PSY4420 – Personnel selection and development

Human resources management (HRM) is one of the primary employment areas in work and organizational psychology. The competencies of work and organizational psychologists are especially sought after in personnel selection and development. Work and organizational psychologists are involved in all aspects of HRM, including attracting the right individuals, hiring and developing them, and retaining them or aiding their exit process.

This course focuses on the use of HRM in organizations, with a particular emphasis on personnel selection and development.

A brief description of the contents of the course:

1. HRM systems: The strategic use of HRM in organizations

2. Attracting the right individuals and how to find a match

3. Selecting the right individuals

• The competency model framework
• Overview of selection methods with an emphasis on 360° assessment
• Good and poor interview questions and the multi-modal interview
• Validity of selection methods
• Biases in personnel selection

3. How to develop the right individuals

• The need for personnel development
• Types of personnel development
• Career planning
• The development of learning approaches and what good training entails
• Evaluation

4. Besides these core topics, exemplary recent developments and current issues in HR are taught in this course. These can include:

• Artificial Intelligence in HRM
• Hybrid work and work-life policies
• Knowledge sharing

Knowledge and comprehension in the following fields:

• HRM systems
• Competence models and their application
• Methods of recruitment and selection
• Advantages and disadvantages of methods of recruitment and selection
• Methods of HR development
• Advantages and disadvantages of HR development methods
• Recent developments in HRM

Analysis in the following fields:

• Practices of selection
• Practices of HR development
• Practices of recent developments in HRM

Knowledge utilization in the fields of:

• Planning a (bias-free) selection process based on scientific knowledge
• Planning and carrying our part of a training
• Planning an approach for the future of work

Metacognition in:

• The role of work and organizational psychology in organizations' HRM

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

Teaching methods:

This course uses mostly a flipped classroom format, so that the teacher and the students co-create the course. Besides short theoretical impulses, we use a problem-based learning approach. Thereby, we will do several exercises, including role-plays or group discussions. The students will prepare for this course by reading the literature as announced on our Canvas platform and by completing the respective tasks.

Participation in the course is compulsory (min. 50%).

Compulsory tuition activities are valid for the 2 next semesters after approval date.

Absence from compulsory tuition activities

If you are ill or have another valid reason for being absent from compulsory tuition activities, your absence may be approved or the compulsory activity may be postponed.

• Report absence from or the need for a postponed deadline on a compulsory tuition activity

Access to teaching

A student who has completed compulsory instruction and coursework and has had these approved, is not entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework. A student who has been admitted to a course, but who has not completed compulsory instruction and coursework or had these approved, is entitled to repeat that instruction and coursework, depending on available capacity.

Home examination.

The students will have to work on two assignments:

- One individual assignment

- One group assignment.

Students have to pass both assignments.

Previous exams

Grades are awarded on a pass/fail scale. Read more about the grading system.

The department may use the acknowledged plagiarism filter for all written assignments when in doubt there may be a case of plagiarism in the submitted work.

If you are sick or have another valid reason for not attending the regular exam, we offer a postponed exam later in the same semester.

See also our information about resitting an exam.