Abstract
Organizations face challenges of screening applicants for critical skills to serve in expert staff positions requiring interactions with line managers. Such positions require a special set of cognitive and interpersonal competencies. This study investigates the psychometric qualities of a new behavioral assessment method in use in an applied setting. Using data from a group of 219 finalists for positions in a large Iranian steel company, it examined the validity and fairness of the method in relation to other test and demographic information. Results showed evidence of convergent and discriminant validity and no discrimination against women or older candidates. The study contributes to a clearer understanding of expert competencies and a practical method for assessing and training such competencies. Next steps and future needs are identified.
Highlights
This study investigates the psychometric qualities of a new behavioral assessment method in use in an applied setting
Staff experts typically do not have formal authority, but rather, they have informal authority as they give advice to line managers. Their tasks include writing reports and discussing recommendations with managers. Because of these differences from line managers, staff experts have to rely on different competencies in comparison with the competencies of formal leaders
Correlations of the initial ratings on all elements of Oral Discussion and Writing1 and Writing2 in relation to all ratings of Chart, Interview, and Game are available from the second author
Summary
We organize this article . First, we review the importance of talent competencies, alternatively named skills or dimensions. Staff experts typically do not have formal authority, but rather, they have informal authority as they give advice to line managers Their tasks include writing reports and discussing recommendations with managers. Expert talent in organizations is the complex multifaceted ability to understand the needs of colleagues, provide relevant advice, and persuade others of the rationale and value of this advice, all without formal organizational authority Such talent requires not just knowledge and skills associated with a specialty professional discipline such as engineering, marketing, or information technology and cognitive abilities to understand the conceptual problems in a diversity of jobs and interpersonal competencies to communicate with others and persuade others that recommendations and decisions are valid
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