School of Business

Department of Management & International Management

BMGT315 – Human Resources Management
Revision Sheet for Midterm Examination
Chapter 1
Introduction to Human Resource Management

Objective 1.1 What is Human Resource Management?

An organization consists of people (in this case, people like Upwork’s own in-house Web designers and managers)
with formally assigned roles who work together to achieve the organization’s goals. A manager is someone who
is responsible for accomplishing the organization’s goals, and who does so by managing the efforts of the
organization’s people.
Most writers agree that managing involves performing FIVE basic functions:
1) Planning: Establishing goals and standards; developing rules and procedures; developing plans
and forecasts
2) Organizing. Giving each subordinate a specific task; establishing departments; delegating
authority to subordinates; establishing channels of authority and communication; coordinating the
work of subordinates
3) Staffing. Determining what type of people should be hired; recruiting prospective employees;
selecting employees; setting performance standards; compensating employees; evaluating
performance; counseling employees; training and developing employees
4) Leading. Getting others to get the job done; maintaining morale; motivating subordinates
5) Controlling. Setting standards such as sales quotas, quality standards, or production levels;
checking to see how actual performance compares with these standards; taking corrective action
as needed
Human resource management (HRM) is the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating
employees, and of attending to their labor relations, health and safety, and fairness concerns.
❖Why Is Human Resource Management Important to All Managers?
Ø Avoid Personnel Mistakes: First, having this knowledge will help you avoid the personnel mistakes you
don’t want to make while managing. For example, you don’t want
• To have your employees not doing their best.
• To hire the wrong person for the job
• To experience high turnover.
• To have your company in court due to your discriminatory actions.
• To have an employee hurt due to unsafe practices.

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 Ø Improving profits and performance: More important, it can help ensure that you get results—through
people. Remember that you could do everything else right as a manager—lay brilliant plans, draw clear
organization charts, set up modern assembly lines, and use sophisticated accounting controls—but still
fail, for instance, by hiring the wrong people or by not motivating subordinates. On the other hand, many
managers—from generals to presidents to supervisors—have been successful even without adequate
plans, organizations, or controls. They were successful because they had the knack for hiring the right
people for the right jobs and then motivating, appraising, and developing them.

Ø You may spend some time as an HR manager: Here is another reason to study this book: you might
spend time as a human resource manager.

Ø HR for small businesses: And here is one other reason to study this book: you may well end up as your
own human resource manager.
❖ Line and Staff Aspects of Human Resource Management
Authority is the right to make decisions, to direct the work of others, and to give orders. Managers usually
distinguish between line authority and staff authority.
In organizations, line authority traditionally gives managers the right to issue orders to other managers or
employees. Line authority therefore creates a superior (order giver)–subordinate (order receiver) relationship.
When the vice president of sales tells her sales director to “get the sales presentation ready by Tuesday,” she is
exercising her line authority.
Staff authority gives a manager the right to advise other managers or employees. It creates an advisory
relationship. When the human resource manager suggests that the plant manager use a particular selection test, he
or she is exercising staff authority. On the organization chart, managers with line authority are line managers.
Those with staff (advisory) authority are staff managers. In popular usage, people tend to associate line managers
with managing departments (like sales or production) that are crucial for the company’s survival. Staff managers
generally run departments that are advisory or supportive, like purchasing and human resource management.
Human resource managers are usually staff managers. They assist and advise line managers in areas like
recruiting, hiring, and compensation.
❖ Line Managers’ Human Resource Management Responsibilities
Line managers do have many human resource duties. This is because the direct handling of people has always
been part of every line manager’s duty. One major company outlines its line supervisors’ responsibilities for
effective human resource management under these general headings:
1. Placing the right person in the right job
2. Starting new employees in the organization (orientation)
3. Training employees for jobs that are new to them
4. Improving the job performance of each person
5. Gaining creative cooperation and developing smooth working relationships
6. Interpreting the company’s policies and procedures
7. Controlling labor costs
8. Developing the abilities of each person
9. Creating and maintaining departmental morale
10. Protecting employees’ health and physical conditions

