Cognitive abilities in personnel selection and testing

(from the chapter) The goal of this chapter is to examine the linkages between applied cognitive psychology and personnel selection and to provide an overview of personnel selection. However, personnel selection is a broad field and includes the treatment of non-ability traits such as personality, motivational states, vocational interests, applicant reactions to selection systems, and so on. Because we aim to focus on ability and selection, an in-depth treatment of these aspects of personnel selection is outside of the scope of this chapter, the interested reader is referred to Schmitt and Chan (1998) and Guion (1998), who provide comprehensive overviews of the field of personnel selection.