Where there's a will, there's a way: OPM shows how to do UIT the right way

On August 10 and 12, PTC-NC was privileged to have Dr. Patrick Sharpe from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) deliver a presentation about USA Hire, part of a suite of online platforms that has allowed OPM to revolutionize the way they deliver assessment services to their diverse customers.

The idea to ask Dr. Sharpe to present occurred to me when I read an article in the Washington Post on April 2 about USA Hire titled, "For federal-worker hopefuls, the civil service exam is making a comeback".   It provides an overview of what OPM has managed to accomplish with its partner, PDRI, in the area of unproctored internet testing (UIT).  Start there if you want to learn more because it includes some examples of the items--although significantly absent is an example of the excellent video avatar-based assessment used for things like situational judgment.

Dr. Sharpe did an excellent job painting the picture for the audience of how much work was involved in the project, and how important things like stakeholder communication and contract management were to ensuring the project was a success.  He then showed us a demo version of USA Hire, where he lead us through what it looks like from the applicant's perspective as they proceed through a series of competency-based assessments.  The item formats range from the traditional (e.g., reading comprehension multiple-choice) to the modern (avatar-based SJT) to the groundbreaking--at least for the public sector (forced-choice non-cognitive assessment).

Here are some of the key points I took away:

- The technology is just a part of successfully putting an UIT program together, you have to step back and look first at what you're trying to accomplish.  For example, are you interested in whole person assessment (as OPM is) or simply focusing on certain KSAs?

- USA Hire is the culmination of years of research and analysis, and traces its history back 20-30 years within the federal government.   Translation : don't jump into UIT without careful planning.

- Start with the basics when delivering UIT: make sure the customer has a solid job analysis foundation before jumping to the assessment platform

- Getting a larger, more influential, customer successfully implemented can cause others to jump on board

- Realize that, particularly in a decentralized testing environment, you may still end up with a hybrid of different testing approaches following the roll-out of UIT, and this includes T&Es.  But the best way to move the practice is to show what success looks like.

- Consider carefully whether you want to build, buy, or lease the technology.  There are benefits and drawbacks to each.

- Starting with a pilot can be a great way to test the system (no pun intended), and also demonstrate the potential to stakeholders.

- Collaboration between assessment professionals, HR specialists, and vendors is critical.

- Don't underestimate the importance of change management.  Fears (e.g., about losing control) come easily and have to be addressed head-on.

- Organizational and system readiness is very important.  Part of the reason this effort was successful is because hiring organizations were fed up with the extremely low utility (and perception) of point-based T&Es.

For someone passionate about assessment and technology, the presentation was educational and motivational.  I walked away, as did others, with a new-found optimism for what sufficient will, resources, and tenacity can accomplish.  It's seductive to focus on what can't be done in the public sector, so to hear and see what can be done reemphasizes the importance of leadership--both in HR and at the top of the organization.

Unproctored internet testing has been talked about for so long, but to see it in action, in a research-based way in the public sector, is truly inspirational.  Truly where there is a will, there is a way.

The secret to successful organizations: Let HR drive hiring

Why do organizations make bad hires?  Because they rely too much on supervisors to do the hiring.

Imagine this scenario.  You take your car into the shop because it's making a strange sound.  The mechanic fixes it, you pay, and you're about to leave.  But on your way out, the mechanic stops you.  She* notices that you're frustrated with your iPad because it's being sluggish.  She offers to fix it for you, reasoning that cars and iPads can't be all that different.

Would you take the mechanic up on her offer?

Of course not.  But handing over important decisions--arguably the most important decisions--to the wrong people is something organizations do every day.

Auto mechanics are trained to deal with a specific situation, and to do it successfully: fix cars.  Their education and experience prepares them to do so.

Similarly, supervisors are trained to do primarily one thing: supervise the day-to-day work.  They're usually promoted because they excelled at the line level (i.e., they understand the work) and they show aptitude for leadership (hopefully).  They are not, generally speaking, schooled or experienced with the professional side of personnel selection.

Am I suggesting supervisors NOT be involved?  Absolutely not.  Am I suggesting that all HR shops are staffed with experts in personnel assessment and measurement?  Nope.

What I am suggesting is organizations get serious about this issue and stop treating supervisors as if they are people measurement professionals.

In the modern workplace with information overload and time at a premium, it's tough enough to ensure that hiring and promotion decisions get made in a thoughtful fashion.  The problem is exacerbated by the fact that most supervisors overestimate their hiring ability.  After all, how hard can it be to interview someone?

Not hard, if you don't care about getting it right.  But getting it right requires careful thought and planning; hiring right is not something done at the last minute without regard to competencies that drive success in the specific position.  It's not something that looks exactly the same time.  It's tailored to the position, the culture, and the particular needs at the time.

Great hires happen systematically for one reason: a tight partnership between line supervisors and talented HR consultants.  The supervisor knows the job. They often know best what competencies are needed to perform the job successfully (although a good internal HR consultant will have a pretty good idea).  HR professionals are trained in the professional side of selection, recognizing the pitfalls and identifying those measures most likely to predict success.

"But our HR shop doesn't know what it's doing.  They don't have the expertise!" some might say.

Perhaps.  If so, you've just identified your second strategic problem.  And it should be fixed.  That's like having people in your budget office that are bad at math.

But consider this: you may be surprised to learn that many hiring supervisors welcome being removed as the primary driver of hiring.  Good supervisors recognize that this isn't their greatest strength, and they will be happy to have HR assist them in identifying the most qualified applicants.  Particularly in this age of online questionnaires and massive candidate lists for many jobs.

So who is responsible for ensuring this supervisor-HR partnership happens systematically and is built into the organizational culture?  The leaders at the top.  Director.  CEOs.  They're the ones minding the store, and they're ultimately responsible for organizational success.  They should be instituting policies, procedures, and cultural norms that emphasize how important and critical hiring is--so critical that it requires a team approach to get it right.

Anything else is simply not taking the success of the enterprise seriously.


* Did I throw you with a female mechanic?  Now might be a good time to take the implicit association test for gender and careers.

Mega research update

I hope you like research, because there's a lot of it coming your way...and many are free as of this posting!

Without further ado...


Let's start with the Journal of Applied Psychology, January 2015 issue:

- We see a lot of research involving large candidate groups, but much less for individuals.  In this meta-analysis of individual assessments, the authors found support for their usefulness, but it varied significantly across studies.  Highest validity was found for managerial jobs and assessments that included a cognitive ability test.