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❖ The Human Resource Department
In small organizations, line managers may carry out all these personnel duties unassisted. But as the organization
grows, line managers usually need the assistance, specialized knowledge, and advice of a separate human resource
staff. In larger firms, the human resource department provides such specialized assistance.
Examples of job duties include:
• Recruiters: Use various methods including contacts within the community and print and online media to
search for qualified job applicants.
• Equal employment opportunity (EEO) representatives or affirmative action coordinators: Investigate
and resolve EEO grievances, examine organizational practices for potential violations, and compile and
submit EEO reports.
• Job analysts: Collect and examine detailed information about job duties to prepare job descriptions.
• Compensation managers: Develop compensation plans and handle the employee benefits program.
• Training specialists: Plan, organize, and direct training activities.
• Labor relations specialists: Advise management on all aspects of union– management relations.
❖ New approaches to organizing HR
However, what HR departments do and how they do it are changing. Because of this, many employers are taking
a new look at how they organize their human resource functions.
Most are “actively seeking to transform” how they deliver human resource services, largely by adopting new HR
technology tools (such as online training portals).
Many are using technology to institute more “shared services” arrangements. These create centralized HR units
whose employees are shared by all the companies’ departments to assist the departments’ line managers in human
resource matters.
Objective 1.3 Important Components of Today’s New Human Resource Management
“Personnel management” is not new. Ancient armies and organized efforts always required attracting, selecting,
training, and motivating workers. But personnel tasks like these were mostly just part of every manager’s job.
❖ Distributed HR and the New Human Resource Management
First, thanks to technologies like social media and cloud computing, more human resource management tasks are
being redistributed from a central HR department to the company’s employees and line managers. For example,
employees at Washington based Living Social use a digital tool called Rypple to comment on each other’s work.
Some experts say that if current trends continue, many aspects of HR and talent management may become “fully
embedded in how work gets done throughout an organization [distributed], thereby becoming an everyday part
of doing business
❖ Strategic Human Resource Management
A second pillar of HR today is that today’s human resource management is more involved in longer-term, strategic
“big picture” issues.
❖ Performance and Human Resource Management
Third, employers also expect human resource management to spearhead employee performance improvement
efforts.

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❖ Sustainability and Human Resource Management
Fourth, in a world where sea levels are rising, glaciers are crumbling, and people increasingly view financial
inequity as offensive, more and more people say that businesses (and their HR teams) can't just measure
“performance” in terms of maximizing profits. They argue that companies’ efforts should be “sustainable,” by
which they mean judged not just on profits, but also on their environmental and social performance as
well. As one example, PepsiCo has a goal to deliver “Performance with Purpose”—in other words, to deliver
financial performance while also achieving human sustainability, environmental sustainability, and talent
sustainability. PepsiCo wants to achieve business and financial success while leaving a positive imprint on society.
❖ Employee Engagement and Human Resource Management
Fifth, employee engagement refers to being psychologically involved in, connected to, and committed to getting
one’s jobs done. Engaged employees “experience a high level of connectivity with their work tasks,” and therefore
work hard to accomplish their task-related goals. Employers expect HR to help achieve employee engagement
today.
❖ Ethics and Human Resource Management
Finally, ethics means the standards someone uses to decide what his or her conduct should be. Regrettably, news
reports are filled with stories of otherwise competent managers who have run amok. For example, prosecutors
filed criminal charges against several Iowa meatpacking plant human resource managers who allegedly violated
employment law by hiring children younger than 16.

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 Chapter 4
Job Analysis and The Talent management Process

Objective 4.1 Talent Management Process

We will define talent management as the holistic, integrated and results- and goal-oriented process of planning,
recruiting, selecting, developing, managing, and compensating employees.

