[IPAC-List] applicants misrepresenting their experience

[Natasha K. Riley]

Jim,
I agree with you, but that battle has been fought and lost here.

Thomas,
Thank you for describing your process; that is very helpful.  As far as making a call on whether an applicant is intentionally being untruthful, I think in our system it is more obvious than in yours.  Our questions have multiple-choice or multiple-select responses.  The candidate is not asked to describe the experience; we leave that for the interview process.  If an applicant says he has no experience with a certain task on one application and then on the next application (submitted within days of the first) he says he has performed that same specific task as a regular part of his job, it is pretty clear that something is amiss.

All others who replied,
Thanks for the thoughts.  I'm sure some of our questions could be improved, but if anyone has a process or policy on how to deal with the inconsistent applicant, please send those my way.  Thanks again!


Natasha Riley
Director of Assessment and Testing Services
State of Oklahoma
Human Capital Management
Office of Management and Enterprise Services
405-521-6361
natasha.riley at omes.ok.gov<mailto:natasha.riley at osf.ok.gov>
www.omes.ok.gov<www.opm.ok.gov>



From: Jim Kuthy [mailto:jkuthy at biddle.com]
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 12:55 PM
To: Natasha K. Riley; ipac-list at ipacweb.org
Subject: RE: [IPAC-List] applicants misrepresenting their experience

This is one of the issues with using self reports - not everyone is truthful. The State of California went to a Training and Experience Questionnaire as its primary method for classifying job applicants for state positions and managers started to complain that many of the candidates they were receiving were not qualified for the job even though the screening process indicated they should be. In other words, the process did not appropriately differentiate between candidates' actual abilities, but instead differentiated based on their self report of their abilities (which frequently was based on incorrect or false information). I would strongly recommend using other selection devices, such as measures of knowledge, skills, and/or abilities, to confirm whether the applicant actually has the skill to perform the job.

Jim Kuthy, Ph.D.
Biddle Consulting Group, Inc.
800-999-0438



From: Natasha K. Riley [mailto:Natasha.Riley at omes.ok.gov]
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 7:05 AM
To: ipac-list at ipacweb.org<mailto:ipac-list at ipacweb.org>
Subject: [IPAC-List] applicants misrepresenting their experience

IPAC List:

We have begun using experience-based questionnaires to rank candidates for clerical and entry level jobs where we had used multiple-choice tests before.  The questionnaire is part of each application submitted, and a separate application is required for each posted vacancy for which the applicant wants to be considered.  For those of you using these types of questionnaires, I'm wondering what you do when you see a candidate with applications for several vacancies in the same job and the answers they give are not consistent from application to application.  So, it appears that the applicant is misrepresenting his experience by giving different answers to the same questions.  Do you have procedures in place to catch this?  What do you do with the applications when you find this?  Do you remove the candidate from the lists?  If so, do they have appeal rights?

Thanks in advance for weighing in on this!


Natasha Riley
Director of Assessment and Testing Services
State of Oklahoma
Human Capital Management
Office of Management and Enterprise Services
405-521-6361
natasha.riley at omes.ok.gov<mailto:natasha.riley at osf.ok.gov>
www.omes.ok.gov<http://www.omes.ok.gov>

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