Week 3

Question 1

Possible selection tools in personal selection

Answer 1

Bio data
Work sample tests
Physical ability tests
Medical exams
Structured interviews
Aptitude tests
Personality tests
Situational judgement test

Question 2

Work sample

Answer 2

• actual job tasks are used for testing
• harder to fake answers
• related to the job
• fair to all applicants
• better validity in predicting performance

Question 3

Physical ability tests

Answer 3

Motor abilities (e.g. finger dexterity, manual dexterity and reaction time)(e.g selection of a dental student)
Physical abilities (e.g. static strength, dynamic strength, body coordination and stamina) (e.g selection of a policeman or fireman)

Question 4

Medical examination

Answer 4

• verify applicants meet physical requirements of the position (e.g. a perfect eyesight for a pilot)
• discover any medical limitations
• reduce absenteeism and accidents
• detect communicable diseases unknown to the applicant

Question 5

Psychometric tests

Answer 5

Hk uses 2:
Aptitude tests
- verbal reasoning
- numerical reasoning
- diagrammatic reasoning (ability to spot patterns and trends )
Personality tests
- mainly used for selecting uni grads & professionals (e.g. OPQ, Hogan assessment, 16PF, NEO PERSONALITY INVENTORY, CHINESE PERSONALITY AT WORK (CPW))

Question 6

Can applicants fake a personality test?

Answer 6

YES, forced choice items, measures of consistency, measures of social desirability.

Question 7

SJT

Answer 7

Situational Judgement Test
Format :
- present a realistic situation and ask how they would handle it
- usually involves a dilemma or competing goals

Question 8

Keys concepts in understanding psychometric tests

Answer 8

1) Reliability - test-retest ability, internal consistency.
2) Validity - a psychometric test should be both reliable and valid
3) Norms - a benchmark for comparison, a norm for American may not be the same for hong kongers, important to create a norm for a specific cultural or subgroup of applicants
4) Translation of questionnaire - translated by trained psychologists, back translation, comparison between of and new
5) Utility of psychometric test should-benefits: change in performance indicators,
Turnover rate, recruitment costs, job satisfaction index

Question 9

Assessment centres

Answer 9

• not a physical office
• refers to a package of selection tools used to select managerial candidates (e.g. in-basket, leader-less group discussion, management games, objective tests, interviews )