandwidth-greedy job preview videos, java-filled interactive career websites, and realistic job assessments, a high-speed connection is becoming increasingly a necessity. The good news is more than half of Americans can engage in these experiences at home. The bad news? Not only will access to some of these sites most likely have an adverse impact against certain groups (see below), this will reduce an organization's ability to draw an applicant pool that contains the most diverse backgrounds.

With that in mind, consider these findings:

* While 70% of those age 18-29 reported having broadband at home, only 50% of those age 50-64 did.

* While 57% of White respondents had broadband at home, only 43% of Black respondents did (let's see, four-fifths of 57% is...). On a more positive note, 56% of English-speaking Hispanic respondents had this access.

* 79% of those with at least a college education had home broadband access; only 40% of high school grads did.

* 60% of suburban respondents and 57% of urban respondents had this access; only 38% of rural respondents did.


"But people can always go to a library," is a response I often hear. That may be true, although not everyone lives within easy access of a library. But libraries aren't open 24/7. And many times they're busy during peak hours. And many aren't exactly a Starbucks cafe. Do you really want to create these barriers?

So what can we do about it? Here are some ideas:

* Make sure your careers site has a low-bandwidth alternative

* Consider offering a staffed on-site computer center that operates during off-peak hours (e.g., 6-8am, 5-7pm, weekends)

* Think long and hard about whether you're adopting bandwidth-hogging features because they're there or because they'll actually add value.

For more details, check out the report.

Silver tsunami or gradual graying?

There are strong opinions about the upcoming "retirement wave" of the Baby Boom generation--some think employers are in big trouble as they will be forced to replace a huge number of workers with an inadequate supply, while others claim it's an overreaction. Some recent news adds credence to the latter viewpoint, at least in one sector.

According to a recent article published by the Partnership for Public Service, in 2006 and 2007 there were fewer retirements in the federal government than projected. Not only that, but the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) adjusted their retirement projections downward.

Why the change? It's the economy, stupid--or at least that's the theory. The price of gas, the housing market crash, and the reduction in pension value have all contributed to people hanging in there a little longer.

One important caveat: it depends on the job. And here's where we still have reason for concern:

"The ones most able to ignore the current economic problems are those who possess specialized and marketable skills, or who are in the higher-income brackets and can afford to weather the downturn, experts say."

This includes high-demand occupations like IT as well as those with substantial management experience.

It's also quite possible we just haven't seen the tip of the tsunami yet. But it's looking more and more likely that if economic conditions persist, we may actually experience more of a gradual graying.

Detecting liars is not a skill

One of the most popular pieces of folk wisdom is that some people are better at detecting liars than others. When it comes to selection, some people think they can tell when a candidate is lying about their history or competencies. And if the organization is conducting background checks and/or a polygraph, it becomes particularly important to detect deceptions.

Yet according to a new meta-analysis published in the most recent issue of Psychological Bulletin, we may all be pretty much the same when it comes to lie detection. In the words of the authors:

"Although researchers have suggested that people differ in the ability to detect lies, psychometric analyses of 247 samples reveal that these ability differences are minute."

Where there do appear to be differences is in being able to successfully tell a lie--some people are plain better at it than others.

The article is followed by two commentaries that are critical of this study and a reply by the author.

What about people's overall ability to detect a lie? Check out this study from 2006 by the same authors. Short answer: we're not very good.

Grading the EEOC

The General Accounting Office (GAO) recently released a report critical of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) ability to handle its private-sector workload.

Amid the critique are some gems for those of you itching to know more about the EEOC...

* Wondered where the EEOC's offices are? Check out page 18

* Curious how a complaint makes its way through the process? Check out page 20

* Need another workforce planning model? (c'mon, you know you do) Check out page 24

There are lots of other great metrics in here, and I'm sure it's all the buzz at the EEOC.

NEOGOV acquires Sigma

Not exactly breaking news, but for any of you out there that didn't already know, NEOGOV, a significant player in the public sector ATS space, has acquired Sigma Data Systems, a venerable ATS provider that had been purchased not all that long ago by CPS.

Sigma's strength has always been its data analysis capabilities, and presumably this will be folded into NEOGOV's product. It's an interesting move by NEOGOV, and we'll see what impact this has on its rivalry with JobAps, the other major ATS vendor that focuses on the public sector.

You can read more about it here.

A review of situational judgment tests

In the latest issue of Personnel Review, Dr. Filip Lievens and colleagues provide an empirical review of situational judgment tests (SJTs), focusing on studies from 1990-2007.

SJTs, sometimes referred to as low fidelity simulations, present test takers with a scenario and ask them to select the appropriate response. Candidates may be asked to select what "should" they do, what "would" they do, the best response, the worst response, or some combination of the above. Here's an example:

You have been assigned lead responsibility for two weeks in the absence of your supervisor. On your first day in this role, one of your new direct reports comes into your office and complains that they were sexually harassed by the security guard when they entered the building. They ask that the situation be kept confidential. What would be your first action in response to this situation?

