2. Perfect employee
Disclaimer
• This presentation is part of the mandatory
requirements of Prof. Hilda Teodoro’s AGSB Human
Resources Management class
• The data included in this report are based on publicly
available data such as those on internet websites,available data such as those on internet websites,
news, package declarations, and public reports
• When appropriate, data are “masked” so as to not
create unexpected conflicts
• The reports may be posted and linked on slideshare,
blogs, and facebook so that there is easier sharing
among students
3. Perfect employee
Why the “Perfect Employee”?
• Where to look for employees
• How to select employees
• Who to select
• How to repeat great hires• How to repeat great hires
• How to avoid bad hires
4. Perfect employee
What to expect
• Be informed – not told what to do
• Personnel Selection
• Selection Standards
• Selection Methods• Selection Methods
• Selection Methods against the Standards
5. Perfect employee
Are you in or are you out?
• Personnel Selection is the process by which
companies decide who will or who will not be
allowed into organizations
“What could possibly be more important than who gets hired?
Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts
the best people on the field and gets them playing together
wins. It’s that simple.” – Jack Welch
7. Perfect employee
Why Selection Standards?
• Selection involves measuring characteristics
of people to determine who will be accepted
• Need to quantify people on some dimension
so we can rank them from High to Low basedso we can rank them from High to Low based
on characteristic of interest
• First 4 Standards build on each other
8. Perfect employee
Reliability
• Reliability – the degree a measure is free from random
error
– Ex.: Height – use of measuring instrument versus a guess
• Reliability of the measuring instrument not the
characteristic
• Correlation Coefficient – measure of degree to which two• Correlation Coefficient – measure of degree to which two
sets of numbers are related (measure versus expected
performance)
– May be +, -, 0
– Example: SAT scores at junior high versus senior high
• Test-retest reliability – scores at one time compared to
scores at another time. Measured over a short time lapse
scores should be close
9. Perfect employee
Validity
• Validity – the extent performance on the measure is
related to performance on the job
• Criterion-Related Validity – substantial correlation
between test scores and job-performance scores (ex.
SAT score vs. GPA in freshman college)
– Predictive validation – applicants test scores correlated
High SAT = High GPAHigh SAT = High GPAHigh SAT = High GPAHigh SAT = High GPA
– Predictive validation – applicants test scores correlated
with eventual performance on the job
– Concurrent validation –incumbents test scores correlated
with current job performance
• Content Validation – an alternative. Questions or
problems posted are representative of situations or
problems that occur on the job
10. Perfect employee
Generalizability
• Generalizability – degree to which validity of a
selection method established in one context
extends to other contexts
– Ex. SAT predictor for under-graduate, but not for
graduate programs, need GRE, GMAT, etc.graduate programs, need GRE, GMAT, etc.
– Future performance
• Two primary ”contexts”
– Different situations (job roles or organizations)
• Example: nurse in a large hospital or small hospital
– Different samples of people (gender, race)
11. Perfect employee
Utility
• Utility – degree to which the information
provided by selection methods enhance the
bottom line effectiveness of the organization
– Example: Extroversion of sales person correlated– Example: Extroversion of sales person correlated
to sales revenue
• Money, money, money
12. Perfect employee
Legality
• Selection methods should conform to existing
laws and legal precedents
• Affirmative Action
• Does not discriminate against race, gender,• Does not discriminate against race, gender,
age, and disability
14. Perfect employee
Interviewing
• Interview – a dialogue initiated by one or more
persons to gather information and evaluate
qualifications of an applicant for employment
• To be effective – keep it structured, standard,• To be effective – keep it structured, standard,
and focused on accomplishing small goals
– Quantitative ratings for observable behaviors (ex.
ability to express oneself)
– Avoid rating abilities that are better measured by tests
(intelligence)
15. Perfect employee
Still Interviewing
• Situational Interviews
– Experienced-based – What did you do?
– Future-oriented – What would you do?