- Being in the wrong job can be frustrating for both the employee and the employers.  In this study, the authors show a relationship between poor vocational fit and counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs).

- Speaking of CWB, there may be more of them going on than you would think based on the assessment literature...

- And even more on CWB!  These authors found support for both self- and acquaintance-reported personality ratings, specifically conscientiousness and agreeableness, in predicting "workplace deviance".

- Unfortunately, gender bias still exists in selection.  In this meta-analysis, the authors found this to be particularly the case in male-dominated jobs.  On a positive note, they do suggest ways of mitigating this: provide clear evidence of the competence of applicants, encourage careful decision making, and use experienced raters.

- The over-/under-prediction of cognitive ability tests debate for different ethnic groups continues.  In this study, the authors find support of overprediction for African Americans, suggesting the tests are not predictively biased.



Next, the March issue of J.A.P.:

- More support for the predictive validity of emotional intelligence, but more importantly, how the concept overlaps with other constructs such as the Big 5 and self-efficacy.

- All situational judgment tests (SJTs) are not equal, and according to these authors in a large number of instances the context that is presumably important?  Not so much.

- Speaking of SJTs, these researchers suggest that putting the "situational" back in SJTs--i.e., assessing how the situation is analyzed rather than the response options--is a useful method.

- A fascinating update of effect size benchmarks that can be used for a variety of purposes.

- Trying to predict safety-related behavior?  This research suggests that personality traits, particularly agreeableness, can usefully predict this behavior.


Moving on to the March issue of IJSA (free right now!):

- Some guidelines on preparing norms for personality inventories.

- Evidence that different cultures have different procedural justice perceptions of different selection mechanisms

- Some important findings on the equivalence and stability of job performance ratings over time

- Development of a new measure of subjective career success

- More evidence that both technical knowledge and prosocial knowledge are important factors in predicting medical student clinical performance

- This study found that CWBs are under-reported and organizational commitment increases the likelihood that peers will report them

- Evidence that forced-choice and Likert-type scales used in personality inventories have similar measurement properties


On to the Spring issue of Personnel Psych (also free right now!):

- This meta-analysis on narcissism showed that it is related to leadership emergence (through extraversion) and leadership effectiveness in a curvilinear fashion.

- More evidence of the importance of political skill--particularly the aspects of networking ability, interpersonal influence, and apparent sincerity--in predicting a range of important outcomes, including task performance beyond GMA and the Big 5.  It would be interesting to see how this is related to emotional intelligence (yes this is a foreshadowing).


Turning to the March issue of Psych Bulletin:

- More on narcissism: this time, researchers found that men consistently report higher levels of narcissism compared to women, which is interesting when taken in combination with the study above.


In the December issue of Industrial and Organizational Psychology:

- The first focal article calls out researchers for using incorrect assumptions about criterion reliabilities, thus impacting criterion validity values.  They make suggestions for how to improve meta-analyses moving forward.

- The second makes the important argument that utility analyses should consider measures of well-being when determining the effectiveness of interventions (such as an employment test).


Finally, in the January issue of JOB (also free right now):

- a proposal for improving the calculation and reporting of Cronbach's alpha

- a fascinating study showing that high conscientiousness may hinder performance during stressful situations

- in support of EI, this study found a link between emotion recognition ability and income (interestingly through political skill and interpersonal facilitation...remember the earlier study on political skill?).


That's all for now!

"Power posing" impacts interview performance

Many people have watched Amy Cuddy's riveting TED talk on how body language impacts thought processes.  Specifically, over 23.5 million people as of today have watched that particular video, millions more through YouTube and other outlets.

In the presentation she specifically talks about how "power posing"--standing in a way that denotes confidence (hands on hips)--impacts testosterone and cortisol levels and ultimately behavior.

In an upcoming issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, Cuddy and her colleagues describe the results of an experiment where university students were told to adopt either a high-power (shown on left) or low-power (shown on right) posture:

They were instructed to stand in this pose for 5-6 minutes while preparing for a job interview speech.  They then delivered said speech, which was videotaped, to two evaluators/interviewers.  These evaluators subsequently rated the participants on (a) performance, and (b) hirability.  They also judged the participants on their verbal and nonverbal behavior.

Results (N=61)?  Those who prepared for their speech while in a high-power pose were rated significantly higher (p<.01) on both factors than those who prepared in a low-power pose.  And the results could not be explained by nonverbal behavior in the interview itself.  Per the authors, "Compared to low-power posers, high-power posers appeared to better maintain their composure, project more confidence, and present more captivating and enthusiastic speeches, which led to higher overall performance evaluations."

This suggest, in the words of the authors, "By nonverbally manipulating their own sense of power, the high-power posers were effectively imbued with the psychological and physiological advantages typically associated with high power, despite their low-power position relative to the evaluators."

So what does this mean?  I believe it has several important implications.  First, it indicates a potential source of "error", akin to test anxiety, that may impact assessment performance.  Second, it suggests a potential avenue that those plagued by test anxiety may pursue to increase their chances of success.  This includes those who experience stereotype threat.  Third, it may help explain why even a "perfect" measurement of job-related KSAs does not yield a perfect correlation with performance (I'm thinking of similar confounding effects like mood or physical appearance).

You can read what appears to be the submitted version here.  I recommend reading it as well as the excellent TED talk if this subject interests you.

Federal civil service reform is HR reform

Texas.  Georgia.  Washington.  Florida.  California.

What do these states have in common?  They are some of the states that have undertaken civil service reform in an attempt to modernize and streamline all those laws and rules associated with human resources.

The U.S. federal government is no stranger to reform efforts either.  In the latest issue of Government Executive magazine, there is an interesting article about the challenges associated with the current state of affairs in the U.S. federal civil service--the largest employer in the world.  Things like excessively long time-to-hire, outdated hiring rules, and onerous discipline systems.  There are efforts afoot (again) to fix this.

They could very easily have been talking about state or local civil service systems.  Or--in many places--HR in general.

Here are some selected quotes.  See if any of them sound familiar...

"...'if you don’t view your HR specialist as a consultant prior to posting the vacancy announcements, then you are going to get people who are not qualified for your job.'"

"USAJobs, the government’s online warehouse of job vacancies, is still difficult to navigate and lacks sophisticated search capabilities to help applicants find positions that meet their interests and qualifications."

