Dr Stefan Mol, Dr Gábor Kismihók and, an EDUWORKS fellow, Sofija Pajic presented the work on job knowledge based personnel selection on the 28th International Congress of Applied Psychology (ICAP). The congress held in Paris from 8th until 13th of July, has gathered 4,500 participants from over 100 countries. The Center of Job Knowledge Research team presented their work within the session on innovative approaches in personnel selection.

1. jobknowledge.eu
facebook.com/jobknowledge
@Jobknowledge
Job knowledge based personnel
selection
Stefan T. Mol, Gábor Kismihók , Sofija Pajic
Amsterdam Business School, UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM, Amsterdam, Netherlands

2. Imagine…
a) The most conscientious colleague;
b) The most interested colleague;
c) The smartest one;
d) The most knowledgeable one;
Who would you hire?

3. Conceptual Framework
(Ones, Viswesvaran, & Dilchert, 2005; Schmidt & Hunter, 1998;
Schmidt & Hunter, 2000)
General Mental
Ability (GMA)
Job Performance
?

4. Conceptual Framework
GMA JOB KNOWLEDGE JOB PERFORMANCE
Job knowledge is an important predictor of job performance, both in civilian and military jobs
e.g. .80 for civilian and .63 for military jobs. (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004)
The effect of general mental ability on job performance proved to be considerably stronger if job knowledge
is included in the model
e.g. .45 for civilian and .38 vs .31 for civilian and .15 for military jobs. (Schmidt & Hunter, 2004)

5. Job Knowledge
…facts, concepts, principles and other types of information
(Dye, Reck & McDaniel, 1993) that have been recognized as
crucial in order to perform successfully in a particular job
(Schmidt, Hunter & Outerbridge, 1986; Hunter, 1986). “
” Explicit Declarative

6. Job Knowledge
…people who are more intelligent learn more
job knowledge and learn it faster,
the major determinant Criterion
of job performance is
Related
not GMA but job knowledge” Validity
(Schmidt and
Hunter, 2001).
GMA JOB KNOWLEDGE JOB PERFORMANCE
“
”

7. Job Knowledge
Validity is nearly twice as high for job specific tests than for
of the-shelf tests. In fact, the levels for locally developed
tests appear to rival those of general ability tests.
(Dye, Reck & McDaniel, 1993,p. 156).
ρ=.62, k =59, N=3965
Criterion
Related
Validity
GMA JOB KNOWLEDGE JOB PERFORMANCE
“
”

8. “Content-related evidence of validity has
traditionally involved … rational examination of the
manner in which the performance domain is
sampled by the predictor” (Binning & Barrett,
1989, p. 482).
Criterion
Related
Validity
Content
Related
Validity
Job Knowledge

9. According to the APA publication
manual which statistics do you need
to report in a regression analysis
table?
Criterion
Related
Validity
Content
Related
Validity
Job Knowledge
Job Knowledge:
GMA: How smart do you need to be to
publish an article?

10. Job Knowledge
“construct validation and theory development
imply the same basic process….” “If it can be
shown that a test measures a specific
construct … that has been determined to be
critical for job performance…, then inferences
about job performance from test scores are
by logical implication justified” (Binning and
Barrett, 1989, p.487, p. 480
Criterion
Related
Validity
Content
Related
Validity
Construct
Related
Validity

11. Criterion
Related
Validity
Content
Related
Validity
Construct
Related
Validity
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Substantiation
Job Performance Specificity
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Job Knowledge Specificity
Job Knowledge

12. jobknowledge.eu
facebook.com/jobknowledge
@Jobknowledge
The Center of Job Knowledge Research is a multidisciplinary think-tank
and research incubator that aims to engage stakeholders from
academia, industry, and government to elucidate how job knowledge
may be used to facilitate individual, organization, and nation level
person-education-workplace matching processes.

13. jobknowledge.eu
facebook.com/jobknowledge
@Jobknowledge
Why?
Because job knowledge…
Is among the most important yet least understood individual level drivers of the
knowledge economy
Is imperative to successfully match people to jobs but largely neglected in personnel
selection research
Is an ultimate outcome against which both education and training must be evaluated
Is a means to ensure public spending on education enhances graduates’ opportunities,
fit, and accomplishment on the labor market

14. A personnel selection and training platform that takes an individualized
approach to the assessment and development of job knowledge of ICT
Systems analysts
www.ontohr.eu

15. Transfer of innovation: Development of job knowledge test and training
platform for nurses
www.med-assess.eu

16. OntoTech
Extending portfolio of ICT Job Knowledge Tests for purposes of
curriculum diagnostics and development

17. UvAInform
Learning analytics is “the measurement, collection, analysis, and
reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of
understanding and optimizing learning and the environments in which
it occurs” (SOLAR 2012).
Internal UvA project aimed at the pan-university development of an
educational data informed goal setting interface.

20. • GITP
• Randstad Holding
• ECORYS
• Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUT)
• Central European Labour Studies Institute (CELSI)
• Corvinus University of Budapest (CUB)
• Ericsson
• European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN)
• European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (EUROFOUND)
• Labour Asociados
• Netpositive
• University of Alicante (UAL)
• Wageindicator

21. Development of Job Knowledge Tests:
Implications
• Focus on idiosyncratic job knowledge requirements
• Requires use of inductive, interpretive research methods or BIG data
• Implications for status and acceptance of such research within the
personnel psychology community

22. jobknowledge.eu
facebook.com/jobknowledge
@Jobknowledge
Thank you for your attention!