Differentiation: A Job Growth Policy

 

When filling a position in an organization, the hiring manager is looking to find the best candidate for the job.  She is not looking for the most deserving candidate for the job.  Neither is she looking to even some perceived ratio of some undeserved population.  That is, maybe there are fewer long haired hippies in the corporate American culture than in the general American culture; it’s not the job of the manager to correct that woe.

Rather, she is looking for the candidate best suited for the job.  And to that end, she can, and should use, any tool or “discriminator” she has at her disposal.

For example, some professions use GPA as the discriminator.  If you don’t have a GPA above 3.5, you don’t get a second look.  Other professions use college.  Not Harvard?  Not interviewed.  And so it goes.

Some time ago I posted about the nonsense that is the attempt of the administration to protect a class of individuals – the high school drop-out:

The “informal discussion letter” from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criterion for screening potential employees, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” The letter was posted on the commission’s website on Dec. 2.

The idea is that the employer is no longer able to use a high school diploma as a qualifier for employment.  I called bullshit and, as I am want to do, used a silly example of a candidate showing up for the interview in jammies smoking a cigarette.  Can I make a logical conclusion that someone who shows up for an interview in that condition may not make an ideal employee?

Guess what, real life is even sillier:

Jose Ayala didn’t make the best first impression at a welding shop near Del Paso Heights, Calif.,Monday…

Ayala showed up to his interview naked and high on meth…

Naked.

And high on meth.

If I’m hiring someone to do a job and provide useful production to my business, I should get to decide by which I hire that individual.  And making me consider someone without a high school diploma is just as random as requiring me to consider someone who is naked.

And high on meth.

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