© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D. 15
Employee Selection
staffing
Case Study—Structured Exercises
Student Workbook
© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
16 © 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
About This Structured Exercise
This exercise introduces undergraduate students to the concept of employee selection,
its benefits to organizations and its complexities. At the end of this exercise, students
will learn the steps required to design, implement and assess an employee selection
process for a job position. This exercise is intermediate in difficulty level.
Learning Objectives
During this exercise, students will learn to:
1. Choose selection methods relevant to a job.
2. Create various options to operationalize the selection methods.
3. Apply a scoring system to a set of applicants.
4. Devise a compensatory selection strategy and apply it.
5. Devise a noncompensatory selection strategy and apply it.
6. Conduct an adverse impact analysis.
7. Determine the decision-making accuracy for the selection system.
8. Reflect on the complexities of employee selection.
Employee Selection—Structured Exercise
Employee Selection—Structured Exercise
© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D. 17
Employee Selection—Structured Exercise
Introduction to Employee Selection
Many people without a background in human resource management mistakenly equate hiring with employee
selection. Hiring is a broad concept that can take several approaches, such as offering a job to someone because
of who he/she knows (e.g., my dad is the boss, so I got the job) or taking the first person who walks through
the door to a get a “body” on the sales floor as soon as possible. Employee selection is a formal process in which
the organization (1) identifies the tasks, duties and responsibilities (TDRs) associated with the job; (2) assesses
applicants’ readiness to successfully perform these TDRs; and (3) offers the job to the most qualified applicant
for the position.
Organizations that adopt an employee selection approach to hiring must make a series of decisions to develop
an effective process that identifies the most-qualified applicant.
1. Review and Revise the Job Description
The first step to establish an employee selection process is to review and possibly revise the job description for
the position. An accurate job description contains a job specification section, which includes the knowledge,
skills, abilities and other characteristics (e.g., college degree, driver’s license, relevant work experience), or
KSAOs, needed for the job incumbent.
2. Choose the Appropriate Selection Methods
After identifying the significant KSAOs, the next step is to choose the selection methods. Selection methods
may include an employment interview, a personality inventory, submission of a résumé, etc. These selection
methods are used to assess the identified KSAOs.
3. Create an Implementation Schedule
Once the selection criterion and methods are decided, an implementation schedule must be created. An
implementation schedule determines the order in which selection methods are administered. After the schedule
is determined, selection methods are applied to the applicant pool. As a result, some applicants will no longer
be considered for the opening. In addition, a scoring system may be used to identify the strongest candidates.
At the end of the selection process, the “best” applicant is selected and offered the job.
4. Assess the Effectiveness of the Selection System
Once the top applicant accepts the job, the selection process itself is complete. It is recommended, however,
that the process be evaluated from time to time to ensure its effectiveness. When evaluating the selection
system, two approaches can be used: an adverse impact analysis and/or a study to assess decision-making
accuracy.
Even if a selection process treats applicants equally, a discrimination lawsuit may still result if the equal
treatment had an unequal effect on a particular protected class. An adverse impact analysis can be conducted
to determine if the selection system has an unequal effect based on a protected class of applicants.
The selection system can also be evaluated to assess its predictive accuracy for job success or decision-making
accuracy. Even if the selection system is working properly in terms of nondiscrimination, it does not make
sense for an organization to use a hiring approach that is not effective at predicting successful employees. In
this exercise, you will have an opportunity to conduct both of these Assessment approaches.
Introduction to Employee Selection
18 © 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
THE EXERCISE: DEVELOP, IMPLEMENT AND ASSESS AN EMPLOYEE SELECTION SYSTEM FOR A
BANK TELLER POSITION
Part 1: Employee Selection and Assessment
For this exercise, assume you are employed as an HR consultant for a mid-sized bank. The bank employs
200 tellers across its branches. The following is a partial job description and specification for the bank teller
position, based on information obtained from O*Net. O*Net, or the Occupational Information Network
Resource Center, is an online database containing information on hundreds of standardized and occupationspecific descriptors.
