Scrub These Three Words From Your Hiring Process
Debunking a common recruitment myth
Once upon a time, I found myself interviewing to be the military aide to the Vice President of the United States. Throughout the panel session for this incredibly selective position, I repeatedly wondered what the hell I was doing there, and seriously questioned the judgment of whoever had made me a finalist. That said, the interview went really well. I thought I might just have a chance.
When the panel told me I'd been declined for the role, their feedback was sprinkled with superlatives. They seemed impressed with my experience, composure, and poise. Had they not made their decision explicit, the balance of their message would have left me believing I'd won. All except for one little phrase which has really stuck with me: "you're just not the right fit."
Now, in this example, it might seem reasonable to want a certain personality in someone who will work closely and constantly with a strategic leader. Every minute counts, so there are none to waste on avoidable friction or miscommunication. If the job is to blend totally into the background, "fit" is arguably approximating how well someone will do that.
But the feedback made me certain I'd dodged a bullet. I wasn't interested in fitting seamlessly into a team. I was interested in complicating and influencing and impacting that team. So if "fit" was the yardstick, the role was wrong for me.
In the years since, I've conducted hundreds of hiring interviews and chaired hiring panels for a broad variety of positions in both public and private organizations. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard this phrase or something similar: "s/he has a lot going for them, but they're just not the right fit."
It is always uttered by well-meaning individuals with pure motives. They're trying to make sure someone will succeed and have a good experience, and that the organization will be enhanced by the hiring decision.
But in grasping for a heuristic to explain why someone is slightly less qualified than a competitor, or in some way doesn't meet the hiring bar, individuals invoking "fit" are unwittingly taking the organization further from its goals.
Here's three reasons why "the right fit" should never be uttered in a hiring process:
Diversity. If every new hire or promotion must fit a pre-determined mold, the mold never changes. The team never changes. It never adapts to changing circumstances. It never gets influenced by different ways of thinking. We know teams with a complicated intellectual makeup and diverse perspectives will be more effective, so looking for fit actually limits a team. Moreover, seeking fit risks creating an insular team which thinks and acts alike. It can feed social cohesion, where teammates struggle with undue familiarity and don't hold one another accountable. Bringing different sorts of people into a team is an important way of spotting issues with chemistry and insularity to which we can become snow blind over time.
Mischief. Mischief is the handmaiden of vagary ... and the concept of fit has scarcely any definition at all. Does it mean the individual's personality isn't right for the team? Their perceived value system isn't aligned to ours? They are too much this and not enough that? When I've challenged those who cite fit as a rationale for a hiring decision, they've always struggled to articulate what they mean, often defaulting to these sorts of inappropriate notions without any real support. More often than not, they're using fit as a proxy for their intuitions, which should be surfaced as the true reasons and then defended to the extent they can be. Our feelings about a candidate can lead us rapidly off-track, as we're all subject to a range of conscious and unconscious biases.Because fit is definitionless, it can mean anything. It therefore can be stretched to cover any decision and mask any pretext. This creates a wide-open door to arbitrariness, with interviewers choosing who they like or prefer and proxying fit as evidence to justify decisions. Such mischief is nearly always well-meaning. And nearly always the path to a bad decision. Organizations which allow indiscipline or corruption in their hiring processes are on a road to ruin.
Distortion. In organizations where candidates believe fit will decide whether they are hired or promoted, they will seek to understand what the hiring process wants to hear from them and do their best to put on a show. Those most skilled at misrepresenting themselves will appear to be best suited and will secure roles disproportionately. Over the course of time, the success of the dishonest erodes organizational integrity. What we should want in any hiring process is for candidates to show us an unguarded version of how they reason, communicate, and operate. This gives us the evidence we need to predict their success in a role. In an effective interview, we plumb deep enough to glimpse something about who candidates are; the values and convictions underlying their behaviours. When we incentivize them to wear a thick mask to be who they think we want, the opportunity to strip away pretense and catch that glimpse of authenticity becomes unreachable, and our hiring decisions become less skilled. Less accurate. When enough of the wrong people are hired and promoted, and later advance to positions where they run the hiring process themselves, an organization becomes truly adrift from its intent. If you've ever been in an organization which lists core values but doesn't live them, the divergence is usually traceable, at least in part, to hiring decisions.
Hiring and promotion, alongside team development, form the heart of an organization. Hiring processes need conviction. If someone's candidacy shows they don't reach the bar, have the courage to say so and the professionalism to support the conclusion with evidence. If they are not qualified, tell them how. If they haven't performed as well as a competitor despite being qualified, be transparent about this. If defending your decision makes you squeamish, you are making the wrong decision.
By forcing ourselves to be honest and constructive in hiring processes, with ourselves and candidates, we force ourselves to build strong, honest, evidence-driven processes and to upskill those who conduct them. Few things are more critical to the long-term vitality of any team than getting this right.
Having said all that, it's really good I didn't get that job. If Dick Cheney will shoot his friends, he would definitely have shot me.
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