Objective 4.2 The Basics of Job Analysis

v What is Job Analysis?
Job analysis is the procedure through which you determine the duties of the company’s positions and the
characteristics of the people to hire for them. Job analysis produces information for writing job descriptions (a
list of what the job entails) and job (or “person”) specifications (what kind of people to hire for the job). Virtually
every personnel-related action— interviewing applicants, and training and appraising employees, for instance—
requires knowing what the job entails and what human traits one needs to do the job well.

v Uses of Job Analysis:

• Recruitment and selection Information about what duties the job entails and what human
characteristics are required to perform these duties helps managers decide what sort of people to recruit
and hire.
• EEO compliance Knowing a job's duties is necessary for determining, for example, whether a
selection test is a valid predictor of success on the job. Furthermore, to comply with the ADA, employers
should know each job’s essential job functions—which requires a job analysis.
• Performance appraisal A performance appraisal compares an employee’s actual performance of his
or her duties with the job's performance standards. Managers use job analysis to learn what these duties
and standards are.
• Compensation (such as salary and bonus) usually depends on the job’s required skill and education
level, safety hazards, degree of responsibility, and so on—all factors you assess through job analysis.
Training The job description lists the job’s specific duties and requisite skills—thus pinpointing what
training the job requires.

Objective 4.3 Methods for Collecting Job Analysis Information

There are many ways (interviews or questionnaires, for instance) to collect job information. The basic rule is to
use those that best fit your purpose.
Before actually analyzing the job, keep several things in mind:
• Make the job analysis a joint effort by a human resources manager, the worker, and the supervisor. The
human resource manager might observe the worker doing the job, and have the supervisor and worker
complete job questionnaires. The supervisor and worker then verify the HR manager’s list of job duties.
• Make sure the questions and the process are clear to the employees.
• Use several job analysis methods. For example, a questionnaire might miss a task the worker performs
just occasionally. Therefore, it’s prudent to follow up the questionnaire with a short interview.
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v The Interview
Job analysis interviews range from unstructured (“Tell me about your job”) to highly structured ones with
hundreds of specific items to check off. Managers may conduct individual interviews with each employee, group
interviews with groups of employees who have the same job, and/or supervisor interviews with one or more
knowledgeable supervisors. Use group interviews when a large number of employees are performing similar or
identical work, since this can be a quick and inexpensive way to gather information. As a rule, the workers’
immediate supervisor attends the group session; if not, you can interview the supervisor separately. The
interviewee should understand the reason for the interview. There’s a tendency for workers to view such
interviews, rightly or wrongly, as “efficiency evaluations.” If so, interviewees may hesitate to describe their jobs
accurately.
• Structured interviews Many managers use questionnaires to guide the interview. It includes questions
regarding matters like the general purpose of the job, supervisory responsibilities, job duties, and skills
required.
o pros and cons: The interview’s wide use reflects its advantages. It’s a simple and quick way to collect
information. Skilled interviewers can also unearth important activities that occur occasionally, or informal
contacts not on the organization chart. The employee can also vent frustrations that might otherwise go
unnoticed. Distortion of information is the main problem. Job analysis often precedes changing a job’s pay
rate.

v Questionnaires
Having employees fill out questionnaires to describe their job duties and responsibilities is another popular job
analysis approach. Some questionnaires are structured checklists. Here each employee gets an inventory of
perhaps hundreds of specific duties or tasks (such as “change and splice wire”). He or she must indicate if he or
she performs each task and, if so, how much time is normally spent on each. At the other extreme, the
questionnaire may simply ask, “describe the major duties of your job.
Questionnaires have pros and cons. This is a quick and efficient way to obtain information from a large number
of employees; it’s less costly than interviewing dozens of workers, for instance. However, developing and testing
it (perhaps by making sure the workers understand the questions) can be time consuming.
v Observation
Direct observation is especially useful when jobs consist of observable physical activities—assembly-line worker
and accounting clerk are examples. However, it’s usually not appropriate when the job entails a
lot of mental activity (lawyer, design engineer). Nor is it useful if the employee only occasionally engages in
important activities, such as a nurse who handles emergencies. Reactivity—the worker’s changing what he or she
normally does because you are watching—is another problem.
Managers often use direct observation and interviewing together. One approach is to observe the worker on the
job during a complete work cycle. (The cycle is the time it takes to complete the job; it could be a minute for an
assembly-line worker or an hour, a day, or longer for complex jobs.) Here you take notes of all the job activities.
Then, ask the person to clarify open points and to explain what other activities he or she performs that you didn’t
observe.

