Stanford MBA school professor Bob Sutton lets us know which employee selection methods were best and worst as predictors of job performance:

The upshot of this research is that work sample tests (e.g., seeing if people can actually do key elements of a job -- if a secretary can type or a programmer can write code), general mental ability (IQ and related tests), and structured interviews had the highest validity of all methods examined...

The study he's citing is "The Validity and Utility of Selection Methods in Personnel Psychology: Practical and Theoretical Implications of 85 Years of Research Findings." The paper's abstract describes how the most effective use of the three is through combination:

This article summarizes the practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research in personnel selection. On the basis of meta-analytic findings, this article presents the validity of 19 selection procedures for predicting job performance and training performance and the validity of paired combinations of general mental ability (GMA) and the 18 other selection procedures. Overall, the 3 combinations with the highest multivariate validity and utility for job performance were GMA plus a work sample test (mean validity of.63), GMA plus an integrity test (mean validity of.65), and GMA plus a structured interview (mean validity of.63). A further advantage of the latter 2 combinations is that they can be used for both entry level selection and selection of experienced employees. The practical utility implications of these summary findings are substantial. The implications of these research findings for the development of theories of job performance are discussed.

Sutton should know -- he's the author of a number of excellent business books. I highly recommend: The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't and Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best... and Learn from the Worst.

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Sprint has officially announced that the Motorola Titanium will hit the shelves July 24, for $149.99 with a new line or eligible upgrade and $100 mail-in rebate.  The Titanium has a portrait qwerty, 3.1-inch touchscreen, Nextel Direct Connect (chirp!), and is designed to meet Military Specification 810G for dust, shock, vibration, low pressure, solar radiation, high temperature and low temperature.  This successor to the Motorola I1 looks to be one tough customer.  Toss in an 1820 mAh battery, and there's a lot here to interest anyone who needs a phone that takes the abuse of a day of hard work. 

While it's not the powerhouse that some other new Android phones may be, this certainly fills a niche that needs filling by a tough, quality smartphone.  And it plays Angry Birds.  Hit the break for the press release.

More info: Titanium fact sheet

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With the economy still sputtering, summer vacations are on the chopping block for many people this year. In fact, a recent consumer survey from Bing Travel (conducted by Impulse Research) found some interesting items about consumers’ current attitudes and behaviors on vacations and travel.

• 66 percent of Americans are more likely to actually choose their vacation destination based on deals and discounts.  30 percent of survey respondents left paid vacation days on the table last year because they felt they did not have the money to go on vacation.
• The quest for travel deals also takes up a lot of people’s valuable time, with 91 percent of survey respondents cited visiting multiple websites when researching and booking travel and 20 percent spending at least 10 hours researching trips before booking and 59 percent spending a minimum of 3 hours. 
• One-third of survey respondents say they’d rather get a root canal then spend hours doing the research and planning needed to book a vacation these days.

Don’t despair as relaxing (and affordable) getaways are still out there. We combed through billions of fares to unearth a wealth of deals and pricing trends that can help resuscitate your summer travel plans.

Great Airfare Deals Still Exist:

• Overall airfare is down from last year by between 3.3% – 4% depending on length of stay. This reversing the trend of price increases that we initially saw for the beginning of summer.
• While many warm weather destinations are up on average between 6.5% - 6.6%, Florida has the biggest drop in prices.

• July and August are showing the biggest year-over-year decreases, with prices remaining steady to trending upward in September and October.

Hotels Are More Expensive, But Good Deals Can Be Found:

• In general, hotels are trending more expensive across cities, with price increases between 1%-30%
  • Biggest increases – Paris, Rome
  • Biggest decreases – Toronto, Orlando
  • Cheapest city – Orlando, Las Vegas
  • Most expensive cities – New York, Paris

It’s not too late to have your summer vacation! Check out the great deals still available at Bing Travel and make the most of your summer!

- Kari Dilloo, Bing PR Team

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Jeffa

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Microsoft has shared some news about the state of its most and least loved Web browsers -- Internet Explorer 9 and 6, respectively. Even with IE9 only recently exiting beta, Microsoft reports that 3.6% of Windows 7 users are now running the new browser (no mention of Vista... what's with that?). The post also reveals that the adoption rate is almost five times what IE8 garnered in the early going.

