“The best person gets the job” is a myth
Yuisa Pérez Chionchio
We can define a gatekeeper at all levels. We have gatekeepers who greet visitors requesting a meeting with a C-suite member. These gatekeepers are tasked to keep our chiefs focused on their main job responsibility to increase profit. Other gatekeepers keep a tight grip on our data and keep outsiders away to protect the brand.
We need gatekeepers to protect us while other times, we need gatekeepers to open the gates and let it all out and in. Searching for a job candidate is one of those times. The gates need to be open in order to find qualified candidates for a job and the organization.
When the gates are open, the best person for the job is hired. But the gates are not open equally to everyone.
In 2014, a Hewlett Packard Internal Report published in the Harvard Business Review found men apply for a job when they meet 60 percent of the qualifications but women apply only if they meet 100 percent.
As a human resources professional, I've heard variations on this statistic before, but the point is men are still hired and paid more at a faster rate than women, even though men may only be 60 percent qualified while an entire group of potential applicants who are more qualified don't even apply. Regardless of best intentions for diversity hiring, this means the best applicant might get the job, but the best person for the job might not have even applied.
This data is just as true in 2019 as it was in 2014. The added myths we hear today in human resources are “Women don't apply for promotions” or “We can't find qualified candidates of color.” These myths become realities to hiring managers because they can only go with what is placed in front of them. If an organization truly wants to embrace diversity in hiring – and therefore, its workforce and leadership – it needs to systematically address its processes and biases. If hiring managers are in a rush to fill a job, if human resources departments remain understaffed and limited in their ability to search for candidates, and if the biases' from everyone in the pipeline clogs the process, then the organization will display the same lack of diversity.
Human resources departments are the gatekeepers to the professional success of our employees and ultimately our organizations. We see first hand the difference between men and women applying for jobs and promotions, and – taking it a step further – we witness the difference of men and women of color applying for these same positions. These internal findings need to be openly discussed accompanied with data, so best practice trainings can be implemented for hiring managers. We need to focus on helping our organizations collectively hire the most qualified people.
Keeping the gates wide open and having everyone aware of a unified mission in creating opportunities for all employees will have 100 percent of employees feeling 100-percent qualified for the jobs they are applying for.
Yuisa Pérez Chionchio is director of human resources for Family Health Center of Worcester, Inc.
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