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v Participant Diary/Logs
Another method is to ask workers to keep a diary/log; here for every activity engaged in, the employee records
the activity (along with the time) in a log. Some firms give employees pocket dictating machines and pagers.
Then randomly during the day, they page the workers, who dictate what they are doing at that time.

v Online Job Analysis Methods

Employers also use online job analysis methods. Here the human resource department generally distributes
standardized job analysis questionnaires to geographically disbursed employees online, with instructions to
complete the forms and return them by a particular date.

Objective 4.4 Writing Job Descriptions

The most important product of job analysis is the job description. A job description is a written statement of what
the worker actually does, how he or she does it, and what the job’s working conditions are. There is no standard
format for writing a job description. However, most descriptions contain sections that cover:
1. Job identification
2. Job summary
3. Responsibilities and duties
4. Authority of incumbent
5. Standards of performance
6. Working conditions
7. Job specification

v Job Identification: The job identification section (on top) contains several types of information. The job
title specifies the name of the job, such as inventory control clerk.
v Job Summary: The job summary should summarize the essence of the job, and should include only its
major functions or activities.
v Relationships: There may be a “relationships” statement that shows the jobholder’s relationships with
others inside and outside the organization Example: Reports to: Vice president of employee relations.
Supervises: Human resource clerk, test administrator, labor relations director, and one secretary. Works with:
All department managers and executive management.
Outside the company: Employment agencies, executive recruiting firms, union representatives, state and
federal employment offices, and various vendors.
v Responsibilities and Duties: This is the heart of the job description. It should present a list of the job’s
responsibilities and duties. This section may also define the jobholder’s authority limits. Usually, the
manager’s basic question here is, “How do I determine what the job’s duties are and should be?” The answer
first is, from the job analysis; this should reveal what the employees on each job are doing now.
v Standards of Performance and Working Conditions: A “standards of performance” section lists
the standards the company expects the employee to achieve for each of the job description’s main duties and
responsibilities.

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 Chapter 5
Personnel Planning and Recruiting

Objective 5.1 Workforce Planning and Forecasting

Workforce (or employment or personnel) planning is the process of deciding what positions the firm will have to
fill, and how to fill them. Its aim is to identify and to eliminate the gaps between the employer’s projected
workforce needs and the current employees who might be suitable for filling those needs. The manager should
engage in workforce planning before recruiting and hiring employees. After all, if you don’t know what your
employment needs will be in the next few months or years, why are you hiring?

v Strategy and Workforce Planning

Workforce planning should be an integral part of the firm’s strategic planning process. For example, plans to enter
new businesses, to build new plants, or to reduce activities will all influence the personnel skills the employer
needs and the positions to be filled. At the same time, decisions regarding how to fill these positions will require
other HR plans, such as training and recruiting plans.
Like any good plans, employment plans are built on forecasts—basic assumptions about the future.
Here, the manager will usually need three sets of employment forecasts:
• one for personnel needs (demand),
• one for the supply of inside candidates, and
• one for the supply of outside candidates.

v Forecasting Personnel Needs (Labor Demand)

How many people with what skills will we need? Managers consider several factors. Most importantly, a firm’s
future staffing needs reflect demand for its products or services, adjusted for changes in its turnover rate and
productivity, and for changes the firm plans to make in its strategic goals. Forecasting workforce demand therefore
starts with estimating what the demand will be for your products or services. Short term, management should be
concerned with daily, weekly, and seasonal forecasts. The basic tools for projecting personnel needs include trend
analysis, ratio analysis, and the scatter plot.