Bank Teller Tasks/Duties/Responsibilities
• Cash checks for customers after verification of signatures and sufficient funds in the account.
• Receive checks and cash for deposit.
• Examine checks for endorsements and verify other information such as dates, bank names and
identification.
• Enter customers’ transactions into computers to record transactions.
• Count currency, coins and checks received to prepare them for deposit.
• Identify transaction mistakes when debits and credits do not balance.
• Balance currency, coins and checks in cash drawers at ends of shifts.
KSAOs
• Customer service skills.
• Basic math skills.
• Knowledge of verification requirements for checks.
• Ability to verify signatures and proper identification of customers.
• Ability to use accounting software.
• High school diploma required, associate’s or bachelor’s degree preferred.
• Previous work experience as a teller or related occupation (cashier, billing clerk) desired.
Key statistics (from O*Net):
• The median 2005 wage for tellers was $10.24 (hourly), $21,300 (annually).
• In 2004, there were approximately 558,000 tellers in the United States.
• Projected growth for this job is slower than average.
Based on this information, the bank decides that the ideal candidate for this position will possess the
following factors:
1. Have at least a high school education (bachelor’s or associate’s degree desirable).
2. Have experience as a teller or in a related field (cashier, billing clerk).
3. Be able to perform basic math skills related to banking (for example, count currency quickly and
accurately and balance a cash drawer correctly).
4. Be knowledgeable of verification requirements for bank transactions (for example, errors in checks and
proper identification to authorize transactions).
5. Have good interpersonal skills (for example, speak clearly, make good eye contact and develop rapport
easily).
6. Be motivated to work.
Part 1: Employee Selection and Assessment
© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D. 19
Employee Selection Exercise
[A] Choose the selection methods: Identify which selection method (e.g., résumé, interview, test, role-play
exercise, reference check or personality inventory) you would recommend for each of the six factors listed
above. You can use the same selection method more than once if you believe it is appropriate for more than
one factor. Below is an example of how you might justify using an application form as an appropriate selection
method for education.
1. Education – selection method: Application form
Justification: A question on the application form can ask applicants to describe their education. This selection
method makes it easy and inexpensive to obtain this information.
2. Work experience – selection method: _________________________________________
Justification:
3. Math skills – selection method: ______________________________________________
Justification:
4. Verification knowledge – selection method: ___________________________________
Justification:
5. Interpersonal skills – selection method: _______________________________________
Justification:
6. Work motivation – selection method: _________________________________________
Justification:
Part 1: Employee Selection and Assessment
20 © 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
[B] Operationalize your assessments: Now that you have identified selection methods for the six factors,
you must decide how to score each of these assessments. Based on your responses in part A (“Choose the
selection methods”), think about how each factor may be scored and develop a point system for that factor.
A common approach to performing this task is to have some type of numerical rating system that may include
one or two minimum requirements. Your task is to develop a rubric (point system) to “score” applicants for
each of the six factors. In developing your rubric, review the job description information. The “education”
factor is provided for you below. Remember that tellers need to have a high school diploma, according to the
job specification. Applicants who do not meet this requirement are rejected. College degrees are preferred and
receive more points in the example below.
1. Education assessed via application form.
My assessment:
Points Highest Level of Education
10 Bachelor’s level or higher
6 Associate’s degree
3 High school diploma
Reject Less than high school diploma
2. Work experience assessed via _________________________________________________
My assessment:
3. Math skills assessed via _____________________________________________________
My assessment:
4. Verification knowledge assessed via ___________________________________________
My assessment:
5. Interpersonal skills assessed via_______________________________________________
My assessment:
6. Work motivation assessed via ________________________________________________
My assessment:
Part 1: Employee Selection and Assessment
© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D. 21
[C] Apply your assessment systems: Listed below are applicants for the teller position. Based on your
answers in part B (“Operationalize your assessments”), score each of the applicants.
