UMUC HRMD630 Midterm Exam Latest 2019 June Question # 00603235 Subject: Education Due on: 07/17/2019 Posted On: 07/17/2019 11:15 AM Tutorials: 1 Rating: 4.7/5

HRMD630 Recruitment and Selection

Midterm Exam

Multiple
Choice Questions

1.) A software company has a high turnover
rate. What staffing strategy would be
most appropriate?

A) hiring
people with the potential to be promoted over a period of years

B) hiring
people quickly even if their skills are not as high as required

C) slowing
down the hiring process to try to find better recruits

D) filling
vacancies quickly with people who are able to perform with minimal job training

2.) An FTE is defined as:

A) a
full-time equivalent employee

B) an
independent contractor working at least 36 hours per week

C) an
applicant that is searching for work on a full time basis

C) a plan for
recruiting full-time workers

3.) Janson Engineering has found it difficult to
recruit experienced project managers to lead its many projects. Which of the following would be a proactive
action that may help close current and future gaps?

A)
adjusting the mix of employees versus contractors

B) working
with local universities and colleges to create courses that focus on project
management skills

C) source
candidates from similar industries with project management skills

D) all of
the above

E) A &
B only

4.) Which of the following is not a step in
workforce planning?

A) look at
internal and external factors to estimate job demand

B)
calculate the replacement need

C) look to
the future for redundancies

D) conduct
a strategy meeting to analyze selection methods

E) all of the
above are steps in workforce planning

5.) Employment-at-will is an employment
relationship which ________.

A) allows
either the employee or employer to terminate the employment at any time

B) offers
blanket protection to employers for all employee discharges

C) allows
an employer to terminate employment only for a just cause

D) offers
employees a contract for a definite term of employment

6.) Which of the following examples would qualify
the company to hire the intern as an unpaid employee?

A) a local
college engineering student is hired to help with filing and data entry for a
small engineering firm.

B) an
accounting student is given an opportunity to shadow one of your company’s
accounting employee’s prior to starting work with the company in the fall.

C) the
local university has an internship requirement for their Computer Science
majors. The internship is for six weeks
and the student must report weekly to their advisor to review their progress.

D) your
organization is hiring college students whose parents work at the company for
the summer.

7.) Which of the following is the first step in
the typical workforce planning process?

A)
identifying the firm’s business strategy

B)
articulating the firm’s strategic staffing decisions

C)
developing and implementing action plans

D) conducting
a workforce analysis

8.) The job analysis technique that uses worker oriented
job elements is the ________.

A) task
inventory method

B) job
elements method

C) position
analysis questionnaire

D) structured
interview method

9.) In analyzing a job of a stenographer that is
to be advertised as a vacancy, an employer found that the ________ for the job
was rapid typing skills.

A) bona
fide occupational qualification

B) employee
value proposition

C)
desirable criteria

D)
essential function

10.) Which of the following would be classified as
a skill rather than knowledge, ability or other characteristics?

A)
Familiarity with OSHA laws.

B)
Operating a forklift.

C) Mentor
and coach others.

D)
Communicate efficiently in writing and orally.

11.) DAK Corporation had kept all its hiring plans
on hold during the last four quarters because the economy was in a state of
recession. DAK manufactures oil filters, air filters, and spark plugs for
several major auto manufacturers. The company is analyzing market trends in
order to reassess its hiring strategy for the coming year. Which of the following,
if true, would best support the argument for restarting hiring?

A) The
previous recession had only lasted a year.

B) Though
there was a decline in profits compared to the previous year, the company
recently reported the best numbers in its industry.

C) Auto
manufacturers have aggressively started hiring more staff.

D) One of
DAK’s fiercest rivals has started laying off its employees.

12.) A systematic process of identifying and
describing the important aspects of a job and the characteristic a worker needs
to perform the job well is a ________.

A) legal
audit

B) job
analysis

C) bona
fide occupational qualification

D) job
specification

13.) Which of the following establishes a prima
facie case of discrimination based on disparate treatment?

A) plaintiff
applied for a job/promotion; the job was filled by an applicant of another race
or gender

B)
plaintiff is part of a protected class; he/she applied for a job/promotion
etc.; selection ratio for those similarly situated was less than 80 percent

C)
plaintiff is part of a protected class; he/she applied for a job/promotion
etc.; was rejected, but the job remained open or was filled by someone else

D) the
selection ratio for protected class A (the minority group) is less than 80
percent of the selection ratio for protected class B (the majority group)

14.) The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of
1967 protects people _______.

