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 Stephen
O'Connor, SPHR, is senior director of Professional Search Services
for the MHA Service Corporation, Lansing, and can be e-mailed at
soconnor@mha.org |
Staff
Matters Newsletter
Spring 1995 |
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My mother was a discriminating shopper, especially about produce. As a boy, I remember shopping with her at the local grocery and watching her examine the fruits and vegetables. She would smell them, squeeze them, and roll them around in her hands trying to guess what they looked like inside. She would bounce the tomatoes in her hand like a baseball pitcher facing a full count. However, my mother saved her most punishing examination for the cantaloupe. She would lift this spherical fruit from the produce section with both hands gripping it with her fingertips. She would squeeze with such intensity that the tips of her fingers turned white. She wanted assurance when she cut open that fruit she would be happy with what she found. I also remember watching the grocer watch my mother execute this ritual with a mixture of curiosity and irritation. He probably thought, "I wonder if you could pass such a rigorous examination." Squeezing the cantaloupe is like the applicant screening process. We try to use all our senses to determine what this person is like on the inside. During the interview we "sniff around" hoping to gain insight about their true nature. We squeeze the applicant with probing questions to separate fact from fiction. Sometimes we shake up the candidate with a trick question like you'd shake a watermelon to hear the moisture. These attempts to determine "what's inside" may make us feel like we are doing a good job, but how effective are they? Then there's reference checking. Relying on reference checking information as part of the hiring decision is much like asking the stock boy in the produce section, "Where were these kumquats grown?" He'll either make up something or say he doesn't know. Sounds like a standard reference check to me. If interviewing is an inexact science and reference checking is a crapshoot, what should we rely on to make hiring decisions? The answer is a growing trend in pre-employment testing. Reliable testing instruments that have been validated to be free of cultural bias can verify what our senses tell us during the interview. There are standardized instruments to measure ability and skill as well as mental alertness and personality traits. Sandra Soltysiak is president of Hiring Solutions, Inc. (HSI) located in Okemos, Michigan. Her firm provides pre-employment screening, management development, and training in the area of employee selection. Ms. Soltysiak says, "The employment interview itself and an assessment of the person's work experience rank very low as valid predictors of job success". Ms. Soltysiak references the research of John Hunter, PhD at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan, as her source. Dr. Hunter's research published in 1989 indicates that an assessment method must have a validity coefficient of at least .20 to be a valid predictor of job success. The interview itself has a validity coefficient of .14 (see chart below). Success Rate for Various
Source: John Hunter, MSU, 1989 Pre-employment testing is like the grocer handing my mother a sharp knife and saying, "Why don't you cut that cantaloupe in half, Mrs. O'Connor. If you don't like what you see, you don't have to take it home". HSI further recommends the following weights for the hiring decision: one-third background and experience, one-third the interview and reference checking information, and the final one-third test results. This emphasizes the importance of not over-weighting the test results. Pre-employment test results from a validated, reliable instrument should be used as only one piece of information in the selection decision. Squeezing the cantaloupe doesn't tell us much about what's inside. Comparing it to other cantaloupes doesn't tell you what's inside either. My mother would've preferred a grocer who would let her cut open the cantaloupe before she took it home. She probably would have paid extra for the privilege. As human resource professionals we should be willing to pay the price to do our due diligence with pre-employment testing. My mother was smart. After raising 10 children there wasn't much that got by her. She would have liked pre-employment testing. She was usually right about most things. Shortly before she died, she told me she was finally going to meet her God. I hope she was right about that, too. |