978-0077718367 Chapter 6 Solution Manual

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HR How To

Interviewing Job Candidates Effectively

Interviewing job candidates is time-consuming, and unfortunately, many companies waste that

time with highly subjective, unplanned interviews that fail to reveal much relevant information.

This “HR How To” presents suggestions for making the most of the interview process. These

suggestions include: plan questions ahead of time, based on a job analysis, ask the same

specific questions in every interview, be flexible enough to gather complete and accurate

information, ask candidates to provide specific job-related activities and accomplishments, take

notes during the interview, and avoid distractions and interruptions.

Question

1. Imagine that you have been asked to interview candidates to work as cashiers in a store.

You will meet with them at a table in a conference room. What should you bring to the

interview?

2. Your friend suggests that the easiest approach to your task would be to simply say, “Tell

me about yourself” and then ask, “Why should I hire you?” and let the candidates do the

rest. How would your improve on this idea?

HR Oops

Interview Alarm Bells

In making the best decision of who to hire, HR professionals are sometime astounded at the

mistakes applicants make even later in the interviewing process like answering a phone during

the interview and making very odd statements in response to answers.

Discussion Questions with Possible Responses

1. With a multiple-hurdle model, interviewing typically comes late in the selection process.

Based on what you know about the steps in the process, why do you think the candidates

described here made it past the earlier hurdles? (For example, might they have other

qualifications, or might there be problems with the process?)

Answers will vary. Things to consider would be level of experience with previous interviewers in

the process. For instance did the interviewer do all the talking and not the applicant? Where

the questions in the previous interviews to obvious so the applicant could give the “right”

answer?

2. In the compensatory model, a high score on one type of assessment can make up for a low

score on another. Assuming the candidates describe here had low scores on their interview,

can you think of a situation in which a high score on some other measure would make these

candidates the best choice for a position? Explain.

ROADMAP: CASE STUDY

Thinking Ethically

Is a Policy of Not Hiring Smokers Ethical?

Many employers are starting to implement policies of being a non-smoker as a requirement for

employment. The companies’ state that productivity is higher because smoke breaks are no

longer needed and the health care cost are reduced. Critics state the policies aren’t fair and

encourage smokers to lie about their smoking habits. Some think it might be better to charge

smokers more for health insurance instead of having the drastic policy of not hiring smokers.

Discussion Questions with Possible Responses

1. Who is affected by a hospital’s decision not to hire smokers? Discuss whether this

decision achieves the greatest good for the greatest number of individuals.

2. How well does this policy meet the standard of being fair and equitable? Explain.

It is not fair and equitable for non-smokers. The question needs to address fair to who and

ROADMAP: Review and Discussion Questions

1. What activities are involved in the selection process? Think of the last time you were

hired for a job. Which of those activities were used in selecting you? Should the

organization that hired you have used other methods as well?

2. Why should the selection process be adapted to fit the organization’s job description?

3. Choose two of the selection methods identified in this chapter. Describe how you can

compare them in terms of reliability, validity, ability to generalize, utility, and compliance

with the law.

4. Why does predictive validation provide better information than concurrent validation?

Why is this type of validation more difficult?

5. How do U.S. laws affect organizations’ use of each of the employment tests?

Interviews?

6. Suppose your organization needs to hire several computer programmers and you are

reviewing résumés you obtained from an online service. What kinds of information will

you want to gather from the “work experience” portion of these résumés? What kinds of

information will you want to gather from the “education” portion of these résumés? What

methods would you use for verifying or exploring this information? Why would you use

those methods?

7. For each of the following jobs, select the two kinds of tests you think would be most

important to include in the selection process. Explain why you chose those tests.

A. City bus driver

B. Insurance salesperson

C. Member of a team that sells complex high-tech equipment to manufacturers

D. Member of a team that makes a component of the equipment in (c)

8. Suppose you are a human resource professional at a large retail chain. You want to

improve the company’s hiring process by creating standard designs for interviews, so

that every time someone is interviewed for a particular job category, that person answers

the same questions. You also want to make sure the questions asked are relevant to the

job and maintain equal employment opportunity. Think of three questions to include in

interviews for each of the following jobs. For each question, state why you think it

should be included.

A. Cashier at one of the company’s stores

B. Buyer of the stores’ teen clothing line

C. Accounts payable clerk at company headquarters

9. How can organizations improve the quality of their interviewing so that interviews provide

valid information?

10. Some organizations set up a selection process that is long and complex. In some

people’s opinions, this kind of selection process not only is more valid but also has

symbolic value. What can the use of a long, complex selection process symbolize to job

seekers? How do you think this would affect the organization’s ability to attract the best

employees?