“'What we’ve seen across managers,...they are almost sourcing a unicorn...They could be looking at too technical or specialized of a skill set, or they are looking for too many competencies or experiences creating this kind of applicant that we can’t actually find.'”

"When HR and program supervisors work closely throughout the hiring process, communicating at every stage, it increases the likelihood that the system works the way it should: fairly, as expeditiously as possible, and yielding the most qualified candidates for the job."

It's worth a read, and I bet many of you will find much that resonates.  None of the principles behind reform are particularly revolutionary, but for various reasons many organizations have difficulty getting it right.  There are no shortcuts to outstanding HR systems, and only those organizations that recognize the strategic and competitive value inherent in a talented, engaged workforce will put the required resources into ensuring that it's done right.

Next time: research update

2014 Research of the Year (+ research update)

Happy New Year!  As I've done in previous years, I present below the research articles I ran across in this area that I think were the most impactful and/or important of 2014.  But first, let's catch up on two issues:

First, the Winter issue of Personnel Psychology:

- Situational judgment tests have been shown to be useful for measuring interpersonal skills, but beware: levels of "angry hostility" moderate that relationship.  (Is there a happy hostility?)

- When hiring leaders, should you look for those that have a busy home life, or be wary of them?  In this fascinating study, the authors found that leader family-to-work conflict negatively impacts followers in that it can increase their burnout. However, family-to-work enrichment increased follower engagement through leader engagement.  So the answer is, as usual, not simple: home/family life can be a good thing for followers if it makes the leader more engaged; but if the home/family life is increasing burnout, the leader may pass that along to others.  So it would seem it all depends on how the individual is handling their life outside of work!

Let's look at the November issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology:

- Are men or women perceived as better leaders?  According to this meta-analysis, it depends on how you ask the question.  If you limit the question to other-ratings, women are rated significantly higher.  But if you look at self-ratings, men rate themselves significantly higher.  Which leads to the next question: is it a biological perception or a gender perception, and if the latter, what traits are the most important?

- An intriguing study of how applicant confidence interacts with and can be altered by the recruitment experience, in this case among recruits for the U.S. military.

- Next, a study of employment and job search efficacy.  Not surprisingly, within-person frequency of job search behavior correlated with job offers; interestingly, the relationship between perceived job search progress and efficacy beliefs were moderated by beliefs of internal attribution.

- Last but not least, more evidence of the importance of defining the criteria when predicting job performance.  In this meta-analysis, the researchers found more support for personality traits out-predicting cognitive ability in predicting counterproductive work behavior, that the two predictors are approximately equal in predicting organizational citizenship behaviors, and that cognitive ability outperforms personality when predicting task and overall performance.  So do you want high task performance, OCBs, or do you want to avoid CWB?  :)  (of course the situation is even more complicated depending on whether you're looking at individual, team, leader performance, over what period of time, etc.)


Okay, on to the awards!  Without further ado, here are my nominations for Research of the Year for 2014:

1) Important advancements in our understanding of weight-based discrimination at work: Vanhove & Gordon.

2) A study of applicants posting faux pas on their social networking sites: Roulin.

3) Two important looks at assessments delivered remotely via mobile devices: Arthur, Doverspike, Munoz, Taylor, & Carr, and Morelli, Mahan, & Illingworth.

4) Two fascinating looks at personality at work: Judge, Simon, Hurst, & Kelley; and Wille & De Fruyt

5) An excellent study of how effective staffing and training practices impact firm-level flexibility and adaptability: Kim & Ployhart.

6) An important study of the movement of impactful I/O researchers to business schools: Aguinis, Bradley, & Brodersen.

7) The relationship between conscientiousness and job performance is more accurately described as curvilinear: Carter, Dalal, Boyce, O'Connell, Kung & Delgado

Finally, honorable mention to two great developments in 2014:  the change of some publishers to making access to articles more affordable, and the announcement of an additional journal, the Journal of Personnel Assessment and Decisions.


I'm continually amazed at the quality of thought and research in our area and the passion and practicality you exhibit.  Here's to an amazing 2014 and more in 2015!

Why leadership in the public sector is harder to find--but more important

Occasionally I post about things that are related to recruitment and assessment, but not focused exclusively on them.  This is one of those times.

I have the following quote from Valve Software's New Employee Handbook (a fascinating document) posted on my office door:

"Hiring well is the most important thing in the universe.
Nothing else comes close. It’s more important than breathing.
So when you’re working on hiring—participating in
an interview loop or innovating in the general area of
recruiting—everything else you could be doing is stupid
and should be ignored!"

The older I get, the more I wonder whether I should cross out "hiring" and write in "leadership".  I just can't bring myself to do it because they're both so darn important.

But this post will be about leadership.  Specifically, leadership in the public (i.e., government) sector.  More specifically, lack of leadership and what to do about it.  I don't pretend that leaders in the private sector are uniformly outstanding, but public sector is what I'm most familiar with.

First things first: in some important ways, leadership in the public sector (PS) is different from the private sector.  Not night-and-day I grant you, but there are some relatively unique boundary conditions that apply, namely:

- Not only are PS leaders bound by normal organizational policies and procedures, they labor under an additional layer of laws and rules, whether federal, state, or local.  Unlike policies and procedures, they cannot be easily changed--in fact in many cases this requires moving heaven and earth.  As one (very important) example, typically there are laws/rules about how you can hire someone.  Many of these laws and rules were created 50+ years ago in reaction to spoils systems and haven't been seriously evaluated since.

- Many PS employees have civil service protections.  This isn't a bad thing, but it means moving employee that are bad fits (either over or out) is difficult.  This greatly inhibits your talent mobility strategy.

- In the PS, leadership is often treated as an afterthought, rather than the linchpin upon which organizational success relies.  The assumption seems to be that the organizational systems and processes are so strong that it almost doesn't matter who's in charge.  This means things like leadership development and training are half-hearted.

These conditions combine with several other factors to result in true leadership being relatively rare in the PS:

- Failure is invisible.  There is very little measurement of leadership success and very little transparency and accountability, absent a media storm.

- There are fewer people in management positions that have the important leadership competencies.  Things like listening ability, strategic planning ability, and emotional intelligence.  Instead they are usually chosen based on technical ability and without the benefit of rigorous assessment results.