1. Contact the security guard and conduct an interview to obtain all the facts.
2. Assure the direct report you will look into the situation but cannot guarantee confidentiality.
3. Contact your supervisor to obtain instruction on next steps.
4. Conduct informal interviews with your other direct reports to determine if they have been harassed.

SJTs have some great benefits, and this article points them out. First, they can be valid predictors of performance--particularly when based on job analysis. Second, they show incremental validity beyond cognitive ability and personality tests, making them a valuable addition. Third, group differences tend to be reduced compared to ability tests, particularly when the cognitive load is low. Fourth, applicant perceptions of SJTs tend to be positive. And fifth, SJTs allow you to test large candidate groups simultaneously. I would add that they allow for all kinds of scoring possibilities as well (e.g., +1 for correct response, -1 for incorrect).

SJTs aren't without drawbacks--two major ones to be exact. The first is they can be susceptible to faking, practice, and coaching effects--although how they're built plays a large role in how big these effects are. The second is that we don't always know exactly what SJTs are measuring--is it job knowledge? Personality? Cognitive ability? The authors point out that more research is needed.

Overall, a very good review of a test method that every assessment professional should have in their tool belt. You can read an in press version here.

Supreme Court clarifies ADEA burden shifting

On June 19th the U.S. Supreme Court made several employment-related decisions. Of most interest for us is their decision in Meacham v. Knolls.

The case involved workers over 40 who were suing over their layoffs. They claimed they lost their jobs due to age discrimination, claiming a violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). Although they claimed both disparate treatment and disparate impact, the important issue here is the latter--employment decisions that may not intentionally discriminate but have that effect.

How the court ruled is closely tied to its 2005 decision in Smith v. City of Jackson, in which they held that adverse impact cases could be brought under the ADEA, but employers could prevail if they could show (per the language of the ADEA) that the employment decision was based on a "reasonable factor other than age" (RFOA).

So what was the decision? The court made it clear that the employer in these cases bears both the burden of production and the burden of persuasion that the employment decisions were based on a RFOA. This is similar to other adverse impact discrimination cases, such as those brought under Title VII, where an employer must show their practice was "job related and consistent with business necessity."

So what does this mean? It doesn't mean a new requirement. It reinforces that all employment decisions--hiring, firing, and everything in between--should be based on logical, non-discriminatory reasons. The fact that the employer may face a slightly easier hurdle in ADEA disparate impact cases compared to, say, race or gender cases, is practically insignificant.

Important note: the plaintiffs in this case provided expert testimony that employee scores on "flexibility" and "criticality" had both the most manager discretion and were tied the strongest to outcomes. Words like these are often invoked in age discrimination cases (a jury can easily see how these types of words might be proxy for "young"), and employers are wise to strongly consider in hiring and firing situations whether the rating factors are tied to benchmarks and can be shown to be important for success on the job.

Scare applicants into applying

What if instead of convincing applicants to apply based on your brand, your benefits, etc., you scared them? That appears to be the strategy of North Carolina's Office of State Personnel.

Their latest recruiting video is called "We are here"--and no, it's not a documentary of aliens trapped on earth, although I'll forgive you for mistaking it for one.

It is, bar none, the strangest professionally made recruiting video I've ever seen. I really don't know how to describe it, so do this--go check it out and let me know what you think. It's one of those things you'll want to show your co-workers.

(by the way, I do have to give OSP kudos for their other profiled video, which describes the development of a SAS-based knowledge management system called NC WORKS).

Staffing.org's 2008 benchmark report

Staffing.org just released its 2008 Recruiting Metrics and Performance Benchmark Report. From all accounts it's a good source of data, gathered from over 1,000 organizations. It's also $400.

Fortunately, they're releasing details in dribbles through their newsletter. For example:

- Employee referrals are still the most popular recruiting source, followed closely by large job boards. Some of the less used sources include mass media and the military.

- Organizations are increasingly using combination structures--in other words, part of their staffing function is centralized, part is decentralized. The numbers vary greatly depending on industry, with transportation being much more centralized while education is much less so.

- Cost-per-hire varied wildly, from $2,000 (retailing, hospitality) to $16,000 (pharma biotech).

- Same goes with time-to-start, with retailing at 4 weeks and government at 12 weeks, with an average around 7-8 weeks.

- 11% of employers report poor performance among new hires; 20% report superior performance.

- Competition for talent and candidate quality were the two most important issues reported.

- More than 80% of respondents have adopted an ATS but few have a "talent management suite."

You can sign up for their newsletter here. It's one of the shorter, more digestible ones.

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.

Unproctored internet testing: Safe for some tests?

One of the biggest trends in personnel assessment is the movement toward on-line testing. Many organizations are experimenting with so called unproctored Internet testing (UIT), where candidates are allowed to take the exams whenever, and wherever, they want.

Benefits? Extremely convenient for the candidate. Less administrative resources needed by the employer.