v Trend analysis means studying variations in the firm’s employment levels over the past few years. For
example, compute the number of employees at the end of each of the last 5 years in each subgroup (like sales,
production, secretarial, and administrative) to identify trends. Trend analysis can provide an initial rough
estimate of future staffing needs. However, employment levels rarely depend just on the passage of time.
Other factors (like productivity and retirements, for instance), and changing skill needs will influence
impending workforce needs.

v Ratio analysis Another simple approach, ratio analysis, means making forecasts based on the historical
ratio between (1) some causal factor (like sales volume), and (2) the number of employees required (such as
number of salespeople). For example, suppose a salesperson traditionally generates $500,000 in sales. If the
sales revenue to salespeople ratio remains the same, you would require six new salespeople next year (each
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 of whom produces an extra $500,000) to produce a hoped-for extra $3 million in sales. Like trend analysis,
ratio analysis assumes that things like productivity remain about the same. If sales productivity were to rise
or fall, the ratio of sales to salespeople would change.

v The scatter plots A scatter plot shows graphically how two variables—such as sales and your firm’s
staffing levels—are related. If they are, then if you can forecast the business activity (like sales), you should
also be able to estimate your personnel needs.
Managerial Judgement
Few historical trends, ratios, or relationships will continue unchanged into the future. Judgment is thus needed to
adjust the forecast.

Objective 5.3 Internal Sources of Candidates

Recruiting typically brings to mind LinkedIn, employment agencies, and classified ads, but internal sources—in
other words, current employees or “hiring from within”—are often the best sources of candidates. Filling open
positions with inside candidates has advantages. There is really no substitute for knowing a candidate’s strengths
and weaknesses, as you should after working with them for some time. Current employees may also be more
committed to the company.
Morale and engagement may rise if employees see promotions as rewards for loyalty and competence. And inside
candidates should require less orientation and (perhaps) training than outsiders.
There are other advantages. External hires tend to come in at higher salaries than do those promoted internally,
and some apparent “stars” hired from outside may still disappoint. On the other hand, some firms—particularly
those facing challenges, such as McDonald’s—have done very well by bringing in outsiders.
One study concluded that firms that hired their CEOs from inside rather than outside performed better.
Hiring from within can also backfire. Inbreeding is a potential drawback, if new perspectives are required. The
process of posting openings and getting inside applicants can also be a waste of time, when the department
manager already knows whom he or she wants to hire. Rejected inside applicants may become discontented;
telling them why you rejected them and what remedial actions they might take is crucial.

v Finding Internal Candidates

Job posting means publicizing the open job to employees (usually by literally posting it on company intranets or
bulletin boards). These postings list the job’s attributes, like qualifications, supervisor, work schedule, and pay
rate.
Ideally, the employer’s internal-recruitment system therefore matches the best inside candidate with the job. In
practice, this doesn’t always happen.
Rehiring someone who left your employ has pros and cons. Former employees are known quantities (more or
less) and are already familiar with how you do things. On the other hand, employees who you let go may return
with negative attitudes. Inquire (before rehiring) about what they did during the layoff and how they feel about
returning.

Objective 5.4 Employee Engagement Guide for Managers

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v Promotion From Within
Many employers encourage internal recruiting, on the reasonable assumption that doing so improves employee
engagement.
Objective 5.5 Outside Sources of Candidates
v Informal Recruiting and the Hidden Job Market
Many job openings aren’t publicized at all; jobs are created and become available when employers serendipitously
encounter the right candidates.
Ø Recruiting via the Internet
Most employers post ads on their own Web sites, as well as on job boards such as Indeed.com, Monster, and
CareerBuilder.
Job hunters can search for jobs by key word, read job descriptions and salaries, save jobs to a list of favorites, e-
mail job links, search for jobs nearby, and often directly apply for the job.
Virtual (fully online) job fairs are another option. Here online visitors see a similar setup to a regular job fair.
They can listen to presentations, visit booths, leave résumés and business cards, participate in live chats, and get
contact information from recruiters and hiring managers.
pros and cons
Online recruiting generates more responses quicker and for a longer time at less cost than just about any other
method. And, because they are more comprehensive in describing the jobs, Web-based ads have a stronger effect
on applicant attraction than do printed ads.
But online recruiting has two potential problems.
First is bias. Older people and some minorities are less likely to be online, so such recruiting may exclude some
older applicants (and certain minorities).
The second problem is Internet overload: Employers end up deluged with résumés.

