Recruitment, Advertising and Headhunting Paper Selection, CVs and Biodata

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Recruitment, Advertising and Headhunting Paper
Selection, CVs and Biodata
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Outline

• Recruitment, Advertising and Headhunting
• Shortlisting, Application Forms and Biodata

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Recruitment, Advertising and Headhunting

• Your Attraction Process

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The Recruitment Process
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Key Selection Criteria

• Purpose
• Provide a common standard for all applicants
• Provide disciplined structure for assessing
  applicants
• Minimise the possibility of inappropriate
  measures and judgments, being used
• Decide what is essential and what is desirable
• What can you develop once they are in the job
• Decide at which stage each is best assessed

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Attracting Candidates

• Choice of method will depend on the TYPE of job
  you are recruiting for
• Options
• Advertising
• Local paper
• Capital City Newspaper
• National newspaper
• Trade and professional journals
• Radio and television
• Online Recruitment
• Recruitment Agencies
• Executive Recruiters and Headhunting

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Advertising
(Dessler et al., 1999 p. 210 and 211)
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Online Recruiting

• Wide audience
• Graphics and colour
• Immediate response from those interested
• Can save time and money (advertising, fielding
  calls, etc)
• Still some debate about level of access to WWW

(Dessler et al., 1999)
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Recruiting Agency

• Types - government, private, non-profit
  organizations
• Agencies - often for large volume recruitment
  temporary, contract, blue-collar, etc
• To ensure they find your good applicants/candidate
  s
• Give agency an accurate and complete job
  description
• Specify the devices or tools you would like them
  to use (ask their advice but you decide)
• Review data on accepted and rejected candidates
  check the screening process
• Develop a long term relationship with one or two
  agencies
• Selecting the Agency
• What is the background of the agency?
• What are the levels of their education and
  experience?
• Do they have the qualifications to understand the
  sort of jobs for which you are recruiting?
• What is their reputation in the community and
  within business groups?

(Dessler et al., 1999)
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Executive Recruitment Headhunting

• Seek top-management talent
• Fees can be cost or of annual salary of the role
  they are recruiting for
• Can keep your firms name confidential until late
  in the process
• To ensure you select a good company that will get
  you good candidates
• Make sure they are capable of making a thorough
  search
• Meet the individual who will be handling your
  assignment
• Ask about their fees confirm retainers, etc.
• Choose one you can trust
• Talk to some of their clients, esp in your
  industry

(Dessler et al., 1999)
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Principles for Advertising

• Construction according to the Four Point Guide
  (AIDA)
• 1. Attract attention to the advert
• Not close printing, use borders and white space
• 2. Develop interest in the job
• e.g. Location, fun workplace, etc
• 3. Create desire by amplifying the jobs
  interest factors consider the target audience
• E.g. job satisfaction, career development,
  travel, etc
• Should prompt action
• Check to be sure the language is
  non-discriminatory and you are not restricting
  the pool unnecessarily

(Dessler et al., 1999)
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Paper Selection, CVs and Biodata

• Selection Tools and Techniques
• Part 1

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The Recruitment Process
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Choosing Valuable Selection Tools
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Frequency of the Use of Selection Methods in
Australia
(Dessler et al., 1999)
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Applications

• CVs vs Applications
• Applicant numbers, comparing apples with oranges
• Typically consists of a series of questions
  designed to provide information on the general
  suitability of applicants for jobs
• education, prior work history, KSAs
• Why use them
• Decide if applicants meet the minimum
  requirements
• Assessing and comparing the relative strengths
  and weakness of individuals

(Gatewood and Feild, 1998)
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Applications Checklist

• Choosing your Questions
• Review the job requirements KSAs and special
  conditions
• Beware of EEO and discrimination
• Statement that the information is complete and
  accurate applicant to sign
• Format to be attractive and easy to complete
• Check and verify information for those who are
  finalists

(Gatewood and Feild, 1998)
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Weighted Application Blank

• A technique for scoring application forms
• Items related to job success are weighted to
  reflect their degree of importance in
  distinguishing good/poor performers
• Based on research 50s-70s for screening and
  selection
• Are concerns and issues
• Legal
• No single WAB will apply to all jobs
• WAB developed on one group of employees may not
  be relevant to another group (applicants)
• Measures used for success in development of WAB
  may increase/decrease in important and relevance
  over time
• Utility may diminish over time
• Organizational changes may affect WAB, I.e.
  restructures, increases in salary schemes,
  changes in policies

(Gatewood and Feild, 1998)
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WAB Checklist

