Up for Debate

The world's most visible job interview, or, if you're me, one of the year's best TV comedy hours. Since, like many of you, I already know who I'm voting for, the presidential debates are mostly about entertainment. But you workforce managers should take notes in between your laughter and outrage. Apparently the songs and dances of these candidates mirror on a bigger level what you experience with your own job applicants: artificial bulking up of resumes, lack of evidence of good leadership judgment, and holes in experience that will need to be filled in fast if you decide to hire them.

One advantage the public has during election season that you don't have at your company is the ability to pit the two final applicants against each other face-to-face in a forum open to all "stake holders."  Another is the benefit of more than just one person making the final call on whom to take on as a new leader. As crazy as it seems at first thought, is there any way to take these two election advantages and apply them to your own company, entirely changing the way you make hiring decisions?  And would it be legal?  What if you wanted to take the two finalists for a top-level executive job, and have them answer questions in front of the board of directors, or even a larger audience from the company? I think it would be a useful exercise, but I wonder whether you legally are able to do that, and whether the job applicants will stand for it. Then what if, instead of leaving the final hiring decision up to one person, you had all the employees who would directly work under the person, or maybe even the whole company, vote to decide who gets the job? Would it work?  On the one hand, you'd have the benefit of more than one management genious getting to decide. On the other hand, a high volume of decision-makers sometimes doesn't lead to better outcomes. After all, look at some of the presidents we've ended up with!

How about what's forgivable for presidential contenders and what's okay for corporate job applicants? How much false resume boosting is acceptable? Is the old joke about everyone lying about their experience true, and if it is, should hiring managers accept it, or use evidence of it as basis for taking the applicant out of the running?  As a direct, self-deprecating person, I would vote in favor of throwing out the applicants who are caught lying to make themselves look better than they are. Not so much because of the offensiveness of the lie but because it's evidence of a man or woman who's not secure enough to be open about possible weaknesses. Many of you will say it's just good sense to keep weaknesses to yourself during a job interview, and that applicants who fail to do so demonstrate a lack of savvy, but I disagree. A person who admits he doesn't know the answer to one of your questions or that he lacks familiarity with a skill-set, but then explains how he would acquire the knowledge, and compensate for his ignorance until he learns, shows strength. It's a fool who pretends to know what he doesn't only to louse up his new job and company once he gets in.

And what about this business of making spouses part of the decision-making process?  I've read that, though illegal to make an official part of the hiring decision, corporate boards have clever ways of finding out about the husbands and wives of CEO contenders. Like a first lady or first husband, does it have any bearing on how the individual performs his job?  Sure, the CEO has to schmooze at cocktail and dinner parties to get her way, but if her husband is unintelligent and has bad table manners, will that schmooze acumen be compromised?  It may be overly idealistic of me, but I think potential business partners are too self-interested to let an unappealing spouse get in the way of a beneficial business decision. So a new vendor partnership or corporate acquisition will earn both parties millions of dollars, and all because the wife slurps her soup and likes to talk about her cat's OBGYN problems, the deal is dead?

Similarly, much has been said about people voting for the presidential candidate with whom they'd most like to have a beer rather than the one they deem most intelligent and capable. Are your hiring managers just as susceptible to this unproductive thinking, or have you trained them so well that this faulty judgment never happens at your company?  Sure, if all things are equal, a job candidate's likability is perfectly reasonable to consider. But when one job candidate is more qualified than the other, but a little less easy to relate to or charming, what do you do?  Some say social and emotional intelligence is at least as important as various skill-sets and "book learning," so is it really so dumb to choose the more likable over the more conventionally intelligent?  Again, based on past presidential election outcomes during my lifetime, I would say it is kind of dumb. "But what do I know?"  I'm secure enough to ask.

Employee resentment toward CEOs might lessen if they voted, or at least it would take the burden of their unhappiness off of you. When they complain about their fates at the hands of a blubbering, incompetent, mean-streaked top executive, you could ask them to recall how the bozo got here in the first place. "Well," you'd have to remind them, "it was your idea."

What's CEO selection like at your company?  Any parallels to the pitfalls of the American presidential election process?

Comments

[MCSE Training]

well i love this debate