Selection Methods – Part 2 (interviews, job experience)

Selection Methods – Part 2 (interviews, job experience)
Readings:

Heneman, H. H., Judge, T. A., Kammeyer-Mueller, J. (2011). Staffing Organizations (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Chapters 8 & 9 – These chapters will be used for modules 7, 8 and 9.

McDaniel, M. M., Whetzel, D. L., Schmidt, F. L., & Maurer, S. D. (1994). The validity of employment interviews: A comprehensive review and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 79, 599-616.

Quinones, M. A., Ford, J. K., & Teachout, M. S. (1995). The relationship between work experience and job performance: A conceptual and meta-analytic review. Personnel Psychology, 48, 887-910.

**McKinney, A.P., Carlson, K.D., Mecham, R.L., D’Angelo, N.C, & Connerley, M.L. (2003). Recruiters’ use of GPA in initial screening decisions: Higher GPAs don’t always make the cut. Personnel Psychology, 56, 823-845.

**Potosky, D. & Bobko, P. (2004). Selection testing via the internet: Practical considerations and exploratory empirical findings.Personnel Psychology, 57, 1003-1034

Overview:

The main focus of this module is on interviews and job experience as selection methods. Although interviews are undoubtedly methods, job experience is debatable. I have included it in this module as a method because it is something that is easily verifiable and objective, rather than subjective like some constructs (e.g., personality and cognitive ability). We would use job experience as in indicator of such constructs as work ethic, motivation, persistence, need for achievement, or even personality.

The readings are relatively straightforward for this week. The two articles are both meta-analyses. Meta-analysis is a statistical procedure that cumulates findings across studies, estimates the amount of artifactual variation between studies, and thereby arrives at the true relationship between variables. The meta-analytic technique is subjective, and has been criticized for its “garbage-in, garbage-out” approach, meaning that the findings are only as good as the individual studies that make up the final meta-analysis. Also, the methodology has been criticized for its subjective nature, the possibility of “over-correcting” for artifacts, and the difficulty in understanding the findings. The focus for this course, however, is on the content of the articles, not the methodology (of course, not the same content-method distinction…).

Important terms:

Structured interviews, unstructured interviews, past-oriented questions, future-oriented questions, situational interviews, job experience, meta-analysis

QUESTIONs:

For this assignment, you will need to construct an interview for the job of a school bus driver (grades K-12) and answer questions concerning the interview.

1.Construct a structured interview protocol for a school bus driver (K-12 grade). As for length, plan the interview to be approximately 25-30 minutes. You will not actually give the interview, but you can estimate how long it should take. Because it is structured, you can allot specific time for questions and answers, and you should indicate that next to the question. Use a variety of questions (e.g., situational vs. past-oriented), and provide a scoring key. That is, indicate the types of answers that would constitute good responses and the type that would be poor responses. Assume that you have the individual’s job application on file (standard, generic form). (Hint: you may want to refer to O*NET for tasks, duties, KSAs, etc. to help guide the types of questions you ask.)

Note: This particular group of applicants that you will be interviewing is just looking for a reason to sue… so make sure the questions are job-related (you may want to refer to the job analysis information) and can’t be construed as illegal.

2.What constructs are you tapping with this interview? Which questions refer to which construct? (You may want to indicate the construct next to the question if it makes it easier for you) For these constructs, would there be a better method for selection than the interview? You will want to refer to the readings and cite where appropriate.

3.What are the trade-offs for using the structured interview compared with using an unstructured interview? A simple list of pros and cons is sufficient