Sample applicant information
Maria Lori Steve Jenna
Education Associate’s degree H.S. diploma G.E.D. Bachelor’s degree
Work experience 4 years as a cashier 1 year as a teller 5 years as a sales
clerk at a national
retail clothing store
chain
Completed a
semester internship
at a bank
Math skills Very strong Marginal Satisfactory Good
Verification
knowledge
Marginal Strong Satisfactory Strong
Interpersonal skills Very strong Good Good Good
Work motivation Good Good Marginal Strong
Score the applicants
Maria Lori Steve Jenna
Education 6 3 3 10
Work experience
Math skills
Verification
knowledge
Interpersonal skills
Work motivation
(a) Which applicants scored best based on the scores you entered into the table?
(b) What difficulties did you have applying your scoring system?
(c) Based on this applicant data, would you make any changes to your rubrics? If yes, please describe.
Part 1: Employee Selection and Assessment
22 © 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
Part 2: Selection Strategy
Now that you have created a system to assess applicants on the six key factors, you must decide how to
process this information. Employee selection systems have multiple assessments, and organizations must
decide how to integrate them.
One assessment strategy is compensatory and allows an applicant’s strengths to compensate for weaknesses
in another area. For example, a recent college graduate may score highly in the educational requirements
for a job opening but score low in terms of work experience. A compensatory strategy will help the recent
graduate’s limited work experience be “compensated” by his or her high level of education.
A compensatory selection strategy may be unweighted or weighted. In an unweighted strategy, all of the
factors have the same highest score possible and scores are simply added together. The applicant with the
highest score is considered the best and offered the job. To apply this strategy to this exercise, convert all
six factors to a possible high score of 100. For example, multiply each education score by 10 (highest score
possible for education = 10, so 10 x 10 = 100). Then, add the scores for each applicant.
Maria Lori Steve Jenna
Education 60 30 30 100
Work experience
Math skills
Verification knowledge
Interpersonal skills
Work motivation
TOTAL
1. Who scored the highest? ______________________________________________________
2. Do you think this person is the best applicant? Why or why not?
3. Who scored the lowest? _______________________________________________________
Part 2: Selection Strategy
© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D. 23
You have just completed an unweighted compensatory approach to employee selection. The other option is a
weighted compensatory approach. In this approach, one or two factors are identified as more important than
the other factors and, hence, deserve more weight in deciding the best applicant. Additionally, one or two
factors may be considered least important and would have less weight.
To try this out, answer the following questions:
1. Which of the six factors do you consider the most important in terms of selecting bank tellers? Defend
your choice.
2. Based on your answer to the first question, double the points for the four applicants for this factor. Record
the answers in the table below.
3. Of the remaining five factors, which two do you see as least important for selecting bank tellers? Defend
these choices.
4. Based on your answer to question 3, divide the points in half for the four applicants for these two factors.
Record the answers in the table below.
5. For the three factors not mentioned in questions 1 and 3, copy the scores from the previous table into the
table below. Total the scores for the four applicants.
Maria Lori Steve Jenna
Education
Work experience
Math skills
Verification knowledge
Interpersonal skills
Work motivation
TOTAL
1. Who scored the highest? __________________________________________________
2. Do you think this person is the best applicant? Why or why not?
3. Who scored the lowest? ___________________________________________________
4. When you compare your answers using the unweighted to the weighted approach, which approach do you
think was better? Why?
Part 2: Selection Strategy
24 © 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
The other selection strategy is called noncompensatory. Instead of adding the scores on all of the
assessments, a noncompensatory strategy establishes cutoffs for each assessment. An applicant who fails to
meet or exceed a cutoff is rejected from the selection process. The cutoff can be a passing score on a test/
inventory, a rating level (e.g., good) or a characteristic relevant to the job (e.g., valid driver’s license). The
job description is used as a guide to determine what the cutoff(s) should be.
