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“The Smarts That Counts?”: Psychologists' Decision-Making in Personnel Selection

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Abstract

An exploratory approach was taken to examine personnel psychologists' use of sources of information when making a decision regarding candidates' fit to managerial positions. The main focus was on the process, based on actual information used to make real-life decisions about real-life candidates. Different types of information, available to the psychologists were used to predict their actual final decision regarding a sample of 434 managerial candidates. Results suggest a preference to indices of cognitive skills in making decisions about candidates. It seems that even when other non-cognitive indices were used, they were “tainted” by the cognitive indices, suggesting a halo effect. Implications for practice and further research are discussed.

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Zysberg, L., Nevo, B. “The Smarts That Counts?”: Psychologists' Decision-Making in Personnel Selection. Journal of Business and Psychology 19, 117–124 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOBU.0000040275.16133.15

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:JOBU.0000040275.16133.15

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