Contribution #2 - Chapter 6

In Chapter 6, there is a chart showing a summary of personnel selection methods. This chart includes interviews, reference checks, biographical information, physical ability tests, cognitive ability tests, personality inventories, work-sample tests, honesty tests and drug tests. These methods are then compared through reliability, validity, generalizability, utility and legality. It is interesting to see that interviews, one of the most common methods of hiring in a job process, has a low reliability and validity rate. Everyone has to go through jobs interviews, but problems with this can be the unstructured nature of interviews. Also, another problem with job interviews are employers who may get a bad first impression with a possible future employee which can then ruin the whole interview from the beginning. I believe the most important selection method is drug testing. It has high validity and high reliability. It is quite expensive, but it is shown that there are more problems with employees who are drug users compared to employees who are drug-free. Some of these problems with drug users are tardiness and absenteeism. If I were an employer, one test I would not use is the honesty test. Applicants may try to answer honesty test questions with answers they think the employer wants to hear. This is a dishonest approach to honesty tests.