v Using Recruitment Software and Artificial Intelligence

Internet overload means that most employers use applicant tracking software to screen applications. Applicant
tracking systems (ATS) are online systems that help employers attract, gather, screen, compile, and manage
applicants.
Ø Artificial intelligence systems: Employers also use artificial intelligence–based systems to improve
recruitment.70 Here the main focus is on automating the résumé analysis. To paraphrase one expert, why
read through 10,000 résumés if a machine can instantaneously find the top 20?

Ø Advertising: While Web-based recruiting is replacing traditional help wanted ads, print ads are still
popular. For example, the local newspaper is often a good source for local blue-collar help, clerical
employees, and lower-level administrative employees. Advertising Constructing (writing) the ad: use the
guide AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action) to construct ads. First, grab attention to the ad. Next,
develop an interest in the job. Then Create desire by spotlighting words such as travel or challenge. Finally,
the ad should prompt action with a statement like “call today.

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 Ø Employment Agencies: There are three main types of employment agencies:
1. public agencies operated by federal, state, or local governments;
2. agencies associated with nonprofit organizations;
3. privately owned agencies.

Ø Public and nonprofit agencies

Every state has a public, state-run employment service agency. Some employers have mixed experiences with
public agencies. For one thing, applicants for unemployment insurance are required to register and to make
themselves available for job interviews. Beyond just filling jobs, counselors will visit an employer’s work site,
review the employer’s job requirements, and even assist the employer in writing job descriptions.
Ø Private agencies
Private employment agencies are important sources of clerical, white-collar, and managerial personnel. They
charge fees (set by state law and posted in their offices) for each applicant they place. Most are “fee paid” jobs,
in which the employer pays the fee.
Ø Recruitment Process Outsourcers
Recruitment process outsourcers (RPOs) are special vendors that handle all or most of an employer’s recruiting
needs. They usually sign short-term contracts with the employer, and receive a monthly fee that varies with the
amount of actual recruiting the employer needs done.
Ø On-Demand Recruiting Services
On-demand recruiting services (ODRS) are recruiters who are paid by the hour or project, instead of a percentage
fee, to support a specific project.
Ø Offshoring and Outsourcing Jobs
Rather than bringing people in to do the company’s jobs, outsourcing and offshoring send the jobs out.
Outsourcing means having outside vendors supply services (such as benefits management, market research, or
manufacturing) that the company’s own employees previously did in-house. Offshoring means having outside
vendors or employees abroad supply services that the company’s own employees previously did in-house.

Ø Executive Recruiters
Executive recruiters (also known as headhunters) are special employment agencies employers retain to seek out
top-management talent for their clients. The percentage of your firm’s positions filled by these services might be
small. However, these jobs include key executive and technical positions. For executive positions, headhunters
may be your only source of candidates. The employer always pays the fees.
Ø Referrals and Walk-Ins
Employee referral campaigns are a very important recruiting option. Here the employer posts announcements of
openings and requests for referrals on its Web site, bulletin boards, and/or wallboards. It often offers prizes or
cash awards for referrals that lead to hiring.
Referral’s big advantage is that it tends to generate “more applicants, more hires, and a higher yield ratio
(hires/applicants).” Current employees tend to provide accurate information about their referrals because they’re
putting their own reputations on the line.

