A PSYCHOMETRIC APPROACH TO PERSONEL SELECTION: LATENT PROFILE ANALYSIS OF PRISON OFFICER CANDIDATES

Abstract

Choosing the right candidate for the job is a continuing concern within the public and private sectors. The personnel selection systems are one of the most important factors affecting the efficiency of organizations that has to be considered carefully, which aims to find the best candidate by matching qualifications and requirements of the job. Thus, psychometric assessments are used to employ the most skilled person among applicants. One of the most significant challenges of assessing candidates is the validity of the psychometric test used to assess candidate performances. Lack of evidence on scales and candidate population may mislead recruiters to hire unqualified individuals for the position. A considerable amount of literature has been published on using psychological scales for recruitment. However, much less is known about candidate’s latent profiles. This study highlights the importance of validation of scale in recruitment and seeks to reveal the latent profiles of candidates. The latent profile analysis identified two profiles for Vocational Adjustment, Social Skills, and Self-Control. The study results indicate that advanced and low Vocational Adjustment profiles show no extreme difference in both respects except for the Time management scores. However, higher profiles outperformed on Stress, Emotional Sensitivity, and Emotional Adaptation for the Social Skills domain. Like previous findings, self-consciousness scores are the highest of all subtests among low component profiles for the Self-Control domain