Costs? Bye-bye exam security, hello cheating opportunities. Not only is your test out for everyone to see, but you have no real way of knowing (sans biometric verification) who is taking the test.

Some organizations have decided the benefits outweigh the risks, and a new study in the June 2008 issue of the International Journal of Selection and Assessment may provide support for their position.

In it, the authors looked at over 800 applicants from nine European countries that took a test of perceptual speed in an unproctored setting, then followed this up with a proctored parallel version. Results? Not only was there no evidence of cheating, they found the opposite effect--people did better in the proctored setting.

Now before everyone throws out their proctored exams, note that this is a type of test that might be hard to cheat on--at least in one way. Because this is a perceptual speed test, there are no "right" answers that can be looked up. It also required very quick responses. So the only way to cheat would be to have someone take the test for you. Implication: it may make more sense to use certain UITs than others.

This topic is a source of much debate in the assessment community, and there is by no means consensus on the right way to go. But studies like this help!

Take a deep breath, because there's a lot more in this issue:

- The preliminary employment interview as a predictor of assessment center outcomes (fascinating look at how the AC may only make sense for mid-range interview scorers)

- A comparison of the common-item and random-groups equating designs using empirical data (for you IRT fans out there)

- The influence of external recruitment practices on job search practices across domestic labor markets: A comparison of the United States and China

- Beneath the surface: Uncovering the relationship between extraversion and organizational citizenship behavior through a facet approach (a more nuanced look at the relationship shows extraversion can predict OCBs)

- Comparing personality test formats and warnings: Effects on criterion-related validity and test-taker reactions (another good one...personality test added predictive validity beyond ability test but no validity difference between forced-choice and Likert scales, nor between warning and no-warning conditions; forced-choice and warnings may produce negative candidate reactions)

- Applicant selection expectations: Validating a multidimensional measure in the military (describes development of a new measure of applicant perception of the selection process)

- Selecting for creativity and innovation: The relationship between the innovation potential indicator and the team selection inventory

EEOC informal discussion letters

If you're an HR professional in the U.S., chances are you've been to the EEOC's webpage many times. You may even subscribe to their feed. But do you know about their informal discussion letters?

These memos are written by EEOC legal staff, and while they are not "official opinions" of the Commission, they offer insight into several important issues. Consider some of the recent letter titles:

- Background checks of peace officers and the ADA (certain documents may be evaluated post-offer)

- Title VII and ADEA: Job Advertisements (you can "encourage" certain groups to apply, but "seeking" them is probably not a good idea; "journeyman" probably okay)

- ADA: Disability-Related Inquiries; Hiring (screening people out based on medical information must be shown to be job-related and consistent with business necessity)

- Title VII: Use of Conviction Records in Hiring (person convicted for auto-stripping could probably be rightfully denied a tow truck license or job)

- Americans with Disabilities Act: Periodic Testing (questionable whether periodic medical exams of all city bus drivers would be legal)

GINA signed into law...did anybody notice?

It's not often that we have a new federal statute dealing with employment discrimination. So I was a little surprised that the recent passage and signing into law (on May 21) of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) hasn't gotten more press.

Perhaps it's because employers don't see it as a big issue--at least not yet. This is one of the few instances of the law being proactive. Many employers may not see how this relates to them, but consider the details:

- The law prohibits employers (generally as defined under the CRA of 1964) from failing to hire, or terminating, someone because of genetic information. This is what most people think of, and the language is similar to other statutes that prohibit discrimination (e.g., it also includes compensation discrimination).

- The law also prohibits employers from considering genetic test information from family members of the applicant/employee.

- It does NOT prohibit practices that result in an adverse impact based on genetic information. The law does, however, specify that this will be reviewed 6 years from when the law goes into effect, which is November 21, 2009.

- Finally, it prohibits discrimination based on "the manifestation of a disease or disorder in family members of such individual." This may be the least known aspect of the law, similar to the ADA provision that prohibits employers from considering a record or perception of a disability.

Remedies in most situations track those under Title VII, and enforcement of the law will be overseen by the EEOC.

For one of the better summaries, check this out.

Taking a look at VisualCV

Last week I spoke with a rep over at VisualCV. She had been nice enough to put together an employer site for me, so we chatted about the site's capabilities as well as some other details about the company.

What is VisualCV? As you would suspect from the name, the site offers job seekers the ability to create a visually appealing version of their resume/CV.

Here's an example of what a job seeker's VisualCV might look like. As you'll see, users have the option to add pictures, videos, and files, and I can tell you from playing on the employer side of things, it's a simple point-and-click affair.

The website has been open since February and according to the rep already has around 10,000 resumes and profiles of about 350 employers. The fact that the service is free (for now) should help raise those numbers.

In terms of search capability, right now you can only search for people by name. So this would be handy if you already knew someone had a VisualCV, but not much help if you're trying to generate names. The plan is to expand search capability in the coming months.

