THE SCENARIO: I’m charged with filling a management position at my company, and the two top candidates are a white male and a black female, both from outside the company. On paper, their qualifications are very similar, but after several rounds of interviews I feel that the white male has the edge. He has better ideas and better references, and I feel that he has better leadership potential that would make him a stronger fit for the position. Yet my company has a stated initiative to promote the hiring of minorities and women, which, as a woman myself, is something I feel strongly about. Yet I’m unsure how much weight to give this initiative when my gut is telling me that the man is the better candidate. Where’s the line?
The need to promote the advancement of minorities and women in the workplace is deadly important. In both cases, the bar has been skewed for too long against them, and any effort to promote a better balance is a good one, and can have very strong long-term effects. Your problem is that you are unsure of how to quantify this need against the traditional approach of the best man, or woman, for the job.
Your company has a stated initiative to promote the hiring of minorities and women. Well, then you need to force your company to answer this question of how much “weight” they attach to that initiative. If it’s vague, then you need to make it un-vague. You’ve obviously made your decision on who you think is the best candidate for the job, and now you need to put it to some higher-ups to help you decide who is the best candidate for the company.
In many ways, this is an executive-level decision because quantifying the initiative is essentially a policy decision. You need to bring this all the way up - I’m talking the president and CEO level - and explain to them your situation, your impressions after the interviews, and let them draw the hard line.
It’s not an easy line to draw. Race and gender issues are fraught with potential danger, and any attempt to quantify these factors is not going to please everyone. If it were as simple as the candidates being the same on paper, then the job should go to the minority or woman. That’s the easy way to fulfill the hiring initiative. But interviews, references, all these other things that we use to round out a candidate’s evaluation have weight too. They can also be misleading. Not everyone interviews well or has the connections that get you a stellar recommendation.
The scales could tip either way, but hopefully your bosses will give this hiring initiative the heft it deserves. One person’s gut instinct for “fit” should not outweigh the heavyweight problem of minority and female underrepresentation.
Have a workplace-ethics dilemma? Ask it here, or email wherestheline@gmail.com