A) 30 years
of age or older

B) 40 years
of age or older

C) 50 years
of age or older

D) 60 years
of age or older

15.) The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment
Rights Act ______.

A) ensures
that members of the uniformed services can return to their civilian employment
after their military service ends

B) ensures
that veterans are equally represented in the workforce

C) provides
job training to members of the uniformed services to assist them in
transitioning to civilian jobs

D) requires
that a job board be maintained for the sole use of veterans transitioning to
civilian jobs after their service ends

16.) A hotel chain that is recruiting front desk
receptionists receives 200 applications from males and 100 applications from
females. 100 out of 200 men are hired
and 25 out of 100 women are hired. Which
of the following statements is true of the hotel chain’s hiring policy?

A) There is
evidence of a disparate impact of the hiring process on males as a group.

B) There is
evidence of a disparate impact of the hiring process on females as a group.

C) There is
no evidence of any disparate impact.

D) There is
evidence of disparate impact against both males and females.

17.) Which of the following is a characteristic of
independent contractors?

A) They
have a continuous relationship with the employer.

B) They do
not receive benefits from the employer.

C) They
control the processes and results of their work.

D) They do
not pay their employment taxes, the employer does.

18.) Which of the following visually shows each of
the possible successors for a job and summarizes their strengths, present
performance, promotion readiness, and development needs?

A) scatter
diagrams

B)
perceptual maps

C) talent
inventories

D)
replacement charts

19.) Which of the following is NOT a reason cited
in your readings that a company would want to consider current employees as a
valuable resource for finding qualified new hires?

A) Current
employees generally refer only individuals they believe would make exceptional
employees.

B)
Applicants hired through employee referrals are more likely to be given a
realistic preview of the job which helps them make a good decision as to
whether they would fit with the organization.

C)
Heterogeneity of a firm is affected positively by this method.

D) This
method of recruitment will help to locate qualified candidates that may have
not been looking for a job.

20.) Which of the following is NOT a benefit of
hiring interns?

A) Provides
an opportunity for you to assess a student directly

B) Allows
for extra hands to help with administrative tasks

C) Allows a
student to get a good view of what working for your organization would be like.

D) Gives
the organization an opportunity to find good quality hires for future
opportunities.

Short
Answer Questions

1. What is the public policy exception
to employment at will? Give one example
of a termination that may be construed as an exception to employment at will
based on public policy.

2. Define disparate impact and
disparate treatment. How do they differ?

3. Define job description and job
specification and describe how they are used.

4. Compare and contrast replacement charts
and succession planning?

5. Discuss the different ways in which
a firm can deal with temporary employee surpluses.

Essay Questions

Respond to
the following questions. You should use
the Written Assignment Rubric in the Content area to help you when submitting
your responses. Please remember that
grammar and spelling are important! You
will receive 15 points maximum for each question.

Question
1: What is affirmative action? What is
an affirmative action plan?

Question
2: You have just taken on the role of
Director of Recruiting at a grocery chain.
The first thing you notice is that the Careers page and the website for
your company does not represent your company’s desire to be an employer of
choice. You have embarked on a quest to
change that and your CEO has asked what you think about the company’s
website. He has noticed that Fortune
Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2016 listed three grocery stores
in the top 100. They are:

(a) Nugget Markets

(b) Wegmans Food Market

(c) Whole Foods Market

Your CEO
has asked you to research their websites and provide an evaluation of what you
see. You should access the websites of these markets and conduct the following
analysis:

Consider
and specifically evaluate the design factor considerations (specifically
address organization website design information found in your readings) Using
this information provide an analysis to your CEO of these websites along with
suggestions that would improve the recruitment section of each one.

Please
remember – your response should be written for a CEO to read. Grammar, style, and punctuation are important
for good communication in HR but CRITICAL when you are communicating with the
executive suite. Remember – executives
do not want to read a novel – you must learn to be brief but get your points
across effectively. Your final analysis
is worth a total of 15 points. No more
than 2 pages should be submitted for this question and use citations where
required!

