selection tests in hrm

7/31/2019 Selection Tests in HRM

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Question 1: Prepare a matrix for advantage and disadvantages of each of the types of

selection test; also, proposed when best to used each.

Employers are always used tests and other selection procedures to screen applicants

before for hire and employees promotion. There are many different types of tests and

selection procedures which are including the medical examinations, personality tests,

cognitive tests, psychomotor or physical abilities tests, current achievement, credit checks,

and criminal background checks. The usage of these tests and other selection procedures

can be a very effective to determining which candidates or employees are most qualified for

a particular job. The organization can legally use these type of tests, as long as organization

don't use them purposely for discriminate based on their race, color, sex, national origin,

religion, disability, and also age which is 40 years and above. Organization tests must be

validated for each of the jobs offers and for the purposes for which the candidate or employee

are being used.

There are many types of tests being used by the organization, however the most

popular are cognitive tests, psychomotor or physical abilities tests, personalities and interest

tests and current achievement test. The cognitive tests typically use questions or problems

that can measure the ability to learn quickly, perceptual speed and accuracy, reasoning,

logic, reading comprehension and other enduring the mental abilities that are the

fundamental to success in much different type of jobs. Cognitive tests also can assess a

persons aptitude, knowledge or potential in solving job-related problems by providing

information about their mental abilities such as verbal or mathematical reasoning and

perceptual abilities like speed in recognizing letters of the alphabet. There two categories in

cognitive tests which are intelligence test and specific cognitive tests. For the intelligence

test tries to measure the intelligence of the candidate in general intellectual or cognitive in

problem-solving skills such as reasoning memory, perceiving relationship and analogies,

calculating, and solving matters. In other hands, specific cognitive test or aptitude test it used

to measure the overall candidates performance across the broad of mental capabilities or

specialized abilities in verbal or numerical ability and will designed for specific group or

jobs. These tests more suitable for the job related with the problem solving and used their

mental abilities in solving problem such as in marketing where the marketer have to find thebest solution how to market the product when the company started to decline.


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Advantages of using these types of tests will help organization to predict the job

performance particularly for more complex jobs, it also will be not influence by the candidate

attempts to impression manage or fake responses, can reduce the organization cost because

can identifying the correct candidate to hire, training or for promotion. Nonetheless, it also

can be used to produce valid inferences for a number of organizational outcomes through

performance or success in training. However there isdisadvantage by using this test which is

typically more likely to differ in results by gender and race.

The second types is personality or interest test is test to measure the personality

traits related with behavior at work, their satisfaction with different aspects of work, and

also the interpersonal interaction of the candidate or employee. Besides that, it also can be

used to find the fundamental aspects such as self confidence leadership ability, patience, and

many more. Normally it often used to assess whether the individuals have the potential to be

success in the given jobs and also to measure the great performance of communication

dealing with the team members. Personality test can be divided into five domains or the Big

Five traits founded by several researchers such as Ernest Tupes and Raymond Cristal (U.S.

Air Force Personnel Laboratory, late 1950s), J.M. Digman (1990) and Goldman extended to

the highest level of organization in 1993. These domains often used by HR because it is

considered to be underlying traits that make up the overall of individuals personality. The

Big Five traits are openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism

(OCEON) that will represent different aspect of test. Openness will describe the candidate

who likes to learn new things and enjoy with new experiences. Candidate that is reliable and

prompt such as organized, methodical will score high mark for conscientiousness test.

Besides that, extraversion shows that the candidate more energy while interacting with others

such as talkative, energetic and assertive. In agreeableness test, the candidate usually

friendly, cooperative, compassionate, affectionate, sympathetic in their feedback. Last but notleast, neuroticism or emotional stability relates with candidates emotional stability of

negative emotions. The candidate always experience emotional instability and negative

emotions such as moody and easily tense.

Other than Big Five,Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) theory also can be used as

an indicator for the personality test to measure the personality of the candidate or employee.

Thedevelopers were Katharine Cook Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers (1962),

these psychological differences into four opposite pairs consists of Introversion vs.


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Extroversion, Sensing vs. Intuition, Thinking vs. Feeling, and Judgement vs. Perception.

According to Briggs and Myers theorized that individuals naturally prefer one overall

combination of type differences.

Advantage this test is easy to conduct by using paper and pen or computerized

methods rather than other test. It is also differ in results by gender and race where it focusing

on the individuals abilities. The organization also can identify interpersonal traits that may

be needed for the certain jobs from the candidate and can reveal more information about the

candidates interests and abilities. Fordisadvantages, it may lead the candidate responding in

a way to create a positive decision outcome rather than show the reality who are they. This

test also may contain questions that do not appear or visualized the job related or unwanted

information if not well developed, the organization sometimes have not enough evidence to

support validity of the candidate personality traits and lack of diversity if all the candidates

have same personality traits.

Physical Ability test purposely to measure physical abilities to perform in a

particular task such as static strength, body coordination, stamina and dynamic strength.

Sometimes also used for the certain motor abilities like finger, reaction time and manual

dexterity. Furthermore, this test will be use for the job that related with physical such as for

policeman, mechanic, athletes, soldiers and many more. Advantages used these tests can find

the correct candidate or identify who are unable to perform with the job offered. The

candidate information in resume also can be proven through this test. However, the

equipment needed quite expensive and also need the find the right administer to conduct the

test considered as disadvantages.

Another test is work sample or simulation testing on measuring specific job skills or

job knowledge. It also can assess more general skills such as organizational skill,

interpersonal skills, and analytic skills. The candidate or employee requires performing same

or similar performance to those performed on the job to assess their level skills or

competence. The job normally required of this test such as an engineer, technician, model and

many more. This test can provide a specific developmental feedback and also provide the test

takers with the realistic preview of the job and also the organization. If the organizationhires

the experience candidate, it can reduce training cost and at the same time the employee

also can come up with the brilliant ideas. However, not all the time it will give advantages


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but also disadvantage which is not conductive to administration group, sometimes may not

asses the ability to learn new tasks quickly and easily.

As conclusion, all tests can be used to select the right candidate or employee for

specific jobs, however to ensure all tests remain predictive of success in job, organization

should keep abreast of changes in job requirements and should update the test specification as

long as this is not against labor law or any discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex

or nationality.

selection tests in hrm

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