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Walk-ins Particularly for hourly workers, walk-ins—direct applications made at your office—are a big source of
applicants. Sometimes, posting a “Help Wanted” sign outside the door may be the most cost-effective way of
attracting good local applicants.
Ø College Recruiting
College recruiting—sending an employer’s representatives to college campuses to prescreen applicants and create
an applicant pool from the graduating class—is important. Recently, the entry level job market has been the
strongest it’s been in years, and historically, almost 40% of such jobs have gone to recent college graduates.
One problem is that such recruiting is expensive.
Ø Internships
Internships can be win–win situations. For students, they can mean honing business skills, learning more about
potential employers, and discovering one’s career likes (and dislikes). Employers can use the interns to make
useful contributions while evaluating them as possible fulltime employees. A study found that about 60% of
internships turned into job offers.
Ø Military Personnel
Returning and discharged military personnel provide an excellent source of trained and disciplined recruits.

Chapter 6
Employee Testing and Selection
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Objective 6.1 Why Employee Selection Is Important?
After reviewing the applicants’ résumés, the manager turns to selecting the best candidate for the job. This usually
means using the screening tools we discuss in this and the following chapter: tests, assessment centers, interviews,
and background and reference checks.
Of course, a candidate might be “right” for a job, but wrong for the organization. For example, an experienced
airline pilot might excel at American Airlines but perhaps not at Southwest, where the organizational values
require that all employees help out, even with baggage handling. Therefore, while person–job fit is usually the
main consideration, person–organization fit is important too.
In any case, selecting the right person is crucial for several reasons:
o First, employees with the right skills will perform better for you and the company. Those without these
skills or who are abrasive or obstructionist won’t perform effectively, and your own performance and the
firm’s will suffer.
o Second, effective selection is important because it is costly to recruit and hire employees.
o Third, inept hiring has legal consequences. Equal employment laws require nondiscriminatory selection
procedures. And negligent hiring means hiring employees with criminal records or other problems who
then use access to customers’ homes (or similar opportunities) to commit crimes. In one case, an apartment
manager entered a woman’s apartment and assaulted her. The court found the apartment complex’s owner
negligent for not checking the manager’s background.

Objective 6.3 Types of Tests

v Tests of Cognitive Abilities: Cognitive tests include tests of general reasoning ability (intelligence) and
tests of specific mental abilities like memory and inductive reasoning.
v Intelligence tests Intelligence (IQ) tests are tests of general intellectual abilities. They measure not a single
trait but rather a range of abilities, including memory, vocabulary, verbal fluency, and numerical ability.
v Specific cognitive abilities: There are also measures of specific mental abilities, such as deductive
reasoning, verbal comprehension, memory, and numerical ability. Psychologists often call such tests aptitude
tests, since they purport to measure aptitude for the job in question.
v Tests of Motor and Physical Abilities: You might also want to measure motor abilities, such as finger
dexterity, manual dexterity, and (if hiring pilots) reaction time. Tests of physical abilities may also be required.
These include static strength (such as lifting weights), dynamic strength (pull-ups), body coordination
(jumping rope), and stamina.
v Measuring Personality and Interests: A person’s cognitive and physical abilities alone seldom
explain his or her job performance. As one consultant put it, most people are hired based on qualifications,
but are fired because of attitude, motivation, and temperament. Personality tests measure basic aspects of an
applicant’s personality. Industrial psychologists often focus on the “big five” personality dimensions:
extraversion, emotional stability/neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to
experience.
1) Neuroticism represents a tendency to exhibit poor emotional adjustment and experience negative
effects, such as anxiety, insecurity, and hostility.
2) Extraversion represents a tendency to be sociable, assertive, active, and to experience positive
effects, such as energy and zeal.
3) Openness to experience is the disposition to be imaginative, nonconforming, unconventional, and
autonomous.
4) Agreeableness is the tendency to be trusting, compliant, caring, and gentle.
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 5) Conscientiousness is comprised of two related facets: achievement and dependability.

Ø Achievement Tests: Achievement tests measure what someone has learned. Most of the tests you take in
school are achievement tests. They measure your “job knowledge” in areas like economics, marketing, or
human resources. Achievement tests are also popular at work.