- There is a lack of understanding of leadership.  This stems from the lack of attention paid to it as a serious discipline; without operational definitions of leadership, there is no measurement and no accountability.

- An unwillingness to treat leadership seriously.  For whatever reasons--politics, lack of motivation, entrenched cultures--leadership is relegated to second-class status when it comes to analyzing department/agency success.  Focus tends to rest on line-level employees, technology, and unions--and only on top-level leaders when there is a phenomenally bad outcome.

So why is leadership more important in the PS than the private sector?

- Governments regulate many aspects of our lives.  They're not making consumer products.  Leaders in PS organizations have purview over things like public safety, the environment, education, housing, and taxes.  Things you literally touch every day.

- There is less accountability, less transparency.  PS leaders often do not report to a board.  They don't have to produce annual reports that detail their successes and failures.  What they do is often mysterious, poorly defined, and rarely sees the light of day.

- PS leaders work for you.  Elected or not, their salary typically comes from taxpayers.  They ultimately report to the citizens.  This means you should care about what they're doing, and whether they are worthy stewards of your investment.

So what can be done?  Much like the answer to "how do we hire well?", the answers are known.  They're just not practiced very well:

1.  Publicly acknowledge the scope of the problem.  Like frogs in a pot, somehow we find ourselves in a situation where slowly over time the current situation is accepted as normal.  It's time to stop pretending that all PS Managers are leaders.  They're not.  And we must look in the mirror ourselves and acknowledge that we are likely part of the problem.

2.  Acknowledge the urgency to improve.  Stop pretending that leadership is a secondary concern.  Sub-par leadership has a negative impact on our lives every day.  Improving the quality of that leadership is one of the most critical things we can do as a society.

3.  Publicly commit to change, and actually follow through.  Specifically describe what you will change, and when, and provide regular status updates.

4.  Define leadership in measurable terms and behaviors.  Here's just a sample list of what real leaders  do (and not a particularly good one);

= continuously improve operations
= champion and reward innovation
= hold their people accountable for meeting SMART goals
= continually seek feedback and signs of their own success and failure
= create and sustain a culture that attracts high performers and dissuades poor fits
= make hiring and promoting the most qualified people THE most important part of their job

5.  Hire and promote those with leadership competencies, not the best technicians.  While knowledge of the work being performed is important, it is far from the most important competency.

6.  Make the topic of leadership a core activity for every management team.  Eliminate "information sharing" meetings and replace them with discussions on how to be better leaders.

7.  Set clear goals of leaders up front, and hold them accountable.  What does this mean?

= consequences for hiring poor fits
= consequences for poor morale on their team
= consequences for not setting and meeting SMART goals
= recognition for doing all of the above well

8.  Measure leadership success and make the results transparent.  Develop plans to address gaps and follow through.

9.  Instill a culture of boldness and innovation.  Banish fear, often borne of laboring under layers of red tape.  Encourage risk-taking, and learn from mistakes rather than punishing them.

10.  Relentlessly seek out and banish inefficiencies, especially related to the use of time.  Critically evaluate how email and meetings are used; establish rules regarding their use.

11.  Stop pretending that all of this applies only to first-line supervisors.  If anything, they're more important the higher you go in the organizational chart.

12.  When it comes to recruiting, stop focusing on low relative salaries, and capitalize on the enormous benefit of the PS an employer--namely the mission of public service.

13.  View leadership as a competency, not a position.  Leadership behaviors can be found everywhere in an organization--they should be recognized and promoted.


My intent here is not to be a downer, but to emphasize how much more focus needs to be placed on leadership in the public sector.  The current state of affairs is unacceptable.  And for those of us familiar with research and best practices in organizational behavior, it's painful.

So I apologize for the decidedly un-Thanksgivingy nature of this post.  But I am thankful for free speech and open minds.  Thanks for reading.

Just kidding...more research update!

Seriously?  Just yesterday I did my research update, ending with a note that the December 2014 issue of the International Journal of Selection and Assessment should be out soon.

Guess what?  It came out today.

So that means--you guessed it--another research update!  :)

- First, a test of Spearman's hypothesis, which states that the magnitude of White-Black mean differences on tests of cognitive ability vary with the test's g loading.  Using a large sample of GATB test-takers, these authors found support for Spearman's hypothesis, and that reducing g saturation lowered validity and increased prediction errors.

So does that mean practitioners have to choose between high-validity tests of ability or increasing the diversity of their candidate pool?  Not so fast.  Remember...there are other options.

- Next, international (Croatian) support for the Conditional Reasoning Test of Aggression, which can be used to predict counterproductive work behaviors.  I can see this increasingly being something employers are interested in.

- Applicants that do well on tests have favorable impressions of them, while those that do poorly don't like them.  Right?  Not necessarily.  These researchers found that above and beyond how people actually did on a test, certain individual differences predict applicant reactions, and suggest these be taken into account when designing assessments.

- Although personality testing continues to be one of the most popular topics, concerns remain about applicants "faking" their responses (i.e., trying to game the test by responding inaccurately but hopefully increase the chances of obtaining the job).  This study investigates the use of blatant extreme responding, consistently selecting the highest or lowest response option, to detect faking, and looked at how this behavior correlated with cognitive ability, other measures of faking, and demographic factors (level of job, race, and gender).

- Next, a study of assessment center practices in Indonesia.

- Do individuals high in neuroticism have higher or lower job performance?  Many would guess lower performance, but according to this research, the impact of neuroticism on job performance is moderated by job characteristics.  This supports the more nuanced view that the relationship between personality traits and performance is in many cases non-linear and depends on how performance is conceptualized.

- ...which leads oh so nicely into the next article!  In it, the authors studied air traffic controllers and found results consistent with previous studies--ability primarily predicted task performance while personality better predicted citizenship behavior.  Which raises an interesting question: which version of "performance" are you interested in?  My guess is for many employers the answer is both--which suggests of course using multiple methods when assessing candidates.

- Last but not least, an important study of using cognitive ability and personality to predict job performance in a three studies of Chilean organizations.  Results were consistent with studies conducted elsewhere, namely ability and personality significantly predicted performance.

Okay, I think that's it for now!

Research update

Okay, so it been a couple months, huh?  Well, what say we do a research update then.

