Who knows wins: the validity of employee selection methods

Duncan Jackson, Chris Dewberry, Jarka Gallagher and Liam Close discuss the effectiveness of different candidate selection methods for businesses.

Photo by Nick Hillier on Unsplash.com

In our recent article published in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, we were interested in how HR practitioners perceived the validity of employee selection procedures, and how their perceptions aligned with validity estimates published in academic literature.

We summarised the discrepancies between published validity evidence and the perceptions of those who reported holding:

  1. CIPD (Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development) qualifications
  2. HRM (Human Resource Management) qualifications
  3. OP (Occupational Psychology) qualifications
  4. and laypeople, who do not hold formal HR qualifications.

Our findings suggest that the responses of those with CIPD- and HRM-related qualifications did not differ significantly or substantially from the responses of laypeople.  However, those with OP-related training tended to respond in a manner significantly and substantially more aligned with findings reported in the research literature. What do these findings imply?

They could imply that those trained in OP have a better awareness of the research literature regarding employee selection than the other groups sampled.  This is consistent with the fact that research in this area is predominantly published in journals that are psychology-oriented.  Our findings might also imply that those with CIPD- and HRM-related training do not tend to access – or perhaps do not have access to – contemporary, high-quality research related to the validity of candidate selection methods.

Dr Chris Dewberry from the Department of Organizational Psychology and a co-author on this paper states:

‘For organisations, selecting the best job candidates is very important. To achieve this, familiarity with the results of high-quality scientific research on the effectiveness of different selection methods is vital. The results of the research presented in this article clearly indicate that practitioners without a background in organisational psychology are at a disadvantage here. The implication is clear: initiatives to familiarise practitioners with an HR background about the results of scientific research on personnel selection are urgently needed.

As a community of applied researchers and practitioners, perhaps we need to do more to make research findings available and to communicate those findings.  For example, occupational psychologists could work in conjunction with the CIPD to ensure that findings published in occupational psychology-related journals are shared in an appropriate format with HRM practitioners.

If practitioners do not hold an awareness of the latest and greatest vis-à-vis employee selection research, then they might not be using candidate selection methods optimally.  This could, in turn, affect the careers of individuals and the optimal function of organisations.  Dr Scott Highhouse from Bowling Green State University offers a related explanation and suggests that practitioners might not see selection research as being relevant to their practice.  This perspective suggests that it is important to educate about the importance of validity in selection and how it impacts on practice.  A clear example of where selection applies to the bottom line for an organisation is seen in utility analysis – a function which shows how validity relates to monetary gains for organisations on the basis of using valid selection procedures.

Practitioners should consider the following actions:

  • Ensure that the choice of selection method is guided by validity evidence as published in high quality, peer-reviewed sources
  • Understand that knowledge of validity is power in employee selection: practitioners need to take the time to familiarise themselves with the literature on the validity of selection methods
  • Know that the degree of validity makes a difference to the quality of selection decisions and to the bottom line for organisations

Further information:

  • For the original, peer-reviewed article, see:
    Jackson, D. J. R., Dewberry, C., Gallagher, J., & Close, L. K. (in press). A comparative study of practitioner perceptions of selection methods in the United Kingdom. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. doi: 10.111/joop.12187
  • About the authors: Duncan Jackson, Chris Dewberry and Liam Close are members of Birkbeck’s Department of Organizational Psychology. Jarka Gallagher works for Arctic Shores Ltd, where Liam Close also works.
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