For my practicum, I am working on developing a behavioral description interview (BDI) for Service Coordination, Inc (SCI). The interview will be used as the final hurdle in the hiring process for the service coordinator position. SCI works with developmentally disabled adults in order to coordinate services for the individuals and their families, such as housing and day programs. The service coordinators are responsible for meeting with individuals to identify individual needs, identifying and coordinating with providers to address those needs, and documenting those activities online to relay to the Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA).

Currently, Dr. Mitchell and I are finishing the job analysis for the service coordinator position. This process consisted of individual meetings with five SMEs to identify relevant duties, tasks, and KSAOs. A focus group was then conducted with three SMEs to edit and finalize the duties and task statements. We are now in the process of putting the task statements into Qualtrics to survey SMEs in order to gather importance ratings.

From the job analysis, we were also able to obtain critical incidents that will be used to develop the BDI. The BDI utilizes interview questions that ask applicants to recall specific past behaviors that are related to the job, as informed by the job analysis. The critical incidents are used to provide a spectrum of poor, average, and good responses for scoring comparison. Currently, the interviews used by SCI to hire service coordinators have no objective scoring criterion. The BDI will greatly increase the validity of their selection procedure.

This past week, I pitched SCI management on including the BDI in their selection procedure, which gained their support. To progress with the project, I will hold another meeting with SMEs to determine more critical incidents. From this information, I will create the questions to be used in the interview. The questions will then be pilot tested to ensure clarity and effectiveness. After the BDI has been created, I will work with the HR Director to develop a training manual and conduct initial training sessions with supervisors.

Regards,

Noel


Noel Jones
Graduate Fellow, Schaefer Center for Public Policy
University of Baltimore
1420 North Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21201
Schaefer Center for Public Policy<http://www.ubalt.edu/cpa/schaefer-center/>
410.837.6143
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