Spencer Higgons – Assessment Technologies Group

April 1, 2016

The (lack of) Wisdom of Employment Interviews

With unemployment rates at historic levels many more individuals are applying for fewer jobs. Because there typically is no penalty for applying, many of today’s job applicants are not a good fit a given job. In this economy, selection really becomes critical. Unfortunately, the typical organization is still clutching to that old bastion of selection – the job interview. Despite the fact that many studies have confirmed that job interviews are among the least effective means of making a good hire decision, they continue to be the number one choice among employers. There are a few things employers should consider before simply hiring the best interviewee. First: Interviews are notoriously ineffective at predicting performance. Study after study show that even the best interviewers fall woefully short of informing good selection decisions. In fact, interviews rarely exceed an accuracy rate of 10%. Translation: If you hire a good employee via an interview, you probably got lucky. Moreover, nearly everyone with hiring authority has made a bad hire – it’s just too easy to select good interviewees. Second: Some bad employees are good at interviewing. The best interviewers may be the worst employees because they have relatively more experience interviewing. Translation: they’ve […]

April 4, 2016

Jargon Jousting – Corrected Correlation

Why would anyone need to correct a correlation? Correlations typically don’t run afoul of the law and certainly no correlation has ever been accused of committing a felony. Now it is true that some correlations are so trivial as to be misdemeanors, but certainly they aren’t deserving of correction either. The only legitimate reason to correct a correlation might be prior miscalculation, in which case the numbers simply should be run again. But what justification could there possibly be for taking correlations that are at worst misdemeanors and pumping them up to look like relationships on steroids? If the correlation is non-existent or trivial to begin with, why not just admit it? An unfortunate example of ruthlessly corrected correlations occurs in the Technical Manual for a recently released assessment of “Talent”. The report of the validity correlations for the twelve scales on the Talent measure reveals that only four of these twelve scales reach a correlation of .10 or greater with supervisor ratings of talent behaviors. The table reports that correlations of .10 or greater are significant at or beyond the .05 level of significance. Yet after not one, not two, but three different corrections, nine of the twelve scales […]

April 4, 2016

Developing Candidates Before They Apply

Have you ever said to yourself (or to anyone else, for that matter), “These fresh-out-of-school grads understand collections, but they just don’t have what it takes to do it”? Organizations across the board have complained for years that recent graduates have basic job skills and specialized knowledge, but they are lacking “soft skills,” i.e., the ability to get along with others, to handle stress, to keep themselves organized, etc. Wouldn’t it be great if you knew ahead of time that your collectors were trained in both aspects of the job? Through a partnership between your agency, ATG’s FuturesLeaders division, and your local community college, you can do just that. Candidate Development Many community colleges offer courses in collections to train students in the technical skills they need to be successful collectors; others would be willing to offer such courses if employers (i.e., your agency) expressed enough demand. This college preparation takes away some of the training time and headaches you undoubtedly experience with brand new collectors. But that’s only half of it…colleges don’t usually teach their students how to be socially assertive, outgoing, or confident. To remedy this problem, some colleges are offering to their students the opportunity to compare […]

July 8, 2016

When Interviews Fail: Why the Best Interview May Not Be the Best Employee and How To Improve Interview Efficacy

Ever been truly blown away by a job candidate’s interview performance? And then been even more blown away when their actual job performance failed to measure up? You shouldn’t be surprised. Many companies rely on open, conversational interviews in which potential candidates are free to present themselves in a way they feel will impress the interviewer. It is often the most impressive interviewee who gets awarded the job. However, research reports show those self-presentation behaviors have more to do with interview ratings and less to do with job performance ratings.* So how can a company sift through the bright and shiny candidates to find the one that will be the bright and shiny employee it’s looking for? First, candidates’ self-presentation tactics had more of an impact when the interview was relatively unstructured. To help counteract this, interviews should be as structured and standardized as possible in order to improve hiring decisions. The authors of the report advise that “although structured interview scores were still subject to attempts by candidates to manage their portrayal, the scores became significantly less so as structure increased.” Greater interview structure means a greater chance that impressive candidates will translate into impressive employees. Scoreable structured interviews […]