Predicting work performance through selection interview ratings and psychological assessment

Abstract

The aim of the study was to establish whether selection interviews used in conjunction with psychological assessments of personality traits and cognitive functioning contribute to predicting work performance. The sample consisted of 102 managers who were appointed recently in a retail organisation. The independent variables were selection interview ratings obtained on the basis of structured competency-based interview schedules by interviewing panels, five broad dimensions of personality defined by the Five Factor Model as measured by the 15 Factor Questionnaire (15FQ+), and cognitive processing variables (current level of work, potential level of work, and 12 processing competencies) measured by the Cognitive Process Profile (CPP). Work performance was measured through annual performance ratings that focused on measurable outputs of performance objectives. Only two predictor variables correlated statistically significantly with the criterion variable, namely interview ratings (r = 0.31) and CPP Verbal Abstraction (r = 0.34). Following multiple regression, only these variables contributed significantly to predicting work performance, but only 17.8% of the variance of the criterion was accounted for.