In terms of contacting individuals, there is no charge for doing so (a big difference from other databases like LinkedIn) unless you were doing something like an e-mail blast.

All in all, definitely worth checking out. And if you'd like to read more, I'm certainly not the first to post about 'em. For more information, check out Joel's and Amybeth's posts.

Predicting turnover

Turnover can be caused by many things. Inadequate supervision/ leadership. Too much work. Not enough work. Insufficient career growth opportunities.

According to many surveys (e.g., salary.com's recent one), these are the types of things people report as primary motivators driving them to change employers.

But these are all factors outside of the employee. What about aspects of employees themselves that might contribute to turnover? We know that people are changing jobs more frequently these days (every 2-3 years in the U.S.), and there seems to be a persistent dissatisfaction among the Gen Xers with their careers, but what about someone's personality? Might there be individual differences between people when it comes to changing jobs?

You bet, according to a new study published in the Summer 2008 issue of Personnel Psychology. After meta-analyzing 86 studies, author Ryan Zimmerman found that personality factors, particularly emotional stability and agreeableness, play a big role in predicting turnover. Emotional stability best predicted intent to quit, while agreeableness best predicted actual turnover.

In fact, personality traits predicted turnover better than did non-self report measures such as job complexity and job characteristics.

Implications? Many initiatives designed to reduce turnover may disappoint because it's not the job, it's the person. The next time you design an exit interview or turnover study, make sure to add this reason for why the person left: It had nothing to do with the job, it was just me.

This also provides more support for using personality tests to predict important outcomes.

...

The other study in this issue we should look at provides some support for all you O*NET fans out there. You know...O*NET? The replacement for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles? Developed by the Department of Labor? A fount of job analysis knowledge? If you don't know it, you should.

Anyway, in this study, the authors used O*NET data to predict literacy requirements across a wide variety of occupations compared to scores on the national adult literacy survey (NALS). Results? O*NET did well--quite well in fact, with correlations around .80.

What does this mean? It means that occupational requirements listed in O*NET just got a big boost in terms of their validity. When it comes to job analysis, don't leave O*NET out.

Another member of the blog family

I consider this blog to be part of a fairly small family (with a few notable exceptions, e.g., Selection Matters) in that I focus on trying to put personnel psychology research into layperson terms. But I think I may have found a lost member of my blogging family.

The Association of Test Publishers (ATP) has an I-O Division, and lo and behold, they have a blog! And it's been up since January! I feel so...out of touch.

Anyway, check out some of their recent posts:

- The Validity-Diversity Dilemma (yes, we both blogged about this)

- Input Needed on "Model Guidelines" Revision

- Economic Study of Impact of Pre-Employment Assessment

So, belated welcome to the blogosphere! Like what you see? Pick up the feed.

How good are you at test accommodation?

How good is your organization at accommodating individuals with disabilities when test-time rolls around?

A recent article in Diversity Executive magazine highlights the work of Certiport, a software certification outfit, and the different test accommodations they offer, including:

- Voice recognition software

- Test assistants/surrogates

- Separate, larger rooms

- Extended test times

The article also points out some disturbing facts, like the 70% unemployment rate of individuals with disabilities and the fact that 2 out of 3 of these unemployed individuals would like to work.

Makes me wonder (for the millionth time) about the true nature of the looming "talent shortage"...

New blogs to watch

Here are a couple of new blogs to head over and check out:

HR Recruiting Alert; here are a few recent articles:

• Recruitment strategies for older workers
• EEOC warns of bias in 2 common hiring practices
• Who won this case: Objective interviewing or biased process?
  

Interested? Feed is here.

The other to check out is HR-Worldview; here are some recent articles:

• What's wrong with the formal interview?
• Connectivity and productivity

Like it? Here's the feed.

Now if I could just add 5 hours to my day to read all this great stuff!

B = f (P,E)

One of the most famous axioms in social psychology is what's sometimes called "Lewin's equation" (after the famous psychologist Kurt Lewin): behavior is a function of both the person and the environment. This equation is good to keep in mind when looking at all kinds of human behavior, including recruitment and assessment.

Research presented in the May 2008 issue of Journal of Applied Social Psychology addresses this equation. Let's take a look at it and see if helps us answer an age-old question: What's more important--the observer or what's being observed?

Tell me if this situation sounds familiar. A hiring manager insists on hiring someone based on something they saw in the person's resume (e.g., the candidate graduated from a particular college), even though the person did not do well on a structured, validated assessment. The first study shows that HR is not immune to this phenomenon. In it, HR managers were presented with two types of information about a candidate: preliminary information (like a resume) and performance on an assessment center. The managers were then asked to rate the candidate. Results? Managers were unable to exclude the preliminary information, even though they had better information (the assessment center results) in front of them.

The second article looks at the legitimacy perceptions of promotion decisions and how they relate to information on deservedness (candidate performance) and entitlement (affirmative action). Participants felt that both deservedness and entitlement were related to legitimacy, but there was a gender effect--female participants felt increased resentment when the male candidate was promoted.

