One call center in the financial services sector, Money flow, dedicated 3 hours 20 minutes to each candidate for the position of Customer Advisor. At the time of this example, there was a vibrant employment market in the area and this call center was competing against 15 other companies for qualified staff. The demand for staff was high, as many of those recruited often left after the two days training. Recruitment consultants were used to pre-select candidates for the company to interview.

This recruitment agency was chosen because, in comparison to other agencies used, it seemed to understand the business and skill specifications required by the company and provide higher-quality candidates

Stages of selection

1 A general register of candidates is developed (few active call center workers were available given the buoyant employment situation for call center work in the area).
2 Ads are placed locally and nationally, including in universities. Local ads for part-time work were aimed at encouraging returners to work.
3 Candidates asked to complete work history, details of present employment and a financial planning questionnaire (to eliminate credit risks). The company designed and validated a self-assessment application form for the call center advisor role based on work profiling and critical incident methods. This captured five customer-oriented competencies (customer focus, fact finding, relating to customers, convincing, oral communication) and two related to contextual performance (independent facilitation, job dedication) (see Bywater and Green, 2005). It also acted as a realistic job preview to inform candidates of the sales component of the job and act as a self-selection tool.
4 Skills testing: tests of visual accuracy; spelling; key depressions; arithmetic; and alphanumeric skill. All these were provided by the company to the agency.
5 Interview (20–30 minutes) based on CV/work history.
Sales skills explored further in the interview.
6 Telephone role play. ‘You are a CA in a travel service.’
Looking for questioning and listening skills as well as selling/additional sales.
7 Recruitment consultants send list of pre-selected candidates to the company to select for one hour interview with two team leaders. Depending on need, the agencies often put all candidates forward for interview without pre-selection.

Question

1 What underlying psychological characteristics are being assessed at each stage?
2 Based on the information provided in Table 4.1, what do you think the overall psychometric quality of such a procedure might be? Take into account what you know about the criterion of successful performance for call center agents might be, the use of both recruitment agencies and team leaders to carry out the assessment, and the wider labour market context of the call center.

Table 4.1

3 Is user acceptability an important factor in this selection process?

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Selection method Cognitive Ability/aptitude test High Achievement/job knowledge test High Non-cognitive Personality test Biographical information Experience Performance-based Work sample Interview-unstructured Interview-structured Predictive validity" Situational judgement test Assessment centre Low/moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate/High Low High Moderate Moderate Psychometric quality Subgroup differences (Race/Gender) Large/small Moderate/small Small/small Small/small Small/small Small-moderate/small Small/small Small/small Moderate/small Moderate/smallb Utility High High User acceptability Moderate Favourable Moderate Unfavourable Moderate Unfavourable Low Moderate High Moderate Moderate Moderate Low Moderate Favourable Moderate Favourable Favourable