Self-Assessment in Personnel Selection and Placement,

A self-assessment questionnaire was administered to 474 firefighter applicants in conjunction with a written test of cognitive abilities. The applicants were asked to make self-assessments of important cognitive and noncognitive abilities required to perform firefighter work. They were also asked to rate their willingness to perform some less desirable yet critical firefighter tasks and to rate the extent of their pre-employment knowledge about firefighting. The self-assessments, although inflated as expected, demonstrated considerable variance. An analysis of the results showed that there are few differences in the mean self-assessments of abilities for black and white applicants and that the differences are limited largely to noncognitive components of the firefighter job. More significant differences were found, however, in the expresed willingness of white and black applicants to perform less desirable firefighter tasks. Correlations between the self-assessed abilities and corresponding scores on the written test were low. Although not without promise, caution is advised in the use of self-assessments, particularly in employee selection. Author