It's also interesting to note that there are now more than 1,000 sites utilizing Internet Explorer 9's Windows 7 integration features -- like the new desktop notification support we showed you in Hotmail.

But perhaps the best news of all is that Microsoft's IE6countdown.com now has more than 400 partners and is generating nearly two million pageviews per month, helping to lure users away from the woefully out-of-date browser. Can the end come soon enough, DS readers?

Internet Explorer 9 nears 4% share on Windows 7, IE6 extinction countdown picks up steam originally appeared on Download Squad on Fri, 01 Apr 2011 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just a couple of weeks ago we saw the final Space Shuttle launch and all episodes of Star Trek the original series, Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise become available via streaming on Netflix. Earlier today our daily Mac app was Time, a clock which simulates the LCARS interface on your Mac. Oh, and last week we saw CBS Interactive introduce a PADD Trek database app.

Continuing this Star Trek theme, here are Rod Roddenberry's top 3 iOS apps. Rod is the son of Star Trek's creator, Gene Roddenberry. We ran into Rod at Macworld Expo and discovered he's new to the Apple side of the force, so it's cool to hear what apps he uses. The last one, Heytell reminds me of the communicator from Star Trek if you had to account for the delay from messages sent long distances via subspace. And we all know how bad AT&T's coverage is near Rigel IV.

Rod's top 3 apps are:

iTeleport (iPad)

GV Connect

Heytell

My top 3 apps: Rod Roddenberry originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Chances are if you used an FTP program on your Mac in the 90s, you used Fetch. The code was purchased from Dartmouth College a while ago, but the software lives on. In this interview Neil Ticktin (Editor-in-Chief, MacTech Magazine and MacNews) talks to Jim Matthews of Fetch Softworks at WWDC 2011. Jim was kind enough to tell us about their thoughts on the announcements on WWDC, and how it will affect their plans moving forward.

TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at WWDC 2011 about the keynote announcements and how Apple's new technologies will help them and their customers. We'll bring you those videos here, MacTech.com and MacNews.com. Also, check out the free trial subscription offer for MacTech Magazine here.

WWDC Interview: Fetch Softworks originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We originally reported on SPDY way back in November 2009, when Google introduced it as yet another experiment in making the Web faster, like Go, Native Client and speculative pre-connections. Over the last 18 months, though, SPDY support has found its way into the stable build of Chrome.

SPDY is basically a streamlined and more efficient version of HTTP. At its most basic, SPDY introduces parallel, multiplexed streams over a single TCP connection -- but at the same time, SPDY allows for prioritization, so that vital content (HTML) can be sent before periphery content (JavaScript, video). All in all, the SPDY protocol can halve page load times, which is obviously rather significant.

The best bit, though, is that SPDY is an open-source project. HTTP 1.1 is a lumbering beast that needs to be replaced before low-latency real-time computing really becomes a reality, and SPDY is one of the best options currently on the table. To be honest, we're not sure why SPDY hasn't received more coverage -- it's awesome in every way. At the moment, though, the only way to help speed up SPDY's proliferation, is with an experimental Apache mod.

As far as actually 'trying it out,' your best bet is downloading Chrome, hitting up some Google sites, and then checking chrome://net-internals to see your active SPDY sessions. SPDY is a transparent replacement for HTTP, though, and as such it's rather hard to see its effects. Google's sites definitely feel fast in Chrome, but there are more technologies than just SPDY at work.

Google Chrome now uses SPDY HTTP replacement, halves page load time originally appeared on Download Squad on Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Do you find it hard to sort through the videos on your iOS device? Apple didn't give users any organizational tools to speak of, unless you count alphabetical sorting. The lack of folders or any method for making sense of your video library can be a pain, so VideoBot hopes to make it easier.

Chief among the features in VideoBot is the ability to add tags to videos and sort them accordingly. A nice touch if you happen to carry a lot of videos on your iOS device. It will also allow you to record videos and add metadata to them, with a few bells and whistles to help improve your recordings (like a rule-of-thirds overlay). Check out the video for a full walkthrough.

There are iPhone and iPad versions of VideoBot Camera.

Video App Demo: VideoBot Camera originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 15 Jul 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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