But before I dive in, I discovered something interesting and important.  Longtime readers know that one of my biggest pet peeves is how difficult research articles are to get a hold of.  And by difficult I mean expensive.  Historically, unless you were affiliated with a research institution or were a subscriber, you had to pay exorbitant (IMHO) fees to see research articles.  So imagine my pleasure when I discovered that at least one publisher--Wiley, who publishes several of the research journals in this area--now allows you to read-access for an article for as low as $6.  Now that's only for 48 hours and you can't print it, but hey--that's a heck of a lot better than something like $30-40, which historically has been the case!  So kudos.

Moving on.

Let's start with a bang with an article from the Autumn 2014 issue of Personnel Psych.  A few years back several researchers argued that the assumption that performance is distributed normally was incorrect; and it got a bit of press.  Not so fast, say new researchers, who show that when defined properly, performance is in fact more normally distributed.

For those of you wondering, "why do I care?"  Whether we believe performance is normally distributed or not significantly impacts not only the statistical analyses performed on selection mechanisms but theories and practices surrounding HRM.


Moving to the July issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology:

- If you're going to use a cognitively-loaded selection mechanism (which in many cases has some of the highest predictive validity), be prepared to accept high levels of adverse impact.  Right?  Not to fast, say these researchers, who show that by weighting the subtests, you can increase diversity decisions without sacrifice validity.

- Here's another good one.  As you probably know, the personality trait of conscientiousness has shown value in predicting performance in certain occupations.  Many believe that conscientiousness may in fact have a curvilinear relationship with performance (meaning after a certain point, more conscientiousness may not help)--but this theory has not been consistently supported.  According to these researchers, this may have to do with the assumption that higher scores equal more conscientiousness.  In fact, when using an "ideal point" model, results were incredibly consistent in terms of supporting the curvilinear relationship between conscientiousness and performance.

- Range restriction is a common problem in applied selection research, since you only have performance data on a subset of the test-takers, requiring us to draw inferences.   A few years back, Hunter, Schmidt, and Le proposed a new correction for range restriction that requires less information.  But is it in fact superior?  According to this research, the general answer appears to be: yes.


Let's move to the September issue of JAP:

- Within-person variance of performance is an important concept, both conceptually and practically.  Historically short-term and long-term performance variance have been treated separately, but these researchers show the advantage of integrating the two together.

- Next, a fascinating study of the choice of (and persistence in) STEM fields as a career, the importance of both interest and ability, and how gender plays an important role.  In a nutshell, as I understand it, interest and ability seem to play a more important role in predicting STEM career choices for men than for women, whereas ability is more important in the persistence in STEM careers for women.


Let's take a look at a couple from recent issue of Personnel Review:

- From volume 43(5), these researchers found support for ethics-based hiring decisions resulting in improved work attitudes, include organizational commitment.

- From 43(6), an expanded conceptual model of how hiring supervisors perceive "overqualification", which I would love to see more research on.


Last but not least, for you stats folks, what's new from PARE?

- What happens when you have missing data on multiple variables?

- Equivalence testing: samples matter!

- What sample size is needed when using regression models?  Here's one suggestion on how to figure it out.


The December 2014 issue of IJSA should be out relatively soon, so look for a post on that soon!

Research update

I can't believe it's been three months since a research update.  I was waiting until I got critical mass, and with the release of the September issues of IJSA, I think I've hit it.

So let's start there:

- Experimenting with using different rating scales on SJTs (with "best and worst" response format doing the best of the traditional scales)

- Aspects of a semi-structured interview added incremental validity over cognitive ability in predicting training performance

- Studying the use of preselection methods (e.g., work experience) prior to assessment centers in German companies

- The proposed general factor of personality may be useful in selection contexts (this one was a military setting)

- Evidence that effective leaders show creativity and political skill

- Investigating the relationship (using survey data) between personality facets and CWBs (with emotional stability playing a key role)

- Corrections for indirect range restriction boosted the upper end of structured interview validity substantially

- A method of increasing the precision of simulations that analyze group mean differences and adverse impact

- A very useful study that looked at the prediction of voluntary turnover as well as performance using biodata and other applicant information, including recruitment source, among a sample of call center applicants.  Reuslts?  Individuals who had previously applied, chose to submit additional information, were employed, or were referrals had significantly less voluntary turnover.



Moving on...let's check out the May issue of JAP; there are only two articles but both worth looking at:

- First, a fascinating study of the firm-level impact of effective staffing and training, suggesting that the former allow organizations greater flexibility and adaptability (e.g., to changing financial conditions).

- Second, another study of SJT response formats.  The researchers found, using a very large sample, the "rate" format (e.g., "rate each of the following options in terms of effectiveness") to be superior in terms of validity, reliability, and group differences.


Next, the July issue of JOB, which is devoted to leadership:

- You might want to check out this overview/critique of the various leadership theories.

- This study suggests that newer models proposing morality as an important component of leadership success have methodological flaws.

- Last, a study of why Whites oppose affirmative action programs

Let's move to the September issue of Industrial and Organizational Psychology:

- The first focal article discusses the increasing movement of I/O psychology to business schools.  The authors found evidence that this is due in large part to some of the most active and influential I/O researchers moving to business schools.

- The second is about stereotype threat--specifically its importance as a psychological construct and the paucity of applied research about it.


Coming into the home stretch, the Summer issue of Personnel Psych:

- The distribution of individual performance may not be normal if, as these researchers suggest, "star performers" have emerged

- Executives with high levels of conscientiousness and who display transformational leadership behavior may directly contribute to organizational performance

Rounding out my review, check out a few recent articles from PARE:

- I'm not even gonna attempt to summarize this, so here's the title: Multiple-Group confirmatory factor analysis in R – A tutorial in measurement invariance with continuous and ordinal indicators

- Improving exploratory factor analysis for ordinal data

- Improving multidimensional adaptive testing


Last but not least, it's not related to recruitment or assessment, but check out this study that found productivity increases during bad weather :)

That's all folks!

Are job ads a relic?

Lately at my day job we've been working with a few customers on replacing their traditional "one-shot" job ads with continuously posted career opportunities.  Why?

- It helps capture qualified candidates regardless of where they are in the search process (i.e., it helps solve the "I didn't see the ad" problem).

- It gives hiring supervisors a persistent, fresh pool of applicants that they can immediately draw from.

- It saves a ton of time that gets wasted in the traditional model due to requesting to fill a position, tailoring the duty statement, determining the assessment strategy, etc.

- It changes the focus--importantly and appropriately--from filling a single position to career opportunities.

