Course Details

Course Title	APA 2018 - CEW 111: Preemployment Screening for High-Risk Professions---Techniques, Ethics, and Legal Standards
Date	8/9/2018
Provider	American Psychological Association
Phone	(202) 336-6020
Email	convention@apa.org
Website	http://www.apa.org/convention/ce/111.aspx
Location	San Francisco
Credit Hours	7
Instructor(s)	Mark Zelig, PhD
Method of Instruction	Workshop/Seminar
Approving Agency	APA
Course Syllabus

Course Description

Governmental and private organizations have turned to psychologists to help screen applicants for positions of extraordinary power, responsibility, or special trust (e.g., law enforcement, clergy, youth leadership). This intermediate workshop provides instruction on the state of the science for assessing personality and executive functioning for high-risk positions. Considerable time is spent discussing statutes, case law, and unique ethical issues that control the provision of these services. Special attention is paid to alerting participants of assessment procedures that are appropriate in general clinical or counseling settings but illegal when applied to prospective employees.

Course Objectives

1. Identify the statutes and case law you must obey when offering preemployment psychological evaluations.

2. Identify common ethical issues unique to preemployment evaluations.

3. Describe the informed consent components needed to prevent the common ethical and legal issues from arising in this setting.

4. Explain the strengths and weaknesses of the three most commonly used personality tests for preemployment screening.

5. Name at least four simple executive functioning tests that can help identify applicants most likely to think clearly under highly stressful conditions.

6. Identify job-relevant topics to cover in a structured interview and recruiting collateral documents to confirm/disconfirm various hypotheses.

7. Discuss various options regarding the manner in which you report results and recommendations to the organizational client.