For example, in terms of education for the teller position, the job specification indicates that a high school
diploma is required, and so the cutoff is established at this level. The challenge occurs for factors that do not
have clear guidance as to the cutoffs. If a requirement is not specified in the job description, then subject
matter experts (people knowledgeable about the job—usually either long-term incumbents or supervisors)
determine cutoffs based on their own experience with the job. They will also consider the expected
qualifications of applicants when determining these cutoffs.
Based on your knowledge and experience with bank tellers, create a cutoff for each of the six factors in the
table below.
Cutoff for each assessment
Education The applicant must have at least a high school diploma or GED.
Work experience
Math skills
Verification knowledge
Interpersonal skills
Work motivation
Similar to the compensatory strategy, there are two options for a noncompensatory approach. One
noncompensatory option is called a multiple cutoff approach. In this approach, cutoffs are applied for
every factor for all applicants. Apply your cutoffs listed in the table above to the four applicants.
1. Which applicant(s) remains? _______________________________________________________
2. If no applicant met all of the cutoffs, would you rather lower the cutoffs or restart the recruiting process?
Why?
3. If many applicants exceed the cutoffs, would you rather increase the cutoff levels, hire all remaining
applicants (if possible) or take a compensatory approach for those that exceeded all of the cutoffs? Why?
Part 2: Selection Strategy
© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D. 25
Another noncompensatory method is called a multiple hurdle approach. In this approach, cutoffs are
arranged sequentially. The first cutoff is applied to the entire applicant pool. Those applicants who fail to meet
or exceed the cutoff are rejected. The remaining applicants are then subjected to the next cutoff, where more
applicants will be rejected. This process reduces the applicant pool at each hurdle. At the final hurdle, only a
select few will remain.
Organizations usually set cutoffs that are less costly and more objective as the initial hurdles. More subjective
and often more time-consuming assessments are set at the end of the selection process. The multiple hurdle
approach saves organizations money because not all of the applicants are assessed on all of the factors. This
approach, however, can be time-consuming because each cutoff must be applied and then evaluated before
moving to the next cutoff.
Reflect on your cutoffs and arrange them in the table below to establish your own multiple hurdle system.
Multiple hurdle system
Rejected applicant
Hurdle 1: Education None, all applicants have at least high school diploma or GED.
Hurdle 2:
Hurdle 3:
Hurdle 4:
Hurdle 5:
Hurdle 6:
1. At the end of hurdle 6, which applicant(s) remained?
2. What would you recommend if you had no remaining applicants or several applicants remaining?
3. Do you prefer this method over the multiple cutoff method? Why or why not?
Part 2: Selection Strategy
26 © 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
Part 3: Evaluating the Selection System
You have now created a selection system for the job of a teller.
The final step in a selection system is to make sure the system works properly.
As discussed in the overview, there are two ways to ensure that the system is working. One approach takes a legal
perspective to ensure that organizations do not discriminate in hiring.
There are two types of discrimination: disparate treatment and disparate impact (also known as adverse impact).
Disparate treatment discrimination refers to treating applicants differently based on a protected characteristic
(for example, age, sex, national origin, religion). An example of disparate treatment discrimination is not
considering women for leadership positions. This type of discrimination is considered intentional and therefore
easy to identify and correct or prevent.
Disparate impact discrimination is considered unintentional. This form of discrimination indicates that all
applicants were treated equally; however, this equal treatment had an unequal effect related to a protected
characteristic. The most common approach to identify adverse impact is to apply the four-fifths rule. The fourfifths rule states that adverse impact exists if the selection ratio of the minority group is less than four-fifths (or 80
percent) of the selection ratio of the majority group. A selection ratio is the percentage of those hired based on
the percentage of those who applied for the job. Selection ratios must be calculated for each protected group. The
selection ratio of the minority group is compared with the selection ratio of the majority group (often “males” or
“Caucasians”). The simplest way to calculate adverse impact is to divide the selection ratio of the minority group
by the selection ratio of the majority group. If the result is less than 80%, then adverse impact exists.