Question
3: The We Deny Everything Insurance
Company (WDE) handled a massive volume of claims each year in the corporate
claims function, as well as in its four regional claims centers. Corporate claims were located in sunny
California and the regional offices were located in Atlanta, Cleveland,
Providence, and Las Vegas. Corporate
claims were headed by the senior vice president of corporate claims (SVP). Reporting to the SVP were 2 managers of
corporate claims (MCC-Life and MCC Homeowners/Residential) and a highly skilled
corporate claims specialist (CCS).

Each
regional office (4) was headed by a regional center manager (RCM). The RCM was responsible for both supervisors
and claim specialists within the regional office. The RCM’s reported to the
vice president of regional claims (VPRC).
This is the structure before reorganization (I suggest you draw a chart
for your own reference).

WDE decided
to reorganize its claims function by eliminating the 4 regional offices (and
the RCM position) and establishing numerous small field offices throughout the
country. The other part of the
reorganization involved creating 5 new CCS positions. The CCS position was to be redesigned and
upgraded in terms of knowledge and skill requirements. It was planned to staff these new CCS
positions through internal promotions from within the claims function.

The
plaintiff in the case was Ron Whyme, a 53 year old RCM. Since his job was being eliminated, Ron was
asked by the SVP to apply for one of the new CCS positions. The other RCM’s, all of whom were over the
age of 40, were also asked to do so.
Neither Ron nor the other RCM’s were promoted to the new CCS positions. Other candidates were also bypassed, and some
of them were also over the age of 40. The promotions went to 5 claim
specialists and supervisors from within the former regional offices, all of
whom were under age 40. Two of the newly
promoted employees had worked for, and actually reported to Ron, as the RCM.

Ron was not
happy. Upon learning of his failure to
be promoted, Ron wanted to determine why he was not promoted. What he learned led him to feel he has been
discriminated against because of his age.
Ron retained experienced and expensive legal counsel, Bruce
Lincoln. Lincoln, a high-powered
litigator, met informally with the SVP to try to determine what had happened in
the promotion process and why his client Ron had not been promoted. Lincoln was told that there were a large
number of candidates who were better qualified than Ron and that Ron lacked
adequate technical and communication skills for the new job of CCS. The SVP refused to reconsider Ron for the job
and said that the decisions were “final”.
Ron, through his attorney Lincoln, then filed a suit in federal district
court, claiming a violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
(1967). Lincoln then subpoenaed numerous
WDE documents and files including the personnel files of all applicants for the
CCS positions.

Based on
discussions with Ron and the subpoenaed documents, the following information
emerged about the promotion process actually used by WDE. The SVP and the 2 MCC’s conducted the total
process. They received no input from the
VPRC or the HR department. There was no
formal written job description for the new CCS position, nor was there a formal
internal job posting as required by company policy. The SVP and the MCC’s developed their own
list of employees that they thought might be interested in the job, including Ron,
and then met to consider the list of candidates. At that meeting, the personnel files and
previous performance appraisals of the candidates were not reviewed or
consulted. After deciding on the 5 candidates who would be offered the
promotion (all 5 accepted), the SVP and the MCC’s did browse the personnel
files and appraisals of only these 5 employees to check for any disconfirming
information about the employees. None
was found.

Inspection
of the files by Lincoln revealed no written comments suggesting age bias in
past performance appraisals for any of the candidates, including Ron. Also, there was no indication that Ron lacked
technical and communication skills. All
of Ron’s previous appraisal ratings were above average, and there was no
evidence that Ron’s performance had declined recently. An interview with the VPRC (Ron’s boss)
revealed that he had not been consulted at all during the promotion
process. Ron’s boss could not believe
that Ron had not been promoted and in fact said that he was “shocked beyond
belief”. In his opinion, there was
“absolutely no question” that Ron was qualified in all respects for the CCS
job.

Based on
the facts above your must respond to Part A and Part B below:

Part
A: Prepare an analysis that presents a
convincing disparate treatment claim that Ron has been intentionally
discriminated against on the basis of his age. Do not address the claim as a
disparate impact one. (Hint: Look at the
elements for a prima facie case of discrimination in Week 2)

Part
B: Prepare a rebuttal, from the
viewpoint of WDE, to the disparate treatment claim.