• Group/Panel (vs. individual)• Group/Panel (vs. individual)
– “Trained” panel (for consistency)
– With scoring/rating
• Video Recording
• Live video (Skype)
16. Perfect employee
Background Checks and Bio Data
• References are unreliable due to applicant
choose those who think highly of them
• Biographical data supplied by applicant should
be verifiablebe verifiable
• Interestingly, background checks – only in
America (and the Philippines?) compared to
Europe
– Illegal in many countries
– Europeans carry less debt compared to Americans
17. Perfect employee
Physical Ability Tests
• Tend to favor males over females
• Adverse impact on those with disabilities and
females
• 2 Key questions for this test• 2 Key questions for this test
– Essential to performing the job – firefighters
– Failure to adequately perform results in risk to
safety and health of applicant, co-workers, and
others
18. Perfect employee
Cognitive Ability Tests
• Tests individuals based on their mental rather
than physical abilities
• 3 Most Dominant – 3R+1
– Verbal Comprehension – Reading wRiting (and– Verbal Comprehension – Reading wRiting (and
spoken)
– Quantitative Ability – aRithmetic
– Reasoning Ability – ability to invent solutions to
diverse problems
19. Perfect employee
Personality Inventories
• What the applicants are like
• Remember Leadership class? - Enneagram
• Big 5 – Extroversion, Adjustment, Agreeableness,
Conscientiousness, Openness to Experience
• Conscientiousness – which captures the concept of self-regulation
and self-motivation and one of the most important characteristic of
employees lack validity
and self-motivation and one of the most important characteristic of
employees lack validity
• Despite generic lack of validity, becoming more popular possibly
due to wider-use of team-based structures that put emphasis on
collaboration
• Choices: Similar (for harmony) versus dissimilar (for diversity and
creativity)
• EQ – self-awareness, self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy,
social skills
20. Perfect employee
Sample! Sample!
• Work Samples – through case study, role play, job
tryout, hire temporary (6 mos. to a year)
• TV contests? Prize is a contract
• More “business-like” –• More “business-like” –
– Google code jam (programming problems, develop
software or game in say 2 hours ), Google also hires
the finalists (identifies pool of talents)
– HSBC Young Entrepreneur Challenge
– The Apprentice
• Assessment center – for managerial selection
21. Perfect employee
Honesty and Drug Tests
• Lie detector/Polygraph – banned in 1988.
Now, paper-based
• Drug test
– Invasive– Invasive
– Invasion of privacy issues
22. Perfect employee
How Selection Methods
Measure Up
METHOD RELIABILITY VALIDITY GENERALIZABILITY UTILITY LEGALITY
Interviews Low when unstructured and
when assessing non observable
traits
Low if unstructured and non
behavioral
Low Low, especially because of
expense
Low because of subjectivity and
potential interviewer bias also,
lack of validity makes job
relatedness low
Reference Checks Low, especially when obtained
from letters
Low because of lack of rang of
evaluations
Low Low, although not expensive to
obtain
Those writing letters may be
concerned with charges of libel
Biographical Information High test-retest specially for
verifiable information
High criterion-related validity,
low in content validity
Usually job specific, but have
been successfully developed
for many job types
High, inexpensive way to
collect vast amounts of
potentially relevant data
May have adverse impact, thus
often develop separate scoring
keys based on sex or race
Physical ability tests High Moderate criterion-related Low, pertain only to physically Moderate for some physical Often has adverse impact onPhysical ability tests High Moderate criterion-related
validity, high content validity
for some jobs
Low, pertain only to physically
demanding jobs
Moderate for some physical
jobs, may prevent expensive
injuries and disability
Often has adverse impact on
women and people with
disabilities; need to establish
job- relatedness
Cognitive ability tests High Moderate criterion-related
validity, content validation
inappropriate
High, predictive for most jobs,
although best for complex jobs
High, low cost and wide
application across diverse jobs
in companies
Often has adverse impact on
race especially for African
Americans, though decreasing
over time
Personality Inventories High Low to moderate criterion-
