Hiring Practices

As a career development practitioner, I've been quite interested with hiring practices, particularly the way companies make hiring decisions. Most companies will interview someone face to face and that will be the single most important factor in the decision for the candidate to get hired. Of course there’s the client’s credentials and work experience, but if there were ten people who fit the bill for both work experience and credentials, then it will ultimately be narrowed down to the interview. For simplicity, I have omitted the influence networking and referrals have (A HUGE effect in Canada, at least).

There’s also the skill-testing exercise of some sort. To test the hard skills (or soft skills) that a candidate claims to possess. Whether it’s determining typing speed or having a conversation in a foreign language, skill testing can take many forms and serves to assure an employer of the promised skills in possession.

How do we really assess if a person will thrive in an environment/work setting? Can an interview really be the only answer to this? One can be a great actor and convince the employer that they ARE the right fit for the job. They may be lying or being wholeheartedly disingenuous but is a company really able to test this? They can with a probationary period. Personally, I don’t think the interview is the single best way to assess a person’s fit for the job. It only assesses our ability to hold a conversation, answer questions, think on our feet, along with a range of skills and abilities. These are all relegated to a person’s ability to master an expected set of people skills.

Then there are companies that give you a personality test. This can be a controversial practice as it assumes a few things. Firstly, that the limitations of the personality test are not strong enough to disprove that this test does in fact, represent your personality. It assumes a certain truth about our personalities that is without question, for the test has already determined it for us. Secondly, it is holding a firm stance that a certain personality type will be required in certain positions. This can be a good thing - as it can be used to ensure that there is a mix of personalities in a company or a team. However, this is not the way it is always used. Too often, companies will prefer a certain type of personality for a certain role and only choose among a pool of candidates that possess this specific type of personality. This may be beneficial in some cases, it can also be detrimental in others. It may limit the innovation that naturally comes from the complexities of mingling various personalities. Nothing worthwhile came without its challenges, so then why are we trying to minimize the challenges within teams? This also assumes that only certain personalities thrive in certain careers and we know that is not true. Our personalities can be heavily influenced by our coworkers but that doesn’t necessarily mean we shared the same personality when we first started working together.

The last practice is a derivative of the one mentioned above, but in this case, it’s not the personality of a candidate that a company puts in a box, it’s their marks/grades in school. It assumes that a certain level of intellect is necessary for a job, and that intellect is only measured by the candidate’s grades. Sure, for professions where it’s a matter of life and death, it makes sense to assess whether or not the intellect measures against set standards because such intellect in question can be responsible for life or death (doctors, engineers, and lawyers come to mind among many other careers). But what about other professions where it’s not a matter of life or death? It seems rather pretentious to assume that grades will determine a candidate’s ability to thrive in a job. Much like personality tests, grades too are subject to confounding factors that may or may not negatively affect the results in question. My IQ is not necessarily demonstrated in my ability to concentrate and get through a semester of courses that I may or may not have found interesting. Companies can miss out on top talent in assuming that grades are a marker of future success and intellect.

I know my IQ and I also know that my grades are not representative of my IQ. Moreover, my grades from University are over ten years old and since then, I have studied at college and have truly honed my interests and abilities. My candidacy was once declined before an interview could be scheduled because my University grades from ten years ago did not meet the average that the company required - even though I had given my stellar grades from college that were more recent and more pertinent to the role I was applying for. Somehow, there was a bias that community college is not as good a marker of intelligence as a University is. In addition to my intelligence and my work ethic, my worth as a professional is now represented by my decade old grades alone. At first I was hurt. Memories from all the struggles I faced while at University came flooding through my head. The personal, the academic - my struggle to align my values with politics and my lack of interest in becoming a Dietitian etc. I soon overcame the emotional shock and took the time to look at the situation objectively. I was qualified, I was smart and I knew that. I had recent grades, my credentials, my work experience, my IQ, my EQ, my relationships both professional and personal to back up my worth. The company in question simply had a specific hiring practice - one that acted as a barrier to growth and talent. A practice that if looked at objectively, does not makes sense to me (sure that’s my opinion and therefore it’s subjective but I’ll leave it up to you to decide).

The truth of the matter is that there is no simple way to hire a candidate. It’s a complex task and one with many challenges and room for improvement. Companies spend a lot of money recruiting, hiring, and training employees and what they choose to do with their HR budget and consequently hiring a candidate is entirely a decision left at the subjectivity of the interviewer and the company HR policies in place.

As for me, I am happy to say that in the end, things worked out favourably for my career.