Better than Affirmative: Random
As I walked back to work from grabbing a sandwich for lunch, I contemplated how I'd hire a research assistant. I realized that, while I had a precise idea of the qualifications I'd seek, the fact is that there are probably a ton of people who'd be great hires, but who wouldn't have those qualifications, and I'd never see them in an interview. And I'd like to give them a shot. I aim to be just.
The thing that's most reinforced the "It's who you know, not what you know" notion in the last 10 years has been the automation of resume submittal and screening. Now that HR folks need not actually read resumes, but just search for keywords in a database in order to find candidates to interview, no one prepares their resume for a genuine human. Especially if what you do is something the average junior HR staffer doesn't understand. The trick is to load your resume with the keywords from the original job post. When everyone plays this strategy, the system is useless: Hundreds of resumes, regurgitating the same req back to you. Nowadays, if you want an interview, one has to work around, not through HR. One must know somebody.
So I plan, as I go through life and hire people, to seek not only people who I think are qualified, but to give a genuine crack at the job to someone who thinks him or herself sufficiently qualified to have applied, but who didn't make the screen. After I've selected my candidates for interviews, I'm also going to select at random one candidate who didn't pass the screen but did apply for the job. It'll give them hope, along with a genuine chance, and it will give me a chance to have a cool conversation and to perhaps find some unconventional hires. Ideally, it'll be double blind, and I can get the HR folks to mix in the random dude with the screened folks. That way I'm unbiased.
I think people just want a chance. And I think letting chance, to a reasonable extent, grant some opportunity, may be a good thing. If colleges filled 5% of their seats with applicants admitted by random lottery, they'd have a lot more genuine diversity of perspective than the current social engineering yields.
The thing that's most reinforced the "It's who you know, not what you know" notion in the last 10 years has been the automation of resume submittal and screening. Now that HR folks need not actually read resumes, but just search for keywords in a database in order to find candidates to interview, no one prepares their resume for a genuine human. Especially if what you do is something the average junior HR staffer doesn't understand. The trick is to load your resume with the keywords from the original job post. When everyone plays this strategy, the system is useless: Hundreds of resumes, regurgitating the same req back to you. Nowadays, if you want an interview, one has to work around, not through HR. One must know somebody.
So I plan, as I go through life and hire people, to seek not only people who I think are qualified, but to give a genuine crack at the job to someone who thinks him or herself sufficiently qualified to have applied, but who didn't make the screen. After I've selected my candidates for interviews, I'm also going to select at random one candidate who didn't pass the screen but did apply for the job. It'll give them hope, along with a genuine chance, and it will give me a chance to have a cool conversation and to perhaps find some unconventional hires. Ideally, it'll be double blind, and I can get the HR folks to mix in the random dude with the screened folks. That way I'm unbiased.
I think people just want a chance. And I think letting chance, to a reasonable extent, grant some opportunity, may be a good thing. If colleges filled 5% of their seats with applicants admitted by random lottery, they'd have a lot more genuine diversity of perspective than the current social engineering yields.
posted by Kenneth at 1:08 PM
<< Home