Abstract

This chapter is motivated by a simple question: Do professionally developed personnel selection practices offer strategic value to the firm? Most industrial-organizational (I-O) psychologists would answer this question with an enthusiastic “Yes!” The belief that hiring better people will result in better job performance, which in turn will contribute to better-functioning organizations, is imbued early in the education of most I-O psychologists. Utility analyses indicate that selection systems with high validity will generate monetary returns far in excess of the costs associated with selection. How then, despite a century of research demonstrating the consequences of effective selection at the individual level, does the question posed above remain a real concern among practitioners, consultants, and academicians?