Managing Talent

Hiring for an Oil Boom

The North Dakota oil industry is booming and that means that unemployment rates are below

3% in areas around the oil drilling locations. It is estimated that 50,000 to 60,000 jobs will be

needed in the area to deal with the oil drilling and also the support services because of the

growth in the area (health care, stores, etc.) Companies are luring employees with high pay but

many don’t stay because they are not a good fit or leave when another higher paying position

comes along. Some employers are loosening up on the job requirements just to get someone

hired but then deal with the ramifications of the decision.

Discussion Questions with Possible Responses

1. How could an employer’s interviewing methods help the company address the

challenges of hiring during a boom when unemployment rates are near zero?

2. If you were advising a North Dakota company about its selection process, would you

advise it to relax its selection criteria during the oil boom? Why or why not?

HR in Small Business

Kinaxis Chooses Sales Reps with Personality

This case scenario highlights the use of personality testing for sales professional positions.

Kinaxis is a software company headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario and the vice president for

sales, Bob Dolan, needed to hire a sales team to handle clients in North America. Dolan culled

the initial list of 100 resumes down to 20, and then used personality testing to identify

candidates who had the characteristics he determined were consistent with a sales

representative most likely to succeed in this particular business.

Discussion Questions with Possible Reponses

1. What selection methods did Bob Dolan use for hiring salespeople? Did he go about

using these methods in the best order? What, if anything, would you change about the

order of the methods used?

2. What were the advantages to Kinaxis of using personality tests to help select sales

representatives? What were the disadvantages?

3. Given the information gathered from the selection methods, what process did Dolan use

to make his selection decision? What improvements can you recommend to this process

for decisions to hire sales reps in the future?

HRM DVD Vol 3 Suggested Video with Discussion Questions and Possible Responses

First Impressions (1:52)

Video Summary

The video shows an example of a boot camp which trains students to understand the art of the

first impression. For the first time, Temple University has created this boot camp for graduating

seniors. Students create a 30 second first impression speech, and learn how to find a mutual

connection when they are applying for positions. They are trying to teach their students to sell

themselves to make them more competitive when new college grads are not being recruited at

the same levels as before.

Discussion Questions

1. What challenges do current college graduates face?

2. What are strategies students can use to try to make themselves stand out from the crowd?

Taking Responsibility

How Gild Aims to Create Golden Opportunities for Underappreciated Workers

Gild was started as a company to deal with big data as a means to identify who possesses

specific skills in high-demand fields. The company wanted to look for computer programmers

and developed an algorithm to analyze specific criteria and come up with the top applicants.

They found that the algorithm allowed non-traditional applicants to make it to the hiring process

who would have normally been not considered, for example someone without a degree.

Discussion Questions with Possible Responses

1. Review the criteria for a successful selection method: reliable, valid, generalizable,

practical, and legal. Evaluate how Gild’s algorithm addresses or should address these

criteria.

2. Recommend how an employer could use interviews along with Gild’s scoring method to arrive

at fair hiring decisions.

Best Practices

St. Joseph Health Matches Physical Abilities to Job Requirements

St. Joseph Health employs 24,000 people and serves patients in three states in the southwest.

The jobs are very physically demanding including lifting patients, pushing large carts, and

dealing with emergencies. The organization decided they would better meet the employee and

patient needs by having detailed job functions with test that demonstrates the ability to perform

the functions. With the help of medical and legal experts they developed job function

descriptions for 1200 positions and they use the information to develop physical tests tied to the

jobs for hiring as well as job accommodations and ability to return to work. The results have

been greater morale among supervisors and employees and less time off for recovery from

injuries.

Discussion Questions with Possible Responses

1. Based on the information given, how well do the physical ability tests for St. Joseph

Health meet the criteria of validity and utility (practical value)?

2. How can St. Joseph ensure that it uses physical ability test in a nondiscriminatory

manner?

HRM Social

Using Social Media as a Background Check

Many employers are using social media to screen out potential employees. It is easy to get the

information and according to several recent national survey’s, anywhere from 22 to 38% of

employers use social media on a regular to sometimes basis. The problem is the companies

are opening themselves up to potential legal concerns because so much of EEO protected

information is found on social media like age, sex, religion, marital status, disabilities, etc. It is

better to use social media later in the selection process instead of during a pre-screen because

of these EEO issues. Some employer use social media as a screen by having a screening

company look to weed out certain behaviors like drugs or hate speech and give the results of

what they found in a report. Other employers have started asking for applicant’s social media

passwords. This practice is not recommended and is illegal in many states.

Discussion Questions with Possible Responses

1. How well does searching social media fulfill the requirements of providing reliable,

valid, high-utility, and legal information for selection decisions?

2. What would show up in a search of public information about your name> How do

you try to represent yourself online?

Answers will vary