New study sheds light on major employers’ recruitment exercises
Dr Chris Dewberry assesses the reliability of assessment centres in Department of Organizational Psychology summer lecture series
A new study by academics in Birkbeck’s Department of Organizational Psychology calls for a reappraisal of the way many companies assess candidates during their recruitment and development process.
In an article published in the July issue of the Journal of Applied Psychology, Dr Duncan Jackson, Dr Chris Dewberry and George Michaelides present evidence that the competencies intended for assessment in assessment centres and development centres have little or nothing to do with their measurement reliability. This is despite the fact that assessment and development centres are often designed to ultimately measure competencies.
The findings form the basis of a talk given by Dr Dewberry as part of the Department’s annual afternoon of summer lectures last week.
In assessment and development centres, participants are put through a varied set of exercises, such as group discussions and role plays. Trained assessors evaluate performance of the candidates in each exercise against a pre-defined set of competencies. Assessment and development centres are widely used by large organisations such as the NHS and Civil Service, as well as banks and retailers, and are often considered to be one of the most reliable methods of evaluating employees and potential employees.
Dr Dewberry said: “Assessment centres sample candidates’ behaviour in a range of work-related situations and typically evaluate it in terms of pre-defined behavioural ‘dimensions’, or competences, such as communication skills, problem-solving, teamwork, planning and organising.
“Historically, researchers have questioned the extent to which assessment centres reliably measure behavioural dimensions. More recently there has been a view that researchers should take an exercise-oriented approach to scoring assessment centres instead.
“Our study takes account of the multifaceted nature of assessment centres and we suggest that assessment centre research, in general, has confounded both exercise and dimension-related effects with a multitude of other sources of variance.
“Our aim with this study has been to provide an uncluttered perspective on the reliability of assessment centre ratings, and in doing so we have found that reliable measurement in assessment and development centres does not have much to do with competencies, even though that, most often, they are ultimately designed to measure competencies. In my talk I explored how practitioners might respond to our research. We hope our findings will help applied psychologists – and employers – in their aim to recruit and develop the best possible candidates.”
Find out more:
- Department of Organizational Psychology
- School of Business, Economics and Informatics
- Dr Chris Dewberry
- Dr Duncan Jackson
- Dr George Michaelides