- It presents an opportunity to critically review the way we advertise our jobs, which too often are boring and uninspired.

- With the appropriate technology, it can create another community of minds; for businesses this means customers, for public sector, it means solution generators.

- With the appropriate technology, connections can be potentially tapped to increase reach.

Apparently we're not alone in going down this road.  As this article describes, online retailer Zappos has created Zappos Insider, with the goal being to create more of a talent community than a one-time transactional relationship.  This move toward "candidate relationship management" is not new but seems to be gaining steam, which is also reflected in HR technology as vendors build this approach into their products.


So what are some challenges associated with the model?

- Without specific application dates, it becomes more critical that applicants can determine their status at any time.

- It may dissuade applicants who are actively seeking for work, who may see this model as too slow.

- It requires significant up-front work to design and determine the administration (but pays dividends on the back-end).

- Hiring supervisors may be skeptical of the change.


Here are some related issues that moving to this model doesn't automatically solve:

- Engaging in a timely manner with candidates so they understand the status of their application/interest.

- Communicating effectively with those not selected.

- Giving applicants a real person to contact if they have questions (Zappos makes these contacts very clear).

- Creating attractive yet realistic descriptions of positions in the organization.

- Focusing on the KSAOs that are most strongly linked to job performance.

- Developing an assessment strategy that most effectively measures those KSAOs.


Until there is a free worldwide talent pool that matches high quality candidate assessment with realistic job profiles (yes, that's my dream of how to replace the current extremely wasteful job matching process), things like this may have the best shot of streamlining and updating a process that is holding us back rather than helping both applicants and organizations achieve their goals.

WRIPAC's 35 Anniversary Meeting: Something old, something new, something borrowed, something to do

Over the last two days I had the pleasure of attending the Western Region Intergovernmental Personnel Assessment Council's (WRIPAC) 35th anniversary meeting in San Francisco.  I thought I would share with you some of my observations, as it's been a while, unfortunately, since I attended one of their events.

For the uninitiated, WRIPAC was founded in 1979 and is one of several regional associations in the United States devoted to personnel assessment and selection in the public sector.  Other examples include PTC-NC, PTC-SC, PTC/MW, and IPAC.  I have been involved with several of these organizations over the years and they provide a tremendous benefit to members and attendees, from networking to best practice to the latest research.

WRIPAC serves public agencies in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Oregon.  They have a somewhat unique membership model in that there is no membership fee and the meetings are free, but in order to become a member you have to attend two consecutive meetings.  They maintain their energy in large part through a commitment to their committees and providing excellent training opportunities.

So, about the 35th anniversary WRIPAC meeting, hosted by the City and County of San Francisco:

Something old:  One of my observations over the day-and-a-half meeting was the remarkable number of issues that seem to be the same, year after year.  For example:

* how to effectively screen large numbers of applicants

* how to handle increased workload with a reduced number of HR staff

* how to convince supervisors and managers to use valid assessment methods

* which assessment vendors provide the best products

* how to design selection systems that treat candidates fairly but don't unduly burden the agency

We also were treated to a retrospective by three previous WRIPAC presidents, which highlighted some really stark ways the workforce and the assessment environment has changed over the years.  This included everything from sexual harassment in the workplace being commonplace to agencies trying to figure out how to comply with the new (at the time) Uniform Guidelines.

Something new:  Dr. Scott Highhouse from Bowling Green State University presented results from several fascinating studies.

The first looked at "puzzle interview questions"--those bizarre questions like "Why are manhole covers round?" made famous by companies like Microsoft and Google.  Using a sample of participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk (the first time I've heard this done for a psychological study), he was particularly interested in whether individual "dark side" traits such as machiavellianism and narcissism might explain why certain people prefer these types of questions.

Results?  First, men were more likely to endorse these types of items.  Why?  Well it may have to do with the second finding that respondents higher in narcissism and sadism were more likely to endorse these types of questions.  From what I can tell from my massive (ten minute) search of the internet, men are more likely to display both narcissism and sadism.  Maybe more importantly, the common denominator seemed to be callousness, as in being insensitive or cruel toward others.

So what does this mean?  Well I had two thoughts: one, if you like to ask these types of questions you might ask yourself WHY (because there's no evidence I know of to support using them).  Second, if you work with supervisors who show high levels of callousness, they might need additional support/nudging to use appropriate interview questions.  Looking forward to these results getting published.

The second study Dr. Highhouse described looked at worldviews and whether they impact beliefs about the usefulness of testing--in particular cognitive ability and personality tests.  This line of research basically is trying to discover why people refuse to entertain or use techniques that have proven to work (there's a separate line of study about doctors who refuse to use decision aids--it's all rather disturbing).

Anyway, in this study, also using participants from Mechanical Turk, the researchers found that individuals that had strong beliefs in free will (i.e., people have control of their choices and should take personal responsibility) were more open to using conscientiousness tests, and people with strong beliefs in scientific determinism (i.e., behavior stems from genetics and the environment) were more open to using cognitive ability tests.  This adds valuable insight to why certain supervisors may be resistant to using assessment methods that have a proven track record--they're not simply being illogical but it may be based on their fundamental beliefs about human behavior.

The last study he talked about looked at whether presenting people with evidence of test validity would change their related world views.  You wouldn't expect strong effects, but they did find a change.  Implication?  More support for educating test users about the strengths and weaknesses of various assessments--something we do routinely but for good reason!

Last but not least, Dr. Highhouse introduced a journal that will hopefully be coming out next year, titled Journal of Personnel Assessment and Decisions, that will be sponsored by IPAC and Bowling Green State University, that aside from the excellent subject matter, will have two key features: it will be free and open to everyone.  I'm very excited about this, and long-time readers will know I've railed for years about how difficult it is for people to access high-quality research.

Something borrowed:  one of the big benefits of being involved with professional organizations--particularly ones like WRIPAC that are practitioner-focused--is it gives you access to others facing similar challenges that have come up with great solutions.  There was a lot of information shared at the roundtable about a wide variety of topics, including:

- reasonable accommodation during the testing process (e.g., armless chairs for obese individuals)

- how to use automated pre-screening to narrow candidate pools

- how agencies will adjust to the new requirements in California related to criminal background information (i..e, "ban the box" and other similar legislation)

- how to efficiently assess out-of-state applicants (e.g., video interviewing, remote proctors)

- how and when to verify a drivers license if required for the job

- how to effectively use 360-degree evaluations

- how MQs (the subject of June's free PTC-NC meeting) should best be placed in the selection process

- cloud vs. on-premise IT solutions

- centralization vs. decentralization of HR functions

- use of item banks (e.g., WRIB, CODESP)

In addition, there was an excellent entire afternoon session devoted to succession and leadership planning that featured three speakers describing the outstanding programs they've managed to administer at their agencies.  I took a ton of information away from these and it came at exactly the right time as we're looking at implementing these exact same programs.

