Chapter 4 Selection From Civil Service Commissions to Decentralized Decision Making First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people. —Leo Rosten After studying this chapter, you should be able to • recognize and seek to resolve paradoxical dimensions in the selection process, • articulate the different philosophical bases of selection, • understand the history of civil service commissions and how they continue to affect thinking in employee selection despite their reduced roles, • distinguish historical eras and the current trends in selection, • discuss the “ideal” stages of the selection process, • choose appropriate examination methods (“tests”) for different selection stages and job search needs, • understand the different types of validity related to selection processes, • avoid illegal questions in the interview and reference check process, and • determine who will make hiring decisions and how they will be made and documented. Selection technically starts when applications have been received. Which of the applicants will be chosen, by what process, and by whom? Certainly the public sector is far stronger for having outgrown the excesses of 19th century patronage, which permeated jobs at all levels of government and resulted in widespread corruption and graft such as vote racketeering and 110 Chapter 4 ᨖ Selection— 111 kickbacks (Mosher, 1982). During the 20th century, merit principles replaced patronage as the most common—but by no means the sole—selection criterion. Today, patronage excesses are relatively rare—far less common than in the private sector—and they constitute little problem for the bulk of positions in government (a position that has been strengthened in Supreme Court cases such as Branti v. Finkel, 1980; Elrod v. Burns, 1976; and Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois, 1990).1 Even when mayors, governors, and presidents have strong appointive power and loyalty may initially be a legitimate factor in selection, excessive patronage con- siderations can get them in trouble as it did for President Bill Clinton when he replaced long- time White House travel specialists with Arkansas friends (a scandal known as “Travelgate”), and President George W. Bush when he appointed Michael Brown director of FEMA because of his close connections to his former campaign director, even though Brown lacked any knowledge of emergency management whatsoever. One challenge in selection is that political appointment—a form of patronage—is the primary selection method for most senior government positions. Appointees are often selected as much based on party and personal affiliations as on technical merit. The U.S. president selects not only all the agency and department heads, but also thousands of second- and third- layer executives as well, including up to 10% of the senior executive service. Governors generally have hundreds of appointive positions in their control. “Strong” mayors and county boards of supervisors also have extensive appointive responsibilities that lend themselves to patronage. Nor is it unheard of for high appointees and elected officials to provide “character references,” wherein career supervisors are “encouraged” to hire campaign workers and friends for low-level positions. This paradox—merit systems run by dilettantes—often contributes to cynicism by career employees who view political appointees as transitory, poorly trained, and inexperienced. Without that occasional fresh administrative leadership, however, the public service might become unresponsive, rigid, and self-serving, just as the private sector increasingly turns to “outside” CEOs in times of industry transition or organizational decline. Another irony is that although public sector selection is primarily an open application of merit principles, selection for many positions is determined largely by internally based hiring. Such hiring is said to boost internal morale, increase loyalty, reduce training time, and provide recruiting incentives for strong candidates. Nonetheless, such practice reduces full competition and the introduction of outside skills and insights (Grensing-Pophal, 2006). For example, agency policy or union contracts often require a strict ordering in selection rights that results in most of the better jobs being labeled “promotional” and therefore not available to “outside” candidates. Many entry-level and nearly all midlevel vacancies are filled internally. For example, the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) reported that supervisors filled vacancies with current agency personnel 46% of the time, and with other federal employees 25% of the time. Only 29% of the time did they select from outside the government (MSPB, 2001a). This trend is more severe at the senior levels at which only 15% are externally hired (MSPB, 2008b). Yet another paradox, or tension, is promoting merit principles with robust testing, and introducing more flexibility in testing, sometimes at the expense of thoroughness (Ingraham, Selden, & Moynihan, 2000). Increased rigor can mean better assessment and higher-quality selection; however, it can also mean more time, expense, and applicant aggravation, leading to reduced applicant levels and the loss of some of the best applicants to faster moving competing organizations. Even as the federal government becomes increasingly interested in a competency-based hiring or promotional model, it is more willing to expand the hiring 112— PARTII ᨖ PROCESSESANDSKILLS discretion of agencies and their managers. Such discretion can also mean that they may abuse it out of haste or ignorance (MSPB, 2006). State governments are increasing flexibility in many cases, too, which opens them up to reducing the rigor of merit (full competition) and even the prospect of illegal practices due to reduced oversight of fragmented systems (Condrey & Maranto, 2001). Although the selection process has always been a significant role for managers and supervisors, that role has taken on far greater responsibility with the dramatic downsizing of human resource departments throughout government. For example, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was downsized by more than 50% as it was being reinvented in the 1990s (MSPB, 2001b). Therefore, today it is important to recognize that human resource management skills are critical generalist competencies for all managers. The challenge for managers is that the scope and depth of responsibilities has grown in the last generation, making the prospect of a “quick and dirty” hiring process more likely. Other important tensions were alluded to in the last chapter about whom to recruit; those tensions now resurface in this chapter about how candidates are selected and who it emphasizes. Should the selection process emphasize the potential of newly graduated students or the ability of older candidates? How do you encourage diversity in selection while balancing merit principles? In selection, everyone puts his best foot forward, but average performance on the job may be more important. For example, a talented, brilliant, and charming individual may be highly distractible, lazy, or emotionally temperamental. How does the selection process capture and evaluate the difference between typical and maximal performance? It is interesting to note that international trends in recruitment and selection are similar, and seem to be converging. All emphasize person-job fit and person-unit fit and use remarkably similar methods discussed here. As one might expect, Australia, Europe, New Zealand, and the United States show the most in common emphasizing results, decentralization, and past performance in employees. Some Asian countries (e.g., Japan and Taiwan) emphasize potential more than past performance. Many Latin American countries still emphasize family and personal connections (Anderson & Witvliet, 2008; Werbel, Song, & Yan, 2008; Wolf & Jenkins, 2006). This chapter begins with a broad discussion of the criteria used in a selection process and how different principles have taken precedence in civil service positions in various historical eras. The majority of the chapter focuses on prominent technical aspects of selection related to application review, testing, interviewing, reference checks, the hiring decision, and posthiring issues. It concludes by reaffirming that this important human resource function is as easy to understand as it is difficult to carry out. Predicting human behavior, a goal in the selection process, is no easy task, as illustrated by the fact that former professional basketball superstar Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team because he lacked potential. ᨖ THE BASES AND ORIGIN OF SELECTION Selection Criteria Selection is arguably the most momentous, politically sensitive aspect of human resource activities (Ployhart, 2006). Indeed, historical eras of human resource management are largely defined by the underlying philosophy of selection. There are essentially six possible criteria Chapter 4 ᨖ Selection— 113 that can be used, separately or in combination, to provide the basis for the decision: (1) electoral popularity, (2) social class selection, (3) patronage, (4) merit selection, (5) seniority, and (6) representativeness. All except for social class are explicitly used in various arenas of the public sector. Although the terms civil service and merit are often used as synonyms, in common practice civil service is a broader term because it embraces elements of seniority and representativeness, as well as merit.