The hr Function

A Comparison of the Predictive Validity Results for Assessment Centers and Face to Face Interviews

Introduction

One the greatest challenges for any Human Resources Department in any corporation lie in determining whether or not an interviewee is suitable for the job opening that is available . A lot of companies invest a large amount of capital to upgrade the selection and hiring procedures to ensure that the proper individuals are hired (Delery and Kacmar 1998 . In line with these hiring procedures , many tests have been implemented to improve on the reliability of

the HR processes that are involved (Delery and Kacmar 1998 . Traditional methods of testing involved face to face interviews which were considered as reliable in determining whether or not a particular individual was well suited for a certain job or an organization (Arce-Ferrer 2003 . More recently however , more and more firms are basing their HR practices on more reliable tests and indicators such as the Predictive Validity of Assessment Centers

There has been a lot of controversy regarding the predictive validity results of assessment centers as opposed to face to face interviews Much of this has been based around the findings that the Predictive Validity for Assessment Centers is much higher than that of Face to Face Interviews (Moruzi and Norman 2002 . This short discourse will discuss the theory that the Predictive Validity for Assessment Centers is much greater than Face to Face Interviews . In to arrive at a better understanding of this issue , it is important to first discuss the meaning of Predictive Validity

Predictive Validity

Predictive validity , as understood in the field of psychometrics , is defined as the extent that a certain scale is able to predict the scores with regard to criterion measures . It is essentially a measurement of the degree of agreement among different results that have been collected through the use of direct and non-biased testing procedures (Arce-Ferrer 2003 . This predictive validity is almost always quantified by the correlation coefficients taken between the two (2 ) sets of measurements that have been collected from a homogenous target population

Important to the understanding of predictive validity is the concept of correlation coefficient which is basically an indication of the level of linear relationship that exists between two (2 ) variables . The value of the correlation coefficient always lies between -1 and 1 . A result of -1 means that there exists a perfect negative relationship , while a 1 value indicates the exact opposite , which is that a perfect positive linear relationship exists . 0 means that there is no linear relationship between the variables (Arce-Ferrer 2003

A perfect example of the use of predictive validity is during job performance tests that are geared toward assessing the competency of a certain individual with respect to predetermined job tasks . In job recruiting instances such as these , a group of 100 applicants are tested . After a certain span of time , an assessment comes out . This assessment is based on a quantitative scale that has been evaluated by their superiors and co-workers...