The SIOP Exchange

Hiring Employees Focused on the Bottom Line: Is This the Right Strategy?

By Josh Denton, SIOP Blogger

Recently, I gave ideas to a journalist writing how applicants can demonstrate they are concerned with the bottom line. Granted, people will be concerned about customer service, teamwork, and doing an overall good job. However, the journalist’s angle was informing job seekers how to be seen as bottom-line applicants. Examples he provided were an employee whose role is computer work, but helping other departments by using a forklift, and a CEO modeling good behavior by using public transportation. However, I think this mindset misses a few crucial points.

The HRM Value Blog

By Mahesh Subramony, SIOP Blogger

In December 1912, a group of managers with different backgrounds, but with a common interest in systemizing the discipline dealing with the ‘handling of employees’ formed the Employment Managers’ Association in Boston. Their aims included “to discuss problems of employes (sic); their training and their efficiency”, and “to compare experiences which shall throw light on the failures and successes in conducting the employment department (Bloomfield, 1916; p.77).  Within the next decade, similar associations had formed in most large cities in the US, and the profession of employment management – a precursor of modern day HRM – was born.

Search, Select and Hire Top Talents Using Vocational Interests

By Vivian Wing-Sheung Chan, SIOP Blogger

Which predictors do we usually use as indictors of job performance if we were selecting from a pool of job candidates? Cognitive ability?  Definitely. Personality? Oh, yes. Specifically, conscientiousness is a good one. Motivation? Yes. Vocational Interests? Vocation what?

 Are vocational interests useful predictors for selection?

 The answer is yes!

A recent article by Van Iddekinge and colleagues (2011) looked at 74 primary studies and examined the role of vocational interests on employee performance and turnover. The validity estimates for job and training performance is moderate and positive (.14 and .26 respectively). The validity estimates for turnover intentions and actual turnover is moderate and negative (-.19 and -.15 respectively).

How Selection Consultants Change the World

By Adam W. Hilliard, SIOP Blogger

Both now and in the past, you’d be farfetched to find a child without some dream of grandeur, whether it be saving the world as a secret agent, exploring new frontiers as an astronaut, or running a country as president. It’s not often that those dreams are truly realized, as we settle into our lives of happy stability and somewhat more…attainable visions. However, one of my early mentors wasn’t shy of encouraging that dream to stay alive, and for that I’m going to make the bold statement that selection consultants can and do change the world on a daily basis.

1.    Making managers’ and applicants lives easier – There are few things more stressful than the hiring process (aside from maybe the firing process) for managers. Is the candidate creatively “embellishing” their resume? What about on an interview?

The Reality of Working Virtually

7th Leading Edge Consortium Discusses Best Practices and New Research on Virtual Work

The 2011 Leading Edge Consortium (LEC), “The Virtual Workforce: Designing, Leading, and Optimizing,” brought out some of the best and brightest in the virtual work field October 14 and 15 at the historic Seelbach Hilton in Louisville, Kentucky!

Chaired by Kurt Kraiger, with Practice Chair Andrea Goldberg, Science Chair Lori Foster Thompson, and Research Chair Allen Kraut, the 2011 LEC was a weekend full of excellent speakers, informative presentations, and numerous opportunities to participate in the discussion of the virtual workforce.