Employee selection procedure and validation research

Validation research

Validation research can be a critical component to understanding the legal defensibility of employment decision making related to hiring, promotion, termination, and pay. In addition to legal considerations, validation research also inform on the quality of those decision making systems. For example, are organizational hiring processes increasing the likelihood that selected candidates can perform the job more successfully than candidates that are rejected? Validation research can help inform on how confident organizations are that their selection decisions are good ones. For this reason it is a best practice for organizations to proactively validate their selection systems regardless of EEO context.

DCI Expertise

DCI consultants all have advanced degrees in Industrial/Organizational Psychology, which is the application of psychological theory and measurement to the workplace. The domain of I/O Psychology includes expertise in understanding jobs via the structured analysis work behaviors and the worker characteristics (i.e., the knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics) necessary to perform those behaviors. In addition, I/O Psychologists have expertise in statistics, psychometrics, and job performance measurement. For these reasons I/O Psychologists are usually trained to evaluate employment decision-making, work performance measurement, and organizational behavior using the rigor of the scientific method, and are often involved in the development, evaluation, and validation of employee selection systems used to make decisions related to hiring, promotion, termination, pay and other employment outcomes.

DCI staff also have expert content knowledge of equal employment opportunity law, and related regulations like the Uniform Guidelines on Employee Selection Procedures (UGESP), which describe legally defensible validation research. Because this expertise is combined with I/O Psychology expertise, DCI is strategically leveraged to inform on the legal defensibility of employment selection procedures like ability tests, interviews, resume screens, personality and interest measures, and education and experience requirements.