Candidate Persistence and Personality Test Practice Effects: Implications for Staffing System Management

Abstract

Candidates persist in selection settings for numerous reasons, prompting several concerns regarding staffing system management. Predictors of the propensity to retest and personality test practice effects were investigated among a sample of 15,338 candidates who applied for supervisory positions (and 357 who repeated the selection process) over a four-year period with a large organization in the service industry. Results reveal greater likelihood of retesting among internal candidates and overall evidence of small to moderate personality test practice effects. Compared to passing candidates who retested for various reasons, failing candidates pursued alternative response strategies upon retesting and generated dimension-level practice effects that reached .40 to .60, whereas passing candidates generally replicated their initial profiles. For several subscales, low initial scores were associated with practice effects that exceeded a full standard deviation. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed. Candidates persist in selection settings for numerous reasons, prompting several concerns regarding staffing system management. Predictors of the propensity to retest and personality test practice effects were investigated among a sample of 15,338 candidates who applied for supervisory positions (and 357 who repeated the selection process) over a four-year period with a large organization in the service industry. Results reveal greater likelihood of retesting among internal candidates and overall evidence of small to moderate personality test practice effects.Compared to passing candidates who retested for various reasons, failing candidates pursued alternative response strategies upon retesting and generated dimension-level practice effects that reached .40 to .60, whereas passing candidates generally replicated their initial profiles. For several subscales, low initial scores were associated with practice effects that exceeded a full standard deviation. Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.

A dynamic model of applicant faking

“…So far, there is only some initial evidence that applicants' faking evolves over time, with personality tests (Hausknecht, 2010;Landers et al, 2011). Similar research should be conducted with faking in interviews or other forms of tests.…”

Big Five traits: Predictors of retesting propensity and score improvement

“…In other words, the consequence of retest failure is quite severe, such that cadets who do not pass will not be allowed to pursue their chosen career. We note that the stakes of retesting in this context are arguably higher than in the context of the Hausknecht () study. That is, while Hausknecht () documented substantially greater score improvement among internal applicants for promotion than among external applicants, even the internal applicants in that study did not face the prospect of needing to change careers or change organizations if they failed to successfully retest.…”

“…We note that the stakes of retesting in this context are arguably higher than in the context of the Hausknecht () study. That is, while Hausknecht () documented substantially greater score improvement among internal applicants for promotion than among external applicants, even the internal applicants in that study did not face the prospect of needing to change careers or change organizations if they failed to successfully retest. In contrast, in our study, as in many other credentialing or graduate admissions contexts, applicants would need to train for a different career if they did not successfully retest and did not have the option of simply continuing with the same organization in the job that they had previously been doing.…”

“…Although it would appear reasonable to expect that conscientiousness would be related to applicant persistence to retest within a selection context, the single empirical study to evaluate this relationship did not find such a relationship (Hausknecht, ). That is, within a retest context, specifically, applicants who initially described themselves as possessing the trait responsibility (a trait similar to conscientiousness) were no more likely to choose to retest than applicants who did not describe themselves as possessing the trait Responsibility.…”

“…Notably, Hausknecht () found evidence of large score increases in the positive, socially desirable direction when failing candidates retested on self‐report personality scales, likely because personality scores accounted for 65% of the hiring decision, with only 35% of the decision attributed to performance‐based cognitive scores. However, in the current study, only cognitive test scores were used to select candidates, not personality scores.…”