) Which applicant scored best based on the numerical rating system that was applied?

(ii) Do you agree with the numerical rating system that was used, or would you have made changes? If you agree, describe which aspects of the system you liked. If you disagreed, describe changes you would make to the scoring system to improve it.

Part 3: Selection Strategy

For this part of the assignment, use the scoring system above.

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 applicants 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 graduates 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.

a) Use an unweighted compensatory selection strategy. 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.

	Steve	Lori	Maria	Jenna
Education	60	30	30	100
Work experience
Math skills
Verification knowledge
Interpersonal skills
Work motivation
TOTAL

Use a weighted compensatory selection strategy. In (a) above you 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 one 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.

	Steve	Lori	Maria	Jenna
Education
Work experience
Math skills
Verification knowledge
Interpersonal skills
Work motivation
TOTAL

(i) Who scored the highest?

(ii) Do you think this person is the best applicant? Why or why not?

(iii) Who scored the lowest?

(iv) When you compare your answers using the unweighted to the weighted approach, which approach do you think was better? Why?

c) Use a minimum cutoffs, noncompensatory selection strategy. 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 drivers 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 jobusually 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.

	Minimum 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 minimum 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.

(i) Which applicant(s) remains?

(ii) If no applicant met all of the cutoffs, would you rather lower the cutoffs or restart the recruiting process? Why?

(iii) 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?