For example, the bank collected the following data over the past five years:
Males applied = 200 Females applied = 300
Males hired = 40 Females hired = 45
Based on this information, the selection ratio for men is 20% (40/200), whereas the selection ratio for women is
15% (45/300). Dividing the minority group (the group with the lower selection ratio, women) by the majority
group (in this case, men) results in an answer of 75% (15%/20%). Since the result is less than 80%, adverse impact
exists. The organization needs to explore the selection process to identify what may be the cause of this disparity.
In this part of the exercise, you will conduct this analysis.
The bank compiled selection data on three racial groups during the past year: Caucasians, African-Americans and
Latinos. The data is as follows:
Number applied Number hired
Caucasians 90 27
African-Americans 50 10
Latinos 40 10
1. The selection ratios for the three groups are:
Caucasians = _________________________
African-Americans = ___________________
Latinos = ____________________________
Part 3: Evaluating the Selection System
© 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D. 27
2. Does adverse impact exist when you compare the African-American applicant pool with the Caucasian
applicant pool? Show your work.
3. Does adverse impact exist when you compare the Latino applicant pool with the Caucasian applicant pool?
Show your work.
Another way to assess the effectiveness of the selection system is to examine the decision-making accuracy.
Employee selection is basically a system to predict which applicants will succeed on the job. Highly qualified
applicants are expected to perform well on the job. Similarly, seemingly less qualified applicants are not
expected to perform well on the job. Unfortunately, the hiring process is complex. Some applicants can put
on a “good show” and still be mediocre employees, whereas other applicants may interview poorly but still
be excellent employees. Organizations cannot assume the selection process is working well without collecting
and analyzing data.
One option to calculate the decision-making accuracy of a selection system is to classify applicants into one
of two categories: strong applicants (ones who appear to be highly qualified and are predicted to do the job
well—a good hire) and weak applicants (ones who do not appear to be highly qualified and are predicted to
not do the job well—a poor hire). Once hired and after sufficient time (typically six months to a year) has
passed, employees can also be classified into two categories: good hire or poor hire. After all of this data is
collected, the overall decision-making accuracy of the selection process (the total hit ratio) can be calculated
as the percentage of correct predictions.
The table below shows data about the 200 tellers employed at the bank.
Poor hire Good hire Totals
Strong applicant 20 80 100
Weak applicant 70 30 100
1. Calculate the total hit ratio by adding the correct predictions and then dividing that number by the total
number of decisions made. What is this percentage? Do you think this percentage is impressive?
2. What percentage of weak applicants turned out to be good hires?
3. What percentage of strong applicants turned out to be good hires? This percentage is known as the
positive hit ratio.
4. Compare your answers to questions 2 and 3. Do you think the bank’s system is effective?
Part 3: Evaluating the Selection System
28 © 2007 SHRM. Marc C. Marchese, Ph.D.
Part 4: Reflection on Employee Selection
1. You have made a number of decisions in creating, implementing and evaluating a selection system for bank
tellers. Which of these decisions do you think is most critical? Why?
2. An employee selection approach to hiring is more complex than hiring employees based on who they
know or casually scanning a résumé and asking a few “off the cuff” questions for an interview. When you
think about your work experiences, do you think the organizations you worked for took an employee
selection approach when hiring?
3. If you answered yes to question 2, do you think the organization was effective in hiring employees? If you
answered no to question 2, do you think the organization should have adopted a selection approach to
hiring? Explain your response.
4. What do you perceive as the overall advantages and disadvantages of an employee selection approach to
hiring?
5. After reflecting on this exercise, would you recommend an employee selection process to hiring for
virtually any job? Why or why not?
Part 4: Reflection on Employee Selection
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