related validity for most traits,
content validation
inappropriate
Low, few traits predictive for
many jobs, except for
conscientiousness
Low, although inexpensive for
jobs where specific traits are
relevant
Low because of cultural and sex
differences on most traits, and
low job-relatedness in general
Work-sample Tests High High criterion and content
validity
Usually job specific, but have
been successfully developed
for many job types
High, despite the relatively high
cost to develop
High because of low adverse
impact and high job-
relatedness
Honesty tests Insufficient independent
evidence
Insufficient independent
evidence
Insufficient independent
evidence
Insufficient independent
evidence
Insufficient history of litigation,
but will undergo scrutiny
Drug tests High High High Expensive but may yield high
payoffs for health-related costs
May be challenged on invasion-
of-privacy grounds
23. Perfect employee
Summary
• Measure Stable Characteristics
• Use a Mix of Selection Methods
• Structured Interview
Research indicates that one of the bestResearch indicates that one of the best
combinations of selection methods includes
work-sample tests with a highly structured
interview and a measure of general cognitive
ability. The validity coefficient expected from
such a combined battery often exceeds .60
24. Perfect employee
• Stumbled upon a book
• By Nolan Bushnell
– Inventor of Pong
– Founder of Atari, Chuck E. Cheese’s – Pizza– Founder of Atari, Chuck E. Cheese’s – Pizza
restaurant/arcade
– Father of Electronic gaming
25. Perfect employee
The Book
• Book on Selection and Placement? – Book
on Creativity!
• How to Find, Keep, and Nurture Talent
• Another book of lists? – 51 “Pongs”
• Also contains where/how to look for “creatives”• Also contains where/how to look for “creatives”
• Based on conversations with Steve Jobs (a former
Atari Employee) that he wrote down
– Steve looking at evolution of apple, looking at the rest
of the team to spur creativity, not just himself (the
leader)
– Looking for his own – next Steve Jobs!
26. Perfect employee
Pong
• Pong – A piece of advice, only where it applies,
flexible, unlike
• Rules – applies to everything, restricts creativity
• “Key to survival to this New World is Creativity”• “Key to survival to this New World is Creativity”
• Creativity at all levels - must not reside in one
person or a few people
• Creativity Chain – different people contributing
to a product/process
• Real life examples, real companies
27. Perfect employee
Some Interesting Pongs
#1 – Make your workplace an advertisement of
your company (Atari – lobby was a games arcade)
#3 – Advertise (job openings) creatively
Atari
“Play Games, make Money”“Play Games, make Money”
“Make Games that Make Money, Keep Some of It”
Chuck E. Cheese’s
“Work for a rat, Earn lots of Cheese”
“Make Dough, Make Fun. Have Fun, Earn Dough”
IKEA
“Career Assembly Instructions” with their packaging
28. Perfect employee
More Interesting Pongs
#4 – Hire for Passion and Intensity
You can train employees with the ways of the
company, but you can’t train them to be
passionatepassionate
How do you find passion? …Like pornography, it’s
hard to define, but you know it when you see it
You see it in the eyes. Like Steve they look you in
the eye. They talk about ideas not themselves. You
cannot create passion if it is not there
29. Perfect employee
More Interesting Pongs
#5 – Ignore credentials (dropouts – Steves,
Jobs & Wozniack, Bill Gates, David Geffen,
Mark Zuckerberg, Coco Chanel)
#21 – Celebrate. Keep creatives happy#21 – Celebrate. Keep creatives happy
#27 – Champion the bad ideas. Learn to
debate both sides of an issue
#28 – Celebrate Failure to avoid fear of failure
WD-40 stands for “Water Displacement – 40th
Formula”
30. Perfect employee
More Interesting Pongs
#33 – Create a creative chain. Products/ideas
evolve
#43 – Make Something for the Rich.
Do not be limited by a wide target market
The Rich are able to makes ideas happen that
eventually become cost effective
Ex. Car, Bicycle, Telephone, Microwave Oven, etc.
#45 – Throw the Dice, to make important
decisions. Biased ranking of To-Do lists, putting
off some indefinitely at the bottom
31. Perfect employee
Last Pong
ACT!
“Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had
a good idea, the thing that matters is whata good idea, the thing that matters is what
you do with that idea once you get out of the
shower.” – Nolan Bushnell