The evaluation of personnel selection methods by HR practitioners: The effect of reference and its interaction with information about validity

Abstract

This study is an experiment that examines the effects of positive reference, information about predictive validity, and their interaction on how HR professionals evaluate selection methods. It contributes to understanding why HR practitioners use personnel selection methods that are considered to have low predictive validity. A sample of 173 HR professionals from the Czech Republic was asked to evaluate six selection methods that could be used to select a project manager for a telecommunications company. Each participant was randomly assigned to two experimental conditions as the selection methods were presented together with/without positive reference and with/without information about their predictive validity. The results of repeated measures ANOVAs with two between-subjects factors, one within-subject factor, and their interactions showed that information about predictive validity did not significantly influence how HR professionals evaluated selection methods. The analyses also did not support the effect of positive reference on the evaluation of methods with low validity. In contrast, the analyses provided support for the effect of positive reference on the evaluation of selection methods with high predictive validity. The interaction of reference and information about validity had no significant effect on the evaluation of selection methods by HR professionals.