In the recent track and field trial, one of the fastest runners in the world, Tyson Gay, suffered a cramp and fell during the 200 meters. As a result, he will not be able to compete for the United States in the 200 meters, even though he is generally acknowledged as being the fastest US runner in that event. In US track and field, you have to finish in the top 3 in the Olympic trials to compete in the Olympics regardless of your past performances or your ability. In many other events and countries, Gay could have been named to the team despite his fall in the trials.
This unfortunate event illustrates the difference between public and private sector hiring. Both hire on merit and want to hire the best person. However, by law, the public sector is often required to hire the best person on a particular day on a specific competitive exam. A job candidate can be the best qualified but have a bad day and a bad exam – and that is it, they are out of the running for the job. On the other hand, in the private sector, organizations can select the best person in terms of an overall judgment of their performance. Someone who has a bad day can retake the exam or be hired based on their judged merit.
Is one system better than the other? Just as with the Olympic trials, it is difficult to say. The public sector system seems unfair to someone who has a bad day, just like the track and field system seems unfair to Gay. On the other hand, the private sector system allows subjectivity and general impression factors to enter into the final judgment; leading to a decision that will be seen as unfair by the person who finishes first on the competitive exam, but ends up denied the job.
Each system involves certain value judgments and assumptions. From an HR perspective, the lesson I believe is that regardless of the rules we end up adopting, we should openly and freely disclose our rules so that the job candidate understand how the decision is being made.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I think this is a great example of the flaws inherent in testing–it’s a sample of KSAs, and even the best tests are not perfectly reliable.
As you point out, the best situation would be one where the employer takes its time to consider a whole host of information related to each candidate and how well this translates into P-J fit. But that’s not realistic–at least not yet. Perhaps someday a database will exist that contains a massive amount of information about each of us that can easily be compared to job requirements (see as a beginning stage http://www.spock.com).
One alternative is allowing candidates to make opt-in/opt-out decisions by providing them with effective information about the job and the organization. Most employers do a horrible job of communicating clearly job requirements and organizational culture. Think about it: when was the last time you read a comprehensive, engaging, easy to read job ad that allowed you to tell quite easily whether you were a good fit? And that’s not a public sector of private sector issue–they’re both terrible at it.
Now that’s low hanging fruit that has HUGE ROI but is rarely emphasized.
In industry / business, I used what I called a confirm/disconfirm model. The higher up the food chain we went, where a poor decision could cost the company hundreds of millions of dollars, the more in-depth became our assessment procedures; the lower down where we had hundreds of applicants for each position, we used less in depth screening procedures and focused more on basic KSAs and fast learning curves.
We used the term “profiling” rather than “testing” or “assessment.” The term testing frightens people and causes anxiety. We wanted to focus on the overall applicant profile, which might include testing, but the emphasis was on overall performance and potential.
Regarding realistic job previews and organizational culture, if we were honest about these things when hiring people, we would lose too many people. That is one reason why we place so much emphasis on recruitment…make everything seem really wonderful and we can entice people to enlist without having to pay higher compensation or improve working conditions.
I would like to thank both Daniel and Bryan for their comments. I hope that this blog remains an interactive experience and encourage all readers to leave comments. I believe their comments also help to reinforce some of the points I made about public-private differences in HR approaches, especially in selection. This leads I believe to the question as to how we can combine the best features of both types of systems. Or, could it be that technology is forcing both the public and private sector to recruit and select on the same playing field?