Objective 6.4 Work Samples and Simulations

With work samples, your present examinees with situations representative of the job for which they’re applying,
and evaluate their responses. Experts consider these (and simulations, like the assessment centers we also discuss
in this section) to be tests. But they differ from most tests because they directly measure job performance.
v Using Work Sampling for Employee Selection
The work sampling technique tries to predict job performance by requiring job candidates to perform one or more
samples of the job’s tasks. For example, work samples for a cashier may include counting money. The basic
procedure is to select a sample of several tasks crucial to performing the job, and then to test applicants on them.
An observer monitors performance on each task, and indicates on a checklist how well the applicant performs.
v Situational Judgment Tests
Situational judgment tests are personnel tests “designed to assess an applicant’s judgment regarding a situation
encountered in the workplace.
v Management Assessment Centers
A management assessment center is a 2- to 3-day simulation in which 10 to 12 candidates perform realistic
management tasks (like making presentations) under the observation of experts who appraise each candidate’s
leadership potential.
Typical simulated tasks include:
• The in-basket. The candidate gets reports, memos, notes of incoming phone calls, e-mails, and other
materials collected in the actual or computerized in-basket of the simulated job he or she is about to start.
The candidate must take appropriate action on each item. Trained evaluators review the candidate’s efforts.
• Leaderless group discussion. Trainers give a leaderless group a discussion question and tell members to
arrive at a group decision. They then evaluate each group member’s interpersonal skills, acceptance by
the group, leadership ability, and individual influence.
• Management games. Participants solve realistic problems as members of simulated companies competing
in a marketplace.
• Individual oral presentations. Here trainers evaluate each participant’s communication skills and
persuasiveness.
• Testing. These may include tests of personality, mental ability, interests, and achievements.
• The interview. Most require an interview with a trainer to assess interests, past performance, and
motivation.

Objective 6.5 Background Investigations and Other Selection Methods

v Why Perform Background Investigations and Reference Checks?

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Most employers check and verify the job applicant’s background information and references. Some employers
also do ongoing due diligence background checks for current employees.
There are two main reasons to check backgrounds—to verify the applicant’s information (name and so forth)
and to uncover damaging information. Lying on one’s application isn’t unusual. A survey found that 23% of 7,000
executive résumés contained exaggerated or false information.
v Steps for Making the Background Check More Valuable
There are steps one can take to improve the usefulness of the background information being sought. Specifically:
1) Include on the application form a statement for applicants to sign explicitly authorizing a background
check.
2) Phone references tend to produce more candid assessments.

v The Polygraph and Honesty Testing

The polygraph is a device that measures physiological changes like increased perspiration. The assumption is that
such changes reflect changes in emotional state that accompany lying.
Written honesty tests Paper-and-pencil (or computerized or online) honesty tests are special types of personality
tests designed to predict job applicants’ proneness to dishonesty and other forms of counterproductivity.
Graphology is the use of handwriting analysis to determine the writer’s personality characteristics and moods,
and even illnesses, such as depression.
Human lie detectors Some employers use so-called human lie detectors, experts who may (or may not) be able
to identify lying just by watching candidates.
v Physical Exams
Once the employer extends the person a job offers, a medical exam is often the next step in selection (although it
may also occur after the new employee starts work). There are several reasons for preemployment medical exams:
to verify that the applicant meets the job’s physical requirements, to discover any medical limitations you should
consider in placement, and to establish a baseline for future workers’ compensation claims. Exams can also reduce
absenteeism and accidents and detect communicable diseases.
v Substance Abuse Screening
Most employers conduct drug screenings, and many applicants are flunking the tests. The most common practice
is to test candidates just before they’re formally hired. Many also test current employees when there is reason to
believe they’ve been using drugs—after a work accident, or with obvious behavioral symptoms such as chronic
lateness. Some firms routinely administer drug tests on a random or periodic basis, while others require drug tests
when they transfer or promote employees to new positions.
v Drug Testing
Legal Issues Drug testing raises numerous legal issues. Employees may claim drug tests violate their rights to
privacy. Hair follicle testing is less intrusive than urinalysis but can actually produce more personal information:
A short hair segment could record months of drug use.

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