• Plan on developing your own WAB
• Consider the measure of job performance or
  criterion to be used in developing the WAB
• Develop and select WAB items with the content of
  the job and criterion to be be predicted in mind
• Develop a WAB on as large a sample as possible
  (min300 hired applicants)
• Avoid using the same sample of persons on whom
  WAB was developed to cross-validate a WAB scoring
  key
• If your organisation is using expensive selection
  measures, (e.g. AC) consider using WAB as a
  preliminary screening tool
• Use WABs in conjunction with other selection
  measures
• Conduct a validity check of WAB scoring keys
  every 3-5yrs

(Gatewood and Feild, 1998)
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Biodata

• Those questions asked of applicants concerning
  their personal backgrounds and life experiences
• Past learning and working experiences and
  behaviours considered indicators of future
  actions and behaviours
• How its collected
• Interviews
• Self-report questionnaire multiple-choice
  format, asked to characterise self in terms of
  demographic, experiential and attitudinal
  variables
• Educational experiences
• Hobbies
• Family relations
• Use of leisure time
• Personal health
• Work experience

(Gatewood and Feild, 1998)
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How to

• Before items can be generated suitable predictor
  constructs thought to underlie performance must
  be identified (eg. Achievement motivation)
• Constructs usually identified through job
  analysis with experts examining required
  knowledge, skills, abilities and other
  characteristics
• Items are then generated to assess individuals on
  the chosen constructs (eg. For the construct of
  achievement motivation an item could be How many
  different classes did you take in high school?
• Items do not directly evaluate individuals on the
  construct, rather items ask how a construct may
  have manifested itself in different situations

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10 Dimension Biodata Item Taxonomy

• 10 dimensions on which to classify items (Mael,
  1991)
• History
• Externality
• Objectivity
• First handedness
• Discreetness
• Verifiability
• Controllability
• Equal accessibility
• Job relevance
• Invasiveness

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Biodata Design Issues

• Item relevance items should describe situations
  to which all applicants have had potential
  exposure
• Faking possible concern, you can insert
  impossible life events or verifiable items as a
  check
• Item Content (Mumford and Whetzel, 1997)
• Situational exposure
• Situational choice
• Behaviour in a situation
• Reactions to a situation e.g. To what extent
  have you felt proud after completing a difficult
  assignment
• Others reactions to a situation
• Outcomes associated with situational exposure

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Biodata Design Issues cont

• Scaling methods
• Empirical select and weight items on ability to
  differentiate higher and lower performing
  criterion groups
• Rational individual difference variable
  (construct). Items designed to examine the
  manifestation of the variable.
• Factorial factor analysis of items to produce
  scales.
• Subgrouping involves identifying groups of
  individuals whose prior experiences and behaviour
  are similar enough to be summarised with little
  loss in information about individual group
  members.

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• Advantages
• Collects information in systematic way that can
  get at interview and can be empirically scored
• Not just predictive, gives understanding of what
  makes an effective employee
• Empirical scoring ensures only job related
  questions are asked (not true fairness and
  avoidance of adverse impact)
• Good predictor of Job Success
• Overall, biodata measures are highly reliable
  (.3-.4) and have acceptable levels of validity
• Predictiveness of biodata demonstrated across a
  wide range of jobs and criteria

• Disadvantages
• Not often used
• Distortion / faking good
• Biodata scoring keys may not be transferable
  between organisations, low generalisability
• Requires large samples to validate scoring keys
  more to continue to validate it
• May exclude those who did not have the same
  opportunities others had
• We dont know WHY it works!
• Lack of standardised instructions and measurement
  procedures

(Gatewood and Feild, 1998)
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Biodata Checklist

• Conduct a job analysis and consider carefully the
  criterion or job success measure to be predicted.
• Consider using an existing biodata questionnaire
• You will probably have to develop your own as
  there are few well-developed, commercially
  available ones.
• Development of biodata questionnaires is more
  suited to large organisations.
• Items or constructs must be related to the
  criterion and there should be a rational
  explanation for the relationship between the
  items responses and job success.
• Small organisations are faced with the problem of
  how best to examine the validity of biodata
  questionnaires, hence use generalisabile options.
• All items would be reviewed for discriminatory
  impact.
• With validations, base the study on job
  applicants, use predictive validity designs, and
  cross-validate the questionnaire on applicants.
• Use biodata questionnaires in addition to other
  measures.

(Gatewood and Feild, 1998)
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Validity of Selection Methods
(based on Schmidt Hunter, 1998)
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Accuracy of Selection Techniques
Robertson Smith, 2001
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Questions?
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Exercise