Selection System R&D

Job Analysis and Competency Modeling

Capturing the "performance domain" for your organization or unit and linking this to a competency model, is an "essential prerequisite" for designing and defending one's hiring practices. We provide guidance for identifying specific job demands and the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other personal characteristics and competencies that underlie successful job performance. We have experience doing this for entry-level as well as middle and upper management positions in a wide variety of organizations in many different industries.

Test Development

We specialize in test development and refinement. We can guide the various professional activities necessary to develop a professionally and legally defensible psychological test or assessment process. These activities can include construct and content domain explication, item writing, psychometric data and item analyses, reliability and standard error of measurement analyses, interpretation of test results, sub-group analyses, etc. The efforts can be focused on the development of myriad HR screening processes (e.g., structured interviews, biodata instruments, personality assessments, simulation exercises, etc.).

Selection System Design

Applying the scientific principles of industrial/organizational psychology, we can guide the assembly of an integrated employment screening process, from determining the optimal array of predictor assessment procedures measuring different traits and competencies, to the development of a decision model that maximizes predictive accuracy while managing such outcomes as disparate impact, job applicant reactions, and applicant flow logistics.

Selection System Validation

We can guide the collection of predictor and criterion data so that empirical research can provide quantitative estimates of the quality and job-relatedness of hiring decisions. This local statistical evidence can be combined with a review of the other forms of validity evidence (e.g., construct validity and content validity) to provide a strong professional foundation to support one's hiring practices.

Criterion Development

When conducting empirical validation research on hiring processes, the quality of the performance criterion measures is as important as the predictor assessment process. We can guide the development or refinement of performance measurement to enhance its psychometric and legal defensibility. We also can advise our clients on state-of-the-science training for performance evaluators to ensure the highest quality data possible.

Validity Generalization Research

Some employment situations do not lend themselves to local empirical validation research (e.g., small applicant flow, cost restrictions, inaccessible data, etc.). The scientific literature contains over 500 published statistical meta-analyses of different predictor-criterion combinations, and the number is constantly growing. Judicious use of the existing empirical research can be used in lieu of a local validation study. We can guide the compilation of existing research data to present a credible document to support various testing applications.

Utility Analysis

Classic conceptions of hiring processes focus on measurement and prediction and focus less attention on the cost-benefit issues associated with HR decision making. Modern utility analyses can be used to determine a hiring system's total economic benefit to an organization, as well as quantifying in dollar terms how certain changes in the process can save (or cost) money. We can guide the examination of the ROI for any HR system.