Interview two managers who are involved in recruiting and selecting candidates for jobs in their organizations. Choose two different types of organization for this assignment: for example, large and small, public and private sector, or manufacturing and retailing. First ask them

(a) What selection methods are used by their organizations,

(b) Why they use those methods, and 

(c) What in their experience are the strengths and weaknesses of their chosen methods. Then ask them for their judgement concerning the relative importance of personality as a predictor of a candidate’s future job performance. If they use psychometrics to assess personality, find out the extent to which the scores influence selection decisions. Your report will cover the following issues: 

1. Describe the range of selection methods used by these organizations. 

2. If the two managers reported using different methods, how can this be explained? Was this due to personal preferences, to the nature of the work for which candidates were being chosen, or to the differing nature of the organizations?

3. Summarize the strengths and weaknesses of the methods which they mentioned. Is their experience-based assessment consistent with the research evidence presented in this chapter? From what the evidence tells us about the value of different selection methods, what practical advice would you give to these two managers?

4. Prepare a brief assessment of the importance placed on personality factors by those two managers in their selection processes, compared with what the evidence says about our ability to predict job performance using personality assessment scores.