The third article is a fascinating take on how people how people perceive discrimination. Specifically, the authors looked at ambiguous situations and the impact of how "prototypical" the person doing the discriminating is. What they found was that the amount of control the perceiver felt they had over discrimination in their lives moderated the influence of the prototype effect. In other words, whether a white male (the prototype) was acting in a discriminatory fashion depended a great deal on the perceiver. Like research on stress, control was found here to have a significant effect on perceptions.

So given these three articles, what's more important--the observer or what's being observed? The research above gives us a clear answer, and one that validates the wisdom of Kurt Lewin: both.

Friday humor: SME meetings

I swear I've had a SME meeting like this one before. Happy Friday!

Adverse impact of assessment centers (May Applied Psych)

The May '08 issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology is out with lots of great content. Unfortunately only one is directly related to recruitment and assessment, so let's check that one out then I'll give you links to some others that look interesting.

The study is Ethnic and gender subgroup differences in assessment center ratings: A meta-analysis by Dean, Roth, and Bobko. The authors found overall d-values of .52 for Black-White differences, .28 for Hispanic-White differences, and -.19 for male-female differences. (the second group in these comparisons performs better)

The results suggest that the Black-White difference is larger than previously thought but may be a more "diversity friendly" option for Hispanics and females.

There are some other great articles in here for fans of organizational behavior, including:

Subjective cognitive effort: A model of states, traits, and time. (which, by the way, suggests another reason why conscientiousness may predict job performance)

Early predictors of job burnout and engagement.

Event justice perceptions and employees' reactions: Perceptions of social entity justice as a moderator.

Harmful help: The costs of backing-up behavior in teams.

Trust that binds: The impact of collective felt trust on organizational performance.

Stirring the hearts of followers: Charismatic leadership as the transferal of affect.

The influence of psychological flexibility on work redesign: Mediated moderation of a work reorganization intervention.

...and several more!

New SIOP networking groups

The Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), bless its heart, is getting into the 21st century.

In their April newsletter they mention that two SIOP members, John Golden and Daniel Russell, have formed a LinkedIn group called I-O Practitioners Network. To join, click here. (If you don't have a LinkedIn account, and shame on you, you'll have a chance to create one)

But wait, that's not all, John Golden has also created a Ning site for I-O practitioners, which comes with joining the LinkedIn group. ("What the heck is Ning?" you say? Think Wikipedia meets MySpace)

So bravo, John! And SIOP, welcome to the party! (now will someone please tell them about RSS feeds?)

In search of highly skilled workers

The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) has a new study out called In Search of Highly Skilled Workers. Like all MSPB studies, it's focused on the federal government. But it has a lot of good info regardless of what sector you're in.

For example:

- MSPB recommended that departments should not rely exclusively on USAJOBS since this was not the primary way people found out about jobs--word of mouth was, through friends/relatives or their supervisor/co-workers

- More and more hires are being made from the veterans program, and this results in the most white males compared to other mechanisms; this has resulted in upper level hires trending toward white males. Interestingly, the most diverse hires were made through "direct hire", which does not require rating & ranking candidates.

- Use of the competitive exam process (e.g., need to rate & rank) is less and less frequent.

- Job security was by far the top reason new hires applied for federal jobs; other highly ranked factors included mission of organization, opportunity to serve the public/do good, benefits, and opportunity to use talents/have a better job.

- OPM's television campaign is seeing some success, with increased traffic.

- Candidates are pretty lazy and/or strapped for time. About 1/3 of hires did not apply for other jobs because they would have had to re-write their narrative description of their KSAs while about 1/4 did not because they would have to have rewritten their resume (!).

- More than ½ of upper-level hires were not aware of their application status until they called for an interview/job offer (sadly, probably not that rare).

- Many new hires indicated they would have accepted their job even with a reduction in pay because of workplace flexibilities and benefits.

- Coordination of hiring managers and HR was key: 98% of managers involved with the development of assessment tools said they got the talent they needed; only 82% of managers not involved felt that way.

- Upper level hires were willing to wait about 2 months between job application and job offer--most felt anything after that was unreasonable.

- Things the feds don't do well? According to new hires, they don't deal effectively with poor performers, their leave benefits could be better, and (not surprisingly) they weren't thrilled with the pay.

- Something else federal departments can improve on: providing clear minimum qualifications that truly are the "lowest bar", and verifying that applicants have them.

Good lessons here for employers everywhere.

Mini book review: Groundswell

Did you know that by reading this blog post you've been put into a category? Yep, at the very least you're a "spectator." In fact, you might be a "joiner", a "collector", a "critic" or even (as I am) a "creator." Where am I getting these labels? They all come from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff's new book, Groundswell: Winning in a world transformed by social technologies.

