May 22, 2007
Personnel Selection in Organizations: The Assessment Center method
Mihaela Chraif
EJOP Editor
Interview with Professor Filip Lievens, Ghent University
The modern methods of personnel are based on scientific evidences of the applied selection tests and procedures. The Assessment Center as latest method of personnel selection consists of a standardized evaluation of behavior based on multiple evaluations including: job-related simulations, interviews, and psychological tests. Job Simulations are used to evaluate candidates on behaviors relevant to the most critical aspects/competences of the job.
During personnel selection several trained observers and techniques are used. Also, judgments about behavior are made and recorded. These judgments are pooled in a meeting among the assessors or by an averaging process.
A more recent trend over the past ten years has been the development of selection procedures which are based upon the assessment center model, but which can be turned into low- fidelity simulations which involve having an applicant/applicants read about a work situation (the responds to the situation by choosing one of five alternative answers). In this way, some procedures have the applicant choose the response he would most likely make in a situation and the response that he would least likely make. Thus, these samples of hypothetical work behavior have been found to be valid predictors of job performance.
Professor Filip Lievens is Associate Professor at the Department of Personnel Management, Organizational Psychology and Psychology Applied in Work, Ghent University. He received his Ph.D. at Ghent University. He has published more than 50 studies and researches in personnel recruitment, selection and evaluation in journals as: Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Applied Psychology: An international Review, and International Journal of Selection and Assessment. Professor Lievens is member in many journals’ editorial boards as: International Journal of Selection and Assessment. In present, he is scientific secretary of the Organizational Psychology Division- the International Association on Applied Psychology. Professor Lievens has received the Prize “Distinguished Early Career Award” (2006) - Society of Organizational Psychology and the Prize for the best paper from the International Association of Personnel Management.
The interview
EJOP: Which of the personnel selection methods have a strong impact for the Romanian employment companies or human resources departments?
Prof. Lievens: We were talking about a lot of different selection methods here, about a lot of a people here, I was trying to find out what they think are important selection procedures. Thus, what they think is important are the selection institutes. As I have noticed here in Romania, often are used personality inventories and also interviews. So, I think these are important instruments, for sure. They have some another instruments as at Assessment Centers, that might be having instruments with strong impact in the Romanian selection practice.
In the Assessment Centers we can see the personnel behavior and the personnel competences; the personnel tendencies increase our special values enormous because we can see what is difficult to measure with others instruments.
So, if you ask me I think the use of assessment centers is really to be having a strong impact, also in the direction of the people that promote this procedure.
EJOP: Does the psychological intuition play an important role in personnel selection?
Prof. Lievens: I think that for ages the psychological intuition was very important in personnel selection because the people liked to relay on their own personal subjective judgments making selection decision.
The aim of my course I presented here in Cluj is to show that sometimes the personal selection based on personal judgment, on intuition might be wrong. So, we should move from the intuition based selection towards the scientific evidences selection provided by tests. That means is not only your good feeling and your version in personnel selection that some times might be wrong, thus there are the personnel selection tests based on scientific evidence that we have to start to use.
EJOP: How do you explain that in Romania the social desirability is a criterion in personnel selection?
Prof. Lievens: I think that social desirability is a big issue in personality inventories. So that people who complete a personality inventory will typically talk in their favor, they will answers in their favor because they say: “If I will talk like this I will get selected”. This is what I called old view of the social desirability. So, it is old view because the social desirability in that view is some kind of noise that has to be controlled and corrected. The recent researches shown us that are not true and social desirability is an important predictor of job performance. In other words people have to be social desirable if they want to perform well the job. Because, who would like to work with persons that are not social desirable? So, as I mentioned, social desirability is really needed in a lot of jobs. For instance, if you work with customers sometimes you want to do differently so, you have to adapt to different situation, you have to be social desirable. The sellers also have to be social desirable because otherwise they will not sell. So the social desirability is not noise, it is really something useful and we have to be useful, may be we shouldn’t correct it.
I know this is a radically point of view of people typically thinking about social desirability but I’ve got just researches of it.
EJOP: What is the importance of personality inventory in personal selection for banking organization and financial organization?
I think in banks, typically banks they have a lot of money, they are financial institutions that they are able to invest a lot of money in personnel selections. So, often they will use much more expensive procedures for personnel selection with assistant centers. So they can do the selection procedures much more carefully.
EJOP: How do you see the Romanian market of the selection instruments: personnel inventory, tools in the way of EU integration according the EU standards?
Prof. Lievens: There are two ways important. First the discrimination act which is used in Europe and consist in avoiding that selection procedures that discriminate. So that’s important, I think if you want to be ready for the European markets you have to be insured that the selection procedures will not discriminate. Second you have the costing guidelines, they are almost the same across over the world. So, also is important that if you want to be closer to the European countries you have to follow those two ways.