Lois & Clark Forums Forums General Discussion Fun with Polls Who would you hire?

Two candidates for a job; you are making the final decision.

Candidate A is an internal candidate ... a good, solid worker, competent and qualified, but in no way a "barn burner". Has a few weaknesses that you've identified as they've worked in their current position, but seems to get along with people fairly well overall.

Candidate B is an external candidate ... wowed you in the interview! A real go-getter, with lots of potential. But still inexperienced, a completely unproven quantity. No way to know how they will fit into the culture of the workplace.

Both candidates have received other job offers, but have indicated that you are their first choice.

So, who do you hire?

In my experience, it would depend. One of the factors which could be taken into account would be the existing 'team'. Does it need fresh input? A new member could help to stimulate thinking, bring new ideas, get existing employees looking at things in a new way. If, on the other hand, the existing team works very well and you don't want to risk upsetting things, then the internal candidate could be better. I've seen both decisions and the positive outcomes of both.

Another factor which could be taken into account is morale. If this is a promotion and existing employees see it going to an outsider, would that give them the impression that they have no opportunities for career advancement? And would that then damage morale and motivation and affect retention? Career expectations are important.

And then of course there's equal opportunities. What if existing employees are all white, male, able-bodied and the brilliant but unproven external applicant is a black woman (perhaps even with a disability ). For a start, you'd have to have a good reason for turning her down, or you'd lay yourself open to a possible discrimination claim. Second, there are definitely advantages in diversity in the workplace.

So, all in all, Kathy, I can't say. And here ends your morning lecture from the former human resource management professor.


Wendy (who used to teach employee resourcing at 9am on a Monday morning )

You know candidate A to be reliable, and reliability wins out in the long run. Those "Mary Lou Retin" B types are all about making up things to do to keep from having to do actual work, where the A type you've described knows that getting the work done is the fastest way to GETTING THE WORK DONE. I use to hate it in the Air Force when these corporate minded butt heads used to want to get "tiger teams" together and do "problen solving".

Man, just do your freakin' job!

Does this sound too personal?

HIRE "A" TYPE!

TEEEEEEEEJ

How do you know B is a "go-getter" if s/he's "inexperienced, a completely unproven quantity"? Beware the "wowed by charisma" factor.

So keep looking.

But ... If B is a good-looking hunk, let Wendy's equal op criterion kick in, unless, of course, the existing department has a surplus of GLH's. The morale of the women in the department is quite important, after all. <g>

c (who is very glad not to have conduct interviews anymore)

It depends on the job.

How important is it to have a go-getter? Would someone active and energetic be an asset? If things go well, how much difference would it make to have a star? On the flip side, how damaging would it be if the newbie turned out to be unequal to the task? What kind of support structure is there to help a newbie learn the ropes and to prevent damage from mistakes?

How important is the job? Sounds like it would be a promotion for A. Would that put B in charge of A? Is there a way the two could work together? Or, if A is promoted, could you hire B for A's old job, which is presumably more of an entry-level position? Or would B just go off to another company? For that matter, based on the way you've phrased things, would A leave the company if not promoted? How would that affect things?

As Wendy mentioned, it's good to consider the coworkers, too (if any). Would they want to see A promoted? Would they work well with A in the new job? Would they get along with B? Would B, who seems to be young and energetic, help motivate them? Or just annoy them by running around with these new ideas when everything's been working smoothly for so long?

Those are some things I'd think about. Doesn't sound like you want to give more info about the situation, so I'm just going to have to leave those questions as my answer.

Basically... you've described the pegs (one round, one square), but I can't tell you which one to try until I know the shape of the hole.

Paul

The answer using today's corporate thinking, approved and supported by the current governmental economic models, is simple. You don't hire either one of them. You outsource the job to China, or India, for about a quarter of the salary.

Tank (who has always wondered why 'loyalty' in the workplace is only a one way street)

#2. At least, I hope so, because that describes me. I don't make up excuses to get out of doing work, however. I look for what has to be done and I do it. And I'm looking for work right now.

The company I've been temping at for the past year is laying off a whole division, and it's being outsourced to India. It's pricing analysts, not tech support or something like that. My boss really wanted to hire me, but HR's policy is to go internal first. Even though I was there a year, I was a temp, so I'm technically external.

I have two weeks left. There is another administrative opening that I applied for. Maybe I can get that. *crosses fingers*

Describe what you mean by inexperience. Inexperience in the industry? Inexperience in general? I have several years of experience, but it's all through temp jobs except for one permanent position I had doing web development. Many skills are transferable to other industries, such as Microsoft Office and filing.

You should know whether someone is a "go-getter" by their references and what they have accomplished in past jobs.

Also, just because someone looks inexperienced and doesn't have a pretty resume doesn't mean they can't do the job. They could be a fast learner, like me. So I'm not supposed to get the job because I don't have umpteen years of experience? What about being overqualified?

It would depend on what the weaknesses of #1 are. You have to be careful of those that interview great. I have seen examples of "wowing" interviews that had to be fired because they were terrible once they were hired. Either just couldn't learn the job or were really lazy at heart.

Also if #1 is truly qualified and can do the job you are setting yourself up for several problems. If it looks as though there is no job advancement you can start loosing employees from all levels. Also you can open yourself up to a law suite from #1 if they are qualified and passed over. Also other employees can be less that supportive of the new hire.

Then it also depends on if #1 is going to have to train the new hire if they are not promoted into the position. (Remember the movie 9 to 5). If #1 isn't promoted you indicate they have another job offer. They can leave before they have trained the new hire