Test Your Recruiting Knowledge

The following questions will test your knowledge of recruiting. They were drawn from the body of laws that govern your profession. Funny – in a rare quirk of bureaucrat fate, the same laws also help you hire only the most qualified employees.

Questions:

Do you base every job search on a job analysis?
Are you using tests as part of your selection process?
Do you verify that every test you use meets the 4/5 (or 80% rule)?
Do you believe that independent recruiting firms are exempt from EEOC laws?
Have your selection tests been validated for selection by a test vendor?
Are you selecting people using the “get to know you” interview?
What is the cost of losing an EEOC law suit?
Are you really measuring what you think you are measuring?
Are you using handwriting analysis, astrology or clinical psychologists to measure skills?
What are your odds of getting caught?

Scoring Your Responses

Compare your answers to the following. Give yourself 10 points for every right answer:

Answers:

A job description is not a job analysis. A job analysis includes structured discussions with jobholders and their managers, a confirming questionnaire, producing a measurable list of competencies, and a formal report of the process. If you find yourself discussing what the job needs when you are deciding between candidates, you have not done a job analysis.
Every method used to separate one candidate from another is considered a “test.” This includes resume screens, application blanks and interviews. If you do not hire everyone who applies, you are using a “test.”
The 80% rule means that if the minority pass rate is not at least 80% of the majority pass rate, it is considered evidence of adverse impact. Quick, 130 people apply for a job. One hundred are Caucasian and 30 are Hispanic. Thirty Caucasians are hired. How many Hispanics should be hired to avoid evidence of adverse impact in the selection process?
So sorry. The law is one step ahead of you. It considers an independent recruiter to be a legal agent for an employer. As such, the employer is responsible for recruiter compliance.
Tough cookies. It still does not leave you off the hook for doing your own validation. While you are at it, you might practice your argument for how you set your cut off scores.
This technique is firmly grounded in obsolete technology. Hard research shows interviews are only about 1% accurate at predicting performance levels. Would you fly in a plane piloted by someone who only passed an interview?
Who cares? Legislative penalties are “puny” compared to the time spent in depositions, hiring an attorney, talking to the press and explaining to your company president why you did not know the law that regulates your profession.
Twenty years of selection research shows the only areas that can be measured are cognitive ability, interpersonal skills, physical ability, and personal motivation. Trying to measure “drive to become a crusading leader who will empower height-challenged subordinates” is both silly and ineffective.
Go to your room! Research shows these techniques are neither performance-valid nor reliable. While you are in your room, be sure to ask the space aliens who live under the bed what they would suggest.
Again, who cares? The legal fees to argue one legal case pales beside the lost productivity of 100 people with questionable performance.

What your scores mean:

100 Excellent! Give yourself a hearty pat on the back! 80-100 You need help. Get thee to a workshop fast 60-80 You are in serious need of professional development while you are staffing your organization with competency question marks 40-60 You’re either way over your head or you don’t give a fig about recruiting quality….consider new career – say, demolition? 20-40 Stay away from the phone…you could hurt someone 0-20 What? Did you wander in from the street or something? Source: EEOC Uniform Guidelines On Employee Selection Procedures, 1978

http://www.dol.gov/dol/esa/public/regs/

cfr/41cfr/toc_Chapt60/60_3_toc.htm