This is by no means a new subject. There have been quite a few books in recent years that cover social technologies and how they can be used productively. But these books have tended to have either a more narrow focus (e.g., by focusing on particular technologies or organizational functions such as marketing) or an extremely broad focus. In Groundswell, Li and Bernoff, both VPs and analysts at Forrester Research, describe the current slate of social technologies and provide organizations with a road map of how they should (or shouldn't) be used.

Those of you familiar with Charlene's blog will recognize much of the content of the book--in fact to be honest there aren't a lot of new concepts in the book, which is a potential drawback. The book is, to a large extent, a collection of the various concepts that the authors have already published. But there's no denying that having it all in one place is mighty handy, and the in-depth case studies serve to flush out the details. And those of you that aren't avid readers of the blog will find much in here to digest.

So what is "the groundswell"? According to the authors it's "A social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations."

These technologies include all the usual suspects, including blogs, wikis, social networks, forums, review sites, tags, RSS, widgets--you get the point. They also touch on newer technologies such as Twitter (which isn't so new anymore).

The biggest strength of the book lies in its description of two concepts:

- the social technographic ladder, a graphical description of various categories of technology participation. These are the categories I mentioned at the beginning of this post and it's how the authors suggest organizations stratify their customers to figure out what social technology will work best.

- POST, the authors' recommendation for how to plan to engage the groundswell. This deliberate, logical approach to using social technologies is the biggest takeaway from the book. It recognizes that not all technologies are appropriate for all organizations and provides users with a rational way of planning the strategic implementation of them.

On balance, the book is an easy read and provides a great mix of big picture considerations with real-world examples. Unless you're completely new to the subject it's not likely to rock your world, but if you're interested in using social technologies but aren't sure how, this is not a bad book to have.

What would improve the book? More specifics--details--on how exactly to use the technologies. Best practices for setting up a Facebook page, for example. The different blogging platforms and their pros and cons. It's not enough to understand the concept of the technology--you need to understand the technology itself.

So what does all this have to do with recruitment and assessment? Quite a bit actually, but mostly with the former (after all, check out where people spend their time). Tapping into social technologies is a great way to spread and monitor your employment brand--i..e, why should people want to work for you? It's also a great way to identify potential candidates and spread the word about opportunities. In terms of testing, we're not there yet (and won't be until we have a secure database of individual test scores). But maybe that's okay--after all you want a job-person match, not a person-test score match.

So why did I call this a mini-review? Because I haven't read the whole book (yet). I've read most of the beginning and latter chapters, but haven't made my way through the middle, which is comprised mostly of case studies. I don't claim to have read it cover-to-cover, so take this review with that in mind.

First issue of new SIOP journal

SIOP (the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology) has a new journal. It's called "Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice."

The idea of the journal is to offer a couple of focal articles and then print several peer commentaries associated with each.

In the inaugural (March 2008) issue, two topics are covered.

In the first focal article, Macey and Schneider treat us to a historical and research-based view on a very hot topic, employee engagement. Here's a sample:

"The notion of employee engagement is a relatively new one, one that has been heavily marketed by human resource (HR) consulting firms that offer advice on how it can be created and leveraged. Academic researchers are now slowly joining the fray, and both parties are saddled with competing and inconsistent interpretations of the meaning of the construct."

The authors provide a great overview of the different ways of viewing engagement. The treatment is generally positive, and they sum up their view this way:

"Although engagement may best fit...as a profile model of a multidimensional construct, we see engagement as not only a set of constructs but also a tightly integrated set, interrelated in known ways, comprising clearly identifiable constructs with relationships to a common outcome."

The focal article is followed by no less than 13 commentaries from a variety of authors, both academics and consultants. The authors follow with a reply and point out that the debate over engagement is a great example of the "research-practice gap."

The second topic is assessment centers. In it, Charles Lance investigates why they don't work the way they're supposed to. Specifically, candidate ratings seem to reflect the particular exercise they're completing--not the dimensions they're supposed to be rated on. The conclusion sums up their view nicely:

"It is now time to acknowledge the last quarter century's worth of research findings and reorient assessment away from broad dimensions and toward exercise-based assessment."

The focal article is followed by ten peer commentaries by folks such as Ann Howard, Winfred Arthur, and Filip Lievens, and the authors' response.

Great, in-depth stuff for those of you out there interested in either topic.

New blog: Criteria

Let's welcome a new blog in town. The new entrant is a corporate blog from Criteria, an employment testing firm based in LA.

They start off with a bang, taking a clever look at the relationship between Wonderlic scores (a measure of cognitive ability) and performance in the NFL.

Good stuff, check it out.

Have teens lost the ability to write?

Have teenagers lost the ability to form a coherent sentence? It's something I've been hearing off and on the last few years from hiring managers and teachers. Generally I chalk it up to the normal generational differences, but given results from a recent survey I may have to change my tune.

The survey results come from a new study out by the Pew Internet and American Life Project--"Writing, Technology, and Teens." The researchers conducted focus groups and a national telephone survey of 700 parent-child pairs in the fall of 2007.