Something to do:  One of the main things I took away from this conference is how important it is to maintain your participation in professional associations.  It's so easy to get sucked into your daily fires and forgot how valuable it is, both personally and professionally, to meet with others and tackle our shared challenges.  I plan on sharing what I learned back in the office and upping my expectation that as HR professionals we need to be active in our professional community.  I encourage you to do the same!

Mobile assessment comes of age + research update

The idea of administering employment tests on mobile devices is not new.  But serious research into it is in its infancy.  This is to be expected for at least two reasons: (1) historically it has taken a while with new technologies to have enough data to analyze (although this is changing), and (2) it takes a while for researchers to get through the arcaneness of publishing (this, to my knowledge, isn't changing, but please prove me wrong).

Readers interested in the topic have benefited from articles elsewhere, but we're finally at a point where good research is being published on this topic.  Case in point: the June issue of the International Journal of Selection and Assessment.

The first article on this topic in this issue, by Arthur, Doverspike, Munoz, Taylor, & Carr, studied data from over 3.5 million applicants who completed unproctored internet-based tests (UIT) over a 14-month period.  And while the percentage that completed them on mobile devices was small (2%), it still yielded data on nearly 70,000 applicants.

Results?  Some in line with research you may have seen before, but some may surprise you:

- Mobile devices were (slightly) more likely to be used by women, African-Americans and Hispanics, and younger applicants.  (Think about that for a minute!)

- Scores on a personality inventory were similar across platforms.

- Scores on a cognitive ability test were lower for those using mobile devices.  Without access to the entire article, I can only speculate on proffered reasons, but it's interesting to think about whether this is a reflection of the applicants or the platform.

- Tests of measurement invariance found equivalence across platforms (which basically means the same thing(s) appeared to be measured).

So overall, in terms of using UITs, I think this is promising in terms of including a mobile component.


The next article, by Morelli, Mahan, and Illingworth, also looked at measurement variance of mobile versus non-mobile (i.e., PC-delivered) internet-based tests, with respect to four types of assessment: cognitive ability, biodata, a multimedia work simulation, and a text-based situational judgment test.  Data was gathered from nearly 600,000 test-takers in the hospitality industry who were applying for maintenance and customer-facing jobs in 2011 and 2012 (note the different job types).  Nearly 25,000 of these applicants took the assessment on mobile devices.

Results?  The two types of administrations appeared be equivalent in terms of what they were measuring.  However, interestingly, mobile test-takers did worse on the SJT portion.  The authors reasonably hypothesize this may be due to the nature of the SJT and the amount of attention it may have required compared to the other test types.  (btw this article appears to be based on Morelli's dissertation, which can be found here--it's a treasure trove of information on the topic)

Again, overall these are promising results for establishing the measurement equivalence of mobile assessments.  What does this all mean?  It suggests that unproctored tests delivered using mobile devices are measuring the same things as tests delivered using more traditional internet-based methods.  It also looks like fakability or inflation may be a non-issue (compared to traditional UIT).  This preliminary research means researchers and practitioners should be more confident that mobile assessments can be used meaningfully.

I agree with others that this is only the beginning.  In our mobile and app-reliant world, we're only scratching the surface not only in terms of research but in terms of what can be done to measure competencies in new--and frankly more interesting--ways.  Not to mention all the interesting (and important) associated research questions:

- Do natively developed apps differ in measurement properties--and potential--compared to more traditional assessments simply delivered over mobile?

- How does assessment delivery model interact with job type?  (e.g., may be more appropriate for some, may be better than traditional methods for others)

- What competencies should test developers be looking for when hiring?  (e.g., should they be hiring game developers?)

- What do popular apps, such as Facebook (usage) and Candy Crush (score), measure--if anything?

- Oh, and how about: does mobile assessment impact criterion-related validity?


Lest you think I've forgotten the rest of this excellent issue...

- Maclver, et al. introduce the concept of user validity, which uses test-taker perceptions to focus on ways we can improve assessments, score interpretation, and the provision of test feedback.

- Bing, et al. provide more evidence that contextualizing personality inventory items (i.e., wording the items so they more closely match the purpose/situation) improves the prediction of job performance--beyond noncontexual measures of the same traits.

- On the other hand, Holtrop, et al. take things a step further and look at different methods of contextualization.  Interestingly, this study of 139 pharmacy assistants found a decrease in validity compared to a "generic" personality inventory!

- This study by Ioannis Nikolaou in Greece of social networking websites (SNWs) that found job seekers still using job boards more than SNWs, that SNWs may be particularly effective for passive candidates (!), and that HR professionals found LinkedIn to be more effective than Facebook.

- An important study of applicant withdrawal behavior by Brock Baskin, et al., that found withdrawal tied primarily to obstructions (e.g., distance to test facility) rather than minority differences in perception.

- A study of Black-White differences on a measure of emotional intelligence by Whitman, et al., that found (N=334) Blacks had higher face validity perceptions of the measure, but Whites performed significantly better.

- Last, a study by Vecchione that compared the fakability of implicit personality measures to explicit personality measures.  Implicit measures are somewhat "hidden" in that they measure attitudes or characteristics using perceptual speed or other tools to discover your typical thought patterns; you may be familiar with project implicit, which has gotten some media coverage.  Explicit measures are, as the name implies, more obvious items--in this case, about personality aspects.  In this study of a relatively small number of security guards and semiskilled workers, the researchers found the implicit measure to be superior in terms of fakability resistance.  (I wonder how the test-takers felt?)


That's it for this excellent issue of IJSA, but in the last few months we also got some more great research care of the March issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology:

- An important (but small N) within-subjects study by Judge, et al. of the stability of personality at work.  They found that while traits exhibited stability across time, there were also deviations that were explained by work experiences such as interpersonal conflict, which has interesting implications for work behavior as well as measurement.  In addition, the authors found that individuals high in neuroticism exhibited more variation in traits over time compared to those who were more emotionally stable.  You can find an in press version here; it's worth a read, particularly the section beginning on page 47 on practical implications.

