Educational Credentials and Promotions: Does Schooling do More than Get You in the Door?

Abstract

personality characteristics of the sort typically measured with paper-and-pencil tests; rather, thqy referred to the types of dispositions that would fit with the exigencies of the position and the organization, the characteristics of the candidate's co-workers, and often the personality of the supervisor for whom the candidate would be working. The managers regularly reported that they considered compatibility or chemistry when constructing a pool of candidates. The ways in which managers organize their screening activities are often idiosyncratic, and the process is rarely as straightforward as either Table 1 or most theories of assignments might suggest. A manager who had hired an accountant explained that he first screened on experience, next on makeup and chemistry, and finally on education. He acknowledged, however, that the first two criteria are largely predicated on education and that screening on any one factor was, in part, screening on the other two. Others described their screening efforts as following a set pattern. A hospital manager described his three-pile technique, in which he categorized applications into no, maybe but need more information (typically the largest pile), and qualified but need to know salary requirements. Another stated that he divides applications into three groups on the basis of the applicants' proximity to the plant and then screens only within the group who live in the immediate area. Still another, who hired skilled blue-collar workers, reported that his first screen was legibility, which he saw as an effective screen of poor performance. Responses to the second and third criteria indicated that experience and personality are about equally important for managers who made outside hires. In assigning promotions, managers are concerned with the candidate's personality once they have assessed his or her experience. Although managers who assign promotions are generally able to assess personality because they have had the opportunity to observe candidates over time, this opportunity is not available to those who hire from the outside. This fact raises the question of how managers make personality judgments on candidates whom they have not seen perform. Almost without exception, managers who hired from the outside pointed to the interview as their means of arriving at these decisions. Despite an apparent consensus in the industrial psychology literature on the lack of validity and reliability of the interview as a screening and selection device (Schmitt 1976), managers uniformly trusted their ability to detect subtle personality characteristics from an interview. Many managers adopted interview techniques that were almost ritualistic in their adherence to a set pattern and in the interviewer's intuitive belief in their efficacy. One manager carries a card to interviews that lists three things that he purports to be able to evaluate: potential, motivation (both the candidate's ability to motivate and to be motivated), and the adequacy of the candidate's work experience or job knowledge. An Exurb Consulting manager described his firm's use of a generic schedule for interviewing candidates, noting that can't buffalo your way through this one. Other managers reported their use of what would you do if . . . ? sorts of questions or their efforts to screen candidates by assessing their responses to stressful questions. A surprising number discussed the importance of a candidate's personal appearance and of being well groomed in the interview as an indicator of the person's seriousness about the and as a means of screening out unsuitable candidates.5