Characteristics of the Human Resource Executives and Companies that Use More Sophisticated Employee Selection Methods

Abstract

Many psychologists have noticed a big gap between academic research on which personnel selection methods are most effective and which personnel selection methods are most popular in the real world of human resource practices. The purposes of this study were to investigate the popularity of different personnel selection methods in the real HR world and to find out which HR executives convince their organizations to use the more effective methods and which HR executives do not. Based on the results of the participants (N = 94), HR executives with a higher educational level use more sophisticated personnel selection methods than less educated HR executives. HR executives with an industrial-organizational psychology or human resources related major degree use more sophisticated personnel selection methods than those with other types of degrees. HR executives who belong to the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology use more sophisticated personnel selection methods than those who do not belong to a national level professional HR society. However, HR executives with an HR certification did not use more sophisticated personnel selection methods. Also, larger organizations did not use more sophisticated personnel selection methods.