Two Perfect Job Candidates? Here’s How to Choose
Hiring is one of the most time consuming and agonizing responsibilities of the small business owner. We are often confronted with candidates with nearly identical categories of knowledge, skills and abilities.
How does the business owner pick just one? The one right person?
Brad Feld and Your Business Blogger have different approaches.
The NCWIT
Brad Feld has about the best blog published for early stage companies. But I have a (rare) disagreement with him. The National Center for Women in Information Technology, NCWIT, appointed a male as the board chair. The gentleman, Brad reports, was the most qualified. And this may very well have been true.
But is competence the only criterion in hiring?
Equal Employment
Opportunity
Over the years, I have been faced with this question. In two different companies, I hired a gay man and a woman, both with health concerns. In each hiring decision I had a short list of candidates who were nearly equal in track records and salary requirements.
In these two instances I hired the second best resume.
I hired not the best resume, but the best person.
Another smart Brad, Brad Reynolds was Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under President Reagan. We once had a conversation about hiring practices. He gave me some sound advice:
When two identical candidates are being interviewed, choose the one who had to come over the roughest road to get to you.
How hard was it for the job seeker to conduct her job search? To get in my office? What hurdles? What hassles?
Campaign for
Human Rights:
Group Rights vs.
Individual Effort
We hear a lot of mis-information about treatment for different groups, different associations, anyone in plaid pants. But there are individuals who have had unusual life challenges and have had to negotiate a more difficult trail.
I would suggest that a woman should have been selected to chair the women’s organization, “to ensure that women are fully represented,” as claimed in their mission statement. A woman rather a man because, I would submit, she had a tougher row to hoe to get to the candidate pool then to the board. A woman would have been the best person.
The characteristics that drove her to get herself in front of the selection committee, would be the very qualities needed to make the organization a success.
This is not how a large company personnel department would make recommendations. In this small business hiring case study, Brad and I would have chosen different genders for the job.
The National Center for Women in Information Technology should have appointed a woman as chair.
May 23rd, 2006 at 11:37 am
I can’t agree with you. Not because I wouldn’t like to see such people suceeed, but because I think you’re putting social responsibility above the needs of the business. In small businesses especially, each hire is critical and you have the responsiblity to make the hire that is best for the business. The wrong hire can put your other employees out of work - is that responsible?
To use the NCWIT example… what if the man hired actually does a more effective job than the other finalists? Aren’t more women helped by a more effective NCWIT? Yes, hiring a woman in that position makes superficial sense, but you’re actually helping fewer women if the man is more effective in the position. Of course, this is what makes hiring so stressful - you can’t actually know who will be better. It’s perfectly possible that the female finalist would outperform the man, of course. That, obviously, is the purpose of the hiring process - to find the best performer. If you can do social good at the same time, fine, but I think business performance has to come first, esp when the hire affects other people’s fortunes.
May 24th, 2006 at 2:46 pm
I like the idea of hiring people who’ve had a thougher path to a position. Intuitively, I can see how they may work harder in the role than someone who worked less hard to be qualified.
However, wouldn’t a man applying for the position at the head of a woman’s organization be the underdog in this case? This actually looks like the exception to your rule to me.
May 27th, 2006 at 6:59 am
Jack Yoest Blogs in National Review On Line and Small Business Trends
NRO Your Business Blogger is honored to have articles up on National Review On Line, Small Business Trends and Small Business Trends Radio. NRO has a tribute to the men and families of the USS Scorpion. A submarine lost…