Here are some of the results:

• "85% of teens ages 12-17 engage at least occasionally in some form of electronic personal communication, which includes text messaging, sending email or instant messages, or posting comments on social networking sites." [They were twice as likely to send text messages as they were e-mail]

• "60% of teens do not think of these electronic texts as “writing.”"

• "50% of teens say they sometimes use informal writing styles instead of proper capitalization and punctuation in their school assignments"

• "38% say they have used text shortcuts in school work such as “LOL”"
  

• "25% have used emoticons (symbols like smiley faces ☺) in school work"
  

Wow. Color me wrong. I had no idea the practice was so rampant. But there may be a silver lining to this survey:

• "86% of teens believe good writing is important to success in life"

and they may know how to improve things:

• "82% of teens feel that additional in-class writing time would improve their writing abilities and 78% feel the same way about their teachers using computer-based writing tools"
  

So is this a big deal for recruitment and assessment? Potentially, if the work that needs to be done requires traditional, formal writing skill. But what if it doesn't? And what happens when this generation becomes managers--will they care if their subordinates use shortcuts and emoticons?

If one thing is made clear by this survey, it's not that teens don't think writing is important. It's that we may be in for a slight evolution in our written language. We may need to re-think the answer to this question: What is good writing?

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.

What does your selection process say about your culture?

Organizational culture is important. The typical ways of making decisions, of communicating, and responding to events, say things about "the way things are done."

So what does your selection process say about your culture? Scott Adams makes a good point that things like trust and respect are frequently claimed, but what happens when your actions don't necessarily match your words?

Solution: communicate, communicate, communicate. Let applicants know why you put them through what you do.

Oh, and while we're at it, be careful who you ask to do your selection.

Rocket-hire releases 5th annual survey results

I don't usually link to a single article, but this is an exception. Every year, Rocket-Hire and our friend Dr. Charles Handler release the results of an annual survey on the usage of online screening and assessment tools. This year marks the fifth survey and it's got some interesting results based on responses from 141 recruiting and hiring professionals:

1. Many, if not most, organizations are using an ATS. For large organizations (5,000+ employees), usage was 100%.

2. Surprisingly, many organizations are not using online qualification prescreening. Only 47% ask about basic qualifications while only 24% ask about technical skills or certifications. Why surprising? Because it's one thing ATSs tend to be decent at.

3. Use of personality measures as an assessment tool jumped in the last five years from 21% to 59% (which certainly matches the interest I'm seeing). In fact, they were the most popular assessment tool reported, followed closely by skills/knowledge tests. Least used? Simulations and online interviews. I see lots of potential in the former as our technology improves.

4. Assessment tools in general are more widely used than they were five years ago. "Fit" measures went from 29% to 40%, cognitive ability tests from 26% to 41%, and skills/knowledge tests leaped from 12% to 56%. This is good news indeed (assuming the tests are good!).

5. Unfortunately only 27% of users of prescreening tools and 36% of assessment users collect metrics to measure their success. Those that did were much more likely to find these measures effective. Hey, you can't know if you don't measure!

There's a lot more in the article (e.g., take a look at biodata usage). By the way, full results and analysis will be in the May issue of the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership.

Are the Uniform Guidelines obsolete?

It must be Uniform Guidelines week.

In my last post I talked about how the EEOC doesn't appear to have any intentions of changing them anytime soon.

Now, in the April '08 issue of TIP Dan Biddle makes an argument in favor of their continued relevance.

Biddle provides a useful mini-history of the Guidelines and sums up nicely why we care about them:

"This document has since been used in thousands of government enforcement and judicial settings where employers have been required to demonstrate that their selection procedures causing adverse impact are sufficiently “job related” by addressing the Guidelines requirements."

He also briefly reviews the differences between the Guidelines and the other "biggies" for employers, the SIOP Principles and the APA Standards. While the two latter documents are newer and generally more thorough in their treatment of issues such as validity, when it comes to legal challenges Biddle points out that the Guidelines have been referenced in hundreds of Title VII cases while the Principles and Standards have been collectively cited less than 40 times.

Biddle ends the article with an extended treatment of validity generalization and how the topic is treated by the Guidelines and courts (not well) compared to psychologists (better). He comes down in favor of the continued relevance of the Guidelines and questions whether they need to be updated at all.

Here's my favorite quote:

"If the first burden in Title VII settings (proving adverse impact) cannot be carried using evidence solely from external locations, it seems to follow that the second burden (proving validity) should likewise not be provable using only external evidence. One can only imagine the outcry of defense attorneys if government enforcement agencies or plaintiff attorneys were permitted to transport or generalize adverse impact into a local employer based on adverse impact that occurred “at some other location.”"

Good point. And good article.

Uniform Guidelines to get 3-yr extension; no clarity on "applicant"

Hurry up and wait.

That's how many employers are likely going to feel after finding out that the U.S. EEOC has proposed extending the federal Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures for another three years with no changes.

