The objective of this assignment is to demonstrate and apply your understanding of personnel selection by creating and evaluating a selection system for a job of your choice. For this assignment, you will use what we have learned so far in the course to develop, describe, and justify a selection plan that depicts the predictors, assessments, and procedures that you would use to hire applicants for an opening in a company. Additionally, you will conduct a “mock” utility analysis of your plan as a means of describing the expected efficiency of your plan and whether it would be feasible to implement.

A significant portion of this assignment involves your ability to coherently describe and walk me through how your proposed selection plan is likely to select applicants that will be successful on the job. To do so will require that you base the choices made for predictors and assessment techniques on a job analysis; thus, it is highly recommended that you use the job analysis that you completed for Application Assignment #1 to aid in the design of the selection system. Alternatively, you can select a different job that you are interested in and use the job analysis information available on O*NET (www.onetonline.org) to support your decisions.

 

When creating your selection system, take note of the following requirements:

 

• The selection system should evaluate/assess at least THREE predictors, though you may include more than three predictors if you choose to do so. The predictors will be individual difference variables that you believe would be related to performance on the job and are relevant to distinguishing potentially high performing workers from potentially low performing workers.
• The selection system should include at least TWO different assessment techniques/ processes. If you wish to design a more elaborate selection plan, you may use the same assessment technique twice (i.e., test, interview, work sample, etc.) or use a single technique to assess multiple predictors (i.e., assessment center measures conflict management skills and organizational skills). However, your final selection plan MUST include at least two different assessment techniques/approaches in your selection system.
• The selection system should utilize the methods discussed in lecture for combining multiple assessments (i.e., multiple cutoff or multiple hurdle) and establishing cut scores.
• Your primary concern in designing the selection system is to create the most valid procedure possible. Approach the task as though you are creating the ideal system, not necessarily the most practical.

 

To finish this assignment, you will need to complete the following tasks:

 

• Job Overview. Briefly describe the job position for which you are developing the selection system. In your description, you should indicate whether the position is entry or non-entry level, the major tasks/KSAOs expected of employees in this job, and the likely make-up of the applicant pool you would anticipate for this job (e.g., experience, education, recruited locally/nationally/globally, etc.)
• Selection Battery. Identify and describe at least TWO unique assessment techniques and THREE predictors that you will use to evaluate potential applicants. For EACH assessment technique, you should indicate which predictor the assessment is intended to measure. To help organize the description of your assessments and predictors, I have provided you with a template on the course website that I recommend you use; additionally I have provided you with an example of a completed assessment plan below. This example is intended to give you an idea of what I’m looking for; I would expect your final assessment plan to provide as much detail as possible. When composing the selection battery, you will need to describe the following:
  • Technique: Identify the assessment that will be used as a test/survey, interview, work sample, assessment center, etc.
  • Predictors assessed: List AND define the individual difference predictor(s) you intend to capture with this assessment
  • Description of assessment procedures: Provide a COMPLETE description of the characteristics of your assessment. In this section, you should provide as much detail as you can about the assessment technique you will use to measure your predictors. For example, if it’s a test you should indicate whether it is a speed or power test; if it’s an interview, indicate whether you would use an unstructured interview, structured-behavioral description interview or a structured-situational interview; if it’s a work sample or assessment center, indicate the type of tasks/exercises the applicants will be performing, etc.
• Selection Procedure. Develop a selection procedure that describes how you will implement the components of your selection battery to hire an applicant for the job. This means you will choose either the multiple cutoff or multiple hurdle approach we discussed in class AND justify your decision; create AND justify the order in which assessments will be administered; and discuss how you would go about setting cut scores for each assessment based on what we discussed in class.
• Utility Analysis. Perform and describe the results of a “mock” utility analysis using the Taylor-Russell tables available on the course website to evaluate the expected change in the workforce as a result of your selection system. You will perform the utility analysis using TWO different sets of values for the base rate, validity coefficient, and selection ratio that I have provided to identify the expected predictive effectiveness of the system for each combination. I have provided a table that you should fill out to complete the analysis. Once you have completed the analysis, describe the results in words and indicate whether you believe the selection system would be worth implementing given the job you are hiring for.