I/O Solutions Announces our 5th Annual Chicagoland Police and Fire Testing Summit
5th Annual Police and Fire Testing Summit will be held at the Oak Brook Hills Marriott Resort in Oak Brook, IL
On May 6th, 2011, we will host our 5th Annual Summit in the Chicago-suburban area. Please sign-up so that we can keep you updated regarding agendas, etc. The summit is a free event so be sure to save your seat for a day of educational topics, good food and networking with your public safety, human resources and civil service commission peers.
2011 Police & Fire Testing Summit Agenda
8:00 a.m. – Registration Open
9:00 a.m. – Welcome and Introduction
9:15 – Challenges in Achieving Diversity in Your Agency
Most law enforcement and fire service agencies struggle to design and deploy entry-level and promotional testing processes that promote racial and gender diversity in the organization. There are numerous factors that influence the achievement of this goal that need to be carefully considered. We will discuss the practical challenges that must be addressed towards achieving the goal of fair testing processes that promote diversity. We will consider recruitment strategies, testing models and various other decision points that the agency can control.
10:15 – Break-out I
Session A: Basic Test Evaluation Concepts
Validity, reliability and adverse impact are important concepts to understand when evaluating tests or managing a testing process. There are many other topics that are important to consider as well. This presentation will provide a primer on the most important testing concepts so that you can ask the right questions and competently evaluate a test’s quality and utility. (Test design)
Session B: Job-Task Analysis and Validity Transportability
The easiest way to establish validity evidence to support the use of a test for your agency is to conduct a validity transportability study. This process involves having or conducting a job analysis and then working with the test provider to conduct a transportability study. This presentation will introduce you to this process and explain the importance of transportability. (Test design)
11:15 – Break
11:30 – Break-out 2
Session A: Designing Testing Processes to Achieve Racial and Gender Diversity
Knowing how to use a combination of tests to validly assess candidates while achieving diversity in testing outcomes is a complex task. We will introduce you to various testing formats and constructs and offer suggestions for creating testing systems that best balance validity and diversity concerns. (Entry-level)
Session B: Integrity Testing
This presentation will introduce the concept of integrity testing and explain how integrity tests can save your agency time and money while drastically increasing efficiency in the entry-level selection process. (Entry-level)
12:00 – Lunch Break
1:00 – Break-out 3
Session A: Recruitment and Advertising: How Do You Attract Desirable Applicants?
Certain advertising and recruitment strategies lead to more desirable outcomes. Using data from applicants, we can learn what recruitment and advertising methods lead to more qualified candidates, greater diversity, increased applicant numbers, etc. This presentation will offer practical advice for improving your recruitment and advertising efforts. (Recruitment)
Session B: Assessment Centers: Designing a State-of-the-Art Promotional Testing Process
This presentation will introduce you to the gold standard for promotional assessment—assessment centers. We will discuss methods for improving assessment centers, maximizing realism, avoiding certain exercises and increasing opportunities to develop your employees. We will also present some sample exercises on video to familiarize you with the benefits of this method.(Promotional)
2:00 – Break
2:30 – Break-out 4
Session A: Understanding the Relationship Between Adverse Impact, Disparate Impact, Cut-off Scores and Diversity
Frequently, the easiest way to eliminate adverse impact is to lower the cut-off score of your test, but does that help you achieve greater diversity in your hiring outcomes? The obvious answer is “no,” but this is, unfortunately, a solution that many use to control adverse impact. In order to understand how to improve the diversity of outcomes, we need to understand various metrics that explain how one group performs on a test in relation to another group. This presentation will discuss the concepts of adverse impact, disparate impact, diversity, cut-off scores, standardized mean difference and differential prediction. We will also have a brief discussion on the types of tests that help to mitigate disparity. (Test Design)
Session B: Designing Better Oral Interviews
The interview is a critical component of the entry-level and promotional testing process. This session will focus on getting the most out of your interview process. We will discuss some detrimental conventions and offer some solutions that will increase the success of your interview process.
4:00 – Closing Remarks
Cocktail reception immediately following closing remarks.
New This Year - Certification Program!
This year we will offer an exciting new benefit for attending the Summit presentations—a certification program that recognizes individuals who acquire knowledge across a number of personnel selection topics. Those individuals who attend the required sessions will receive a Certified Personnel Selection Specialist (CPSS) credential. This certification will identify you as having acquired a depth of knowledge in recruitment; entry-level and promotional selection practices; psychometric principles; and various other fundamental testing and assessment topics. The training you receive at the Summit can also be submitted to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and other HR/Personnel certification programs for continuing education credit. Professional certification is a proven way to advance your career because it demonstrates to staff at all levels of your organization a proven competency and a strong commitment to improving your knowledge and skills. Certification is a mark of excellence and professional confidence that you carry with you everywhere you go.
What is the Police and Fire Testing Summit?
I/O Solutions hosts a national Police and Fire Testing Summit every year to create a forum for discussing and advancing the state of recruiting and testing practices in public safety agencies. As the nation’s leading public safety consulting firm with expertise in the area of personnel selection, we work with the largest and most notable police and fire departments in the country to develop, validate and implement entry-level and promotional selection tools. Our hope for this meeting is that we can share our experience and expertise with you, as well as the expertise of others in this industry, to enhance the quality of your community’s/agency’s recruitment and selection practices.
As we are experts in selection and testing, our goal is to impart useful and relevant information to you. We continually inquire about topics that may be of interest to you and your peers as you seek to streamline your recruitment and selection efforts. We have responded by establishing the Police and Fire Testing Summit to discuss important topics and to promote communication and idea-sharing between communities.
Previous year’s Summits have covered topics such as:
- Common Flaws in Entry-Level and Promotional Testing Processes
- Entry-Level Testing Primer
- Legal Overview: USERRA, ADA, EEOC
- Designing Better Job Knowledge Exams
- I/O Solutions’ Analysis of the Ricci Case
- Using Subject Matter Experts
- Selection Myths
- Online Job Applications
- Candidate Application Trends
- Psychological Evaluations
- Introduction to Integrity Testing
- And much more…
We are happy to receive suggestions from you about topics you would like us to cover in future Summits. Feel free to email us at info@iosolutions.org.
We hope to see you there!