Adverse impact occurs where there is a statistically significant difference between selection, promotional, or compensation levels between members of a protected class and an appropriate comparison group.[1] However, according to the 1991 Civil Rights Act, this difference only amounts to discrimination if the tools used to make the business decision are invalid and not consistent with business necessity. In other words, numerical and significant differences between the selection rates of groups are allowed, as long as the tools responsible for those differences are in and of themselves valid and reliable and have been developed following a rigid, standard, and legally defensible validation strategy. But the employer is still responsible to show how the test is job-related and meets a business necessity, even in these cases. Read more…
ECI® Blog
Part I: How To Increase The Quality of Your New Hires
October 16th, 2008 by The ECI Team
Companies are increasingly seeking out ways to enhance the accuracy and effectiveness of their hiring and promotional processes. They are exploring the use of a variety of tests and measures to gather the information they need to make better decisions. They look to tests to help them increase objectivity within their processes and to get to the root of an individual’s real talents and potentials.
Employers worry that if they put a test into their selection or promotional process that managers will rely too heavily on the results. This can be a pitfall of such tools, since most well-constructed tests tend to be quite accurate in the results they produce. If the selection process lacks sufficient steps, or if the steps are not effective, managers probably will resort to trusting the test to make the decision. Read more…
Do Competency Systems Produce Real Results?
October 15th, 2008 by The ECI Team
We recently did a study to see if a Competency System we built for a client produced any measurable results, or if it was just a “nice to have” system that management preferred to use. Our client is within a large pharmaceutical company and leads a sales force which sells to institutions and hospital physicians. The primary difficulty you have in assessing the real impact of a pharmaceutical rep’s efforts is that, outside the vaccine and medical device arena where sales can be tracked by order, it is very difficult to measure exactly what impact the rep has on prescription writing of any given physician. There are so many factors that impact the sale that the direct linkage between rep activity and actual sales is a dotted line at best, particularly in the institutional or hospital setting. Read more…
Why must I remain so objective when I’m hiring?
October 14th, 2008 by The ECI Team
Have you ever heard that we form an impression of a person in the first 5 seconds? How accurate can that impression actually be? What information can truly be gathered about an individual in 5 seconds? Well, the 5 second rule is based on scores of scientific studies in Social Psychology.
Now, apply that to a job interview situation. Most applicants, regardless of actual qualification for a role, have been practicing, have been coached, in short, they’ve rehearsed as if for an acting role. What you are actually witnessing, especially in the first 5 seconds, is an individual’s acting ability. You are seeing only their “impression management” skills. On the flip side, you are also very likely to see a candidate who gets nervous for an interview and doesn’t respond well to your questioning. After all, job interviews are inherently situations where one goes to be judged. What you are very unlikely to see is any actual or useful indication of how the individual will perform on the job. That is, of course, unless you ensure that you include objective procedures in your hiring process. Read more…
Great Behavioral Event Interview Questions
October 13th, 2008 by The ECI Team
The most common search that leads to our website is for ECI Interview Questions. Whether this is precipitated by prospective candidates whom employers have asked to complete the ECI Behavioral Insight or by employers themselves is more difficult to determine. Behavioral event interview questions ask the candidate about prior successes or learning resulting from an experience in past jobs. There are many sources for these types of questions. There are many sources for Behavioral Event Interview Guides. ECI offers such a system, including training for your staff in interview skills, called the Structured Selection Process. Read more…
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