Importantly, the EEOC has stated its intention not to finalize the five additional Q&As that they floated back in 2004 to try to clarify what is meant by "applicant." This clarity is greatly sought after by employers, particularly in the wake of the OFCCP's Internet Applicant rule.

Here's part of what the EEOC writes in the Federal Register:

"In light of the EEOC’s unique enforcement responsibilities and priorities monitoring employment practices and detecting employment discrimination, it will determine, after further study, how and if it should issue further guidance or regulations clarifying Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act regarding when employers and job seekers use the Internet and related technologies."

Looks like they got cold feet. At this point they're looking for additional commentary regarding whether collection of this data is even necessary and, if so, how exactly it should be done.

Hat tip.

2008 PTC-NC Conference, Day 2

In my previous post I talked about the first day of the 2008 PTC-NC Conference. Today I'll give you a rundown of the second day.

The day started off with a bang due to a keynote address by noted personality researcher Robert Hogan. Dr. Hogan never disappoints, and his presentation was a mini-history of personality testing combined with executive assessment and organizational performance--all in 75 minutes. Major themes included the importance of leadership personality, how reputation is much more important (from a measurement perspective) than identity, why leadership effectiveness should be defined by team performance, and the characteristics of great leaders (e.g., integrity, decisiveness, competence, vision). You can get some of the same flavor in a recent American Psychologist article he co-authored.

The first breakout featured Jim Higgins (Cal DOJ) discussing an internet-based applicant self-assessment career tool and Greg Beatty (IRS) describing how the IRS has modernized using a competency-based approach. I attended Greg's (since I work within throwing distance of Jim), and he provided a great overview of some of the innovative things the IRS is doing both for incumbents and applicants, including job simulations, online assessment tools, and a career management center. "IRS...really?" you say? Yup. Don't believe me? Check out the simplicity and ease of use of their career site.

The last sessions of the conference included one on how to use MS Excel to automate selection by Dan Kuang (Biddle) and another on the leadership developmental assessment center (LDAC) by Matt Gruver (CPS). I attended Matt's, where he provided a great overview of how to develop an LDAC, including the importance of competency definition, how top management involvement is key, and how participants often are very appreciative of the (unusually rare) honest feedback they receive. Can't wait to put one together!

Overall, a great program and kudos to the organizers! Looking forward to next year.

2008 PTC-NC Conference, Day 1

On March 20th and 21st I was lucky enough to attend (and present) at the 2008 PTC-NC Conference. There were several great presentations and I'm going to break the summary up into two days for ya.

The conference started off with Michael Harris, professor of International Business at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, with an update on what the courts have been saying in the area of adverse impact and employment testing. Some major points:

- Although criterion-related validity has been discussed a lot lately, Dr. Harris predicted that a content validation strategy will continue to be the most popular choice of employers.

- They're not perfect, but courts will continue to rely on the Uniform Guidelines when judging employers' efforts to validate their tests.

- Employers should be prepared to answer what alternative tests they considered before choosing the ones they did (the third prong of this type of case).

The next session was a breakout, with Chris Wright and Louis Xavier (SF State) presenting on stereotype threat while I went over the results of a demographic analysis I conducted on applicants to an on-line T&E system. Bottom line of my presentation: there were some clear demographic differences in the jobs applied for but actual instances of adverse impact (using 4/5ths rule) were rare.

Next up was another breakout, with Jim Kuthy (Biddle) presenting on AutoGOJA while Shelley Langan (CPS) presented on succession planning. I attended Shelley's, which focused on the importance of workforce planning given current demographics and provided some practical tips on how to put together a successful plan. Some key takeaways: limit succession planning to certain positions, consider inviting everyone to apply, and conduct a future-oriented job analysis as part of your planning process.

The last breakout featured an introduction to competency modeling by Nathan Ainspan (independent consultant) and a presentation on using personality testing by Shelley Langan and Howard Fortson (CPS). I attended the latter, where we had a spirited discussion of the state of personality testing and how to introduce personality testing to your selection process (hint: rhymes with job analysis). Example business measures they mentioned included the CPI, HPI, NEO, and 16-PF. They also mentioned an upcoming article by Hough & Oswald where the authors list all of the various outcomes that personality tests have been able to successfully predict.

Last but not least that day was an outstanding keynote address by James Outtz, president of Outtz and Associates and international expert on employment testing and discrimination. Dr. Outtz went over a wide range of issues related to those subjects, including the balance between validity and adverse impact (so well covered in the most recent issue of Personnel Psychology). He introduced some fascinating research that showed that while multiple choice formats showed adverse impact against African Americans and Hispanics (favoring Caucasians and Asians), the opposite was the case for multiple list (divergent) items. Perhaps most interesting was his description of a questionnaire he developed called the Job Perception Index that served as both a realistic job preview and a selection device for firefighter positions. Some great stuff from a fabulous speaker.

That's it for now--those of you that attended, feel free to comment or add! Tomorrow: Day 2.