- Smith-Crowe, et al. present a set of guidelines for researchers and practitioners looking to draw conclusions from tests of interrater agreement that may assume conditions that are rarely true.

- Another interesting one: Wille & De Fruyt investigate the reciprocal relationship between personality and work.  The researchers found that while personality shapes occupational experiences, the relationship works in both directions and work can become an important source of identity.

- Here's one for you assessment center fans: this study by Speer, et al. adds to the picture through findings that ratings taken from exercises with dissimilar demands actually had higher criterion-related validity than ratings taken from similar exercises!

- Last but not least, presenting research findings in a way that is understandable to non-researchers poses an ongoing--and important--challenge.  Brooks et al. present results of their study that found non-traditional effect size indicators (e.g., a common language effect size indicator) were perceived as more understandable and useful when communicating results of an intervention.  Those of you that have trained or consulted for any length of time know how important it is to turn correlations into dollars or time (or both)!

That's it for now!

Facial analysis for selection: An old idea using new technology?

Selecting people based on physical appearance is as old as humankind.  Mates were selected based in part on physical features.  People were hired because they were stronger.

This seems like an odd approach to selection for many jobs today because physical characteristics are largely unrelated to the competencies required to perform the job, although there are exceptions (e.g., firefighters).  But employers have always been motivated to select based on who would succeed (and/or make them money), and many have been interested in the use of gross physical characteristics to help them decide: who's taller, whose head is shaped better (phrenology), etc.  The general name for this topic is physiognomy.

Of course nowadays we have much more sophisticated ways of measuring competencies that are much more related to job success, including things like online simulations of judgment.  But this doesn't mean that people have stopped being interested in physical characteristics and how they might be related to job performance.  This is due, in part I think, to the powerful hold that visual stimuli has on us as well as the importance of things like nonverbal communication.  We may be a lot more advanced in some ways, but parts of our brain are very old.

The interest in judgment based on physical appearance has been heightened by the introduction of different technologies, and perhaps no better example of this lies with facial feature analysis.  With the advent of facial recognition technology and its widespread adoption in major cities around the globe, in law enforcement, and large sporting events, a very old idea is once again surfacing: drawing inferences from relatively* stable physical characteristics--specifically, facial features.  In fact this technology is being used for some very interesting applications.  And I'm not sure I want to know what Facebook is planning on doing with this technology.

With all this renewed interest, it was only a matter of time until we circled back to personnel selection, and sure enough a new website called FaceReflect is set to open to the public this year and claims to be able to infer personality traits from facial features, already drawing a spotlight.  But have we made great advances in the last several thousand years or is this just hype?  Let's look deeper.

What we do know is that certain physical characteristics reliably result in judgment differences.  Attractiveness is a great example: we know that individuals considered to be more attractive are judged more positively, and this includes evaluative situations like personnel selection.  It even occurs with avatars instead of real people.  And the opposite is true: for example it has been shown that applicants with facial stigmas are viewed less favorably.

Another related line of research has been around emotional intelligence, with assessments such as the MSCEIT including a component of emotional recognition.

More to the point, there's research suggesting that more fine-tuned facial features such as facial width may be linked to job success in certain circumstances.  Why?  The hypothesis seems to be two-fold: certain genes and biological mechanisms associated with facial features (e.g., testosterone) are associated with other characteristics, such as assertiveness or aggression.  This could mean that men with certain facial features (such as high facial width-to-height ratio) are more likely to exhibit these behaviors, or--and this is a key point--they are perceived that way. (By the way, there is similar research showing that voice pitch is also correlated with company success in certain circumstances)

Back to FaceReflect.  This company claims that by analyzing certain facial features, they can reliably draw inferences about personality characteristics such as generosity, decision making, and confidence.

What seems to be true is that people reliably draw inferences about characteristics based on facial features.  But here's the key question: are these inferences correct?  That's where things start to break down.

The problem is there simply isn't much research showing that judgments about job-relevant characteristics based on facial features are accurate--in fact we have research that at best the accuracy is low, and at worst shows the opposite.  To some extent you could argue this doesn't matter--what matters is whether people are reliably coming to the same conclusion.  But this assumes that what drives performance is purely other peoples' perceptions, and this is obviously missing quite a lot of the equation.

In addition, even if it were true that peoples' perceptions were accurate, it would apply only to a limited number of characteristics--i.e., those that could logically be linked to biological development through a mechanism such as testosterone.  What about something like cognitive ability, obviously a well-studied predictor of performance for many jobs?  The research linking testosterone and intelligence is complicated, some indicating the reverse relationship (e.g., less testosterone leading to higher cognitive ability), and some showing no relationship between facial features and intelligence in adults--and again, this is primarily men that have been studied.  (While estrogen also impacts facial characteristics, its impact has been less studied)

Finally, the scant research we do have indicates the link between facial features and performance is true only in certain circumstances, such as organizations that are not complex.  This is increasingly not true of modern organizations.  Circling back to the beginning of this article, you could liken this to selection based on strength becoming less and less relevant.

One of the main people behind FaceReflect has been met with skepticism before.  Not to mention that the entire field of physiognomy (or the newer term "personology") is regarded with skepticism.  But that hasn't stopped interest in the idea, including from the psychological community.

Apparently this technology is being used by AT&T for assessment at the executive levels, which I gotta say makes me nervous.  There are simply much more accurate and well-supported methods for assessing managerial potential (e.g., assessment centers).  But I suspect the current obsession with biometrics is going to lead to more interest in this area, not less.

At the end of the day, I stand by my general rule: there are no shortcuts in personnel selection (yet**).  To get the best results, you must determine job requirements and you must take the time required to get an accurate measurement of the KSAOs that link to those requirements.  It's easy to be seduced by claims that seem attractive but unfortunately lack robust research support, after all we're all susceptible to magical thinking, and there is a tendency to think that technology can do everything.  But when it comes to selection, I vote less magic, more logic.

* Think about how plastic surgery or damage to the face might impact this approach.

** As I've said many times before, we have the technology to create a system whereby a database could be created with high-quality assessment scores of many individuals that would be available for employers to match to their true job requirements.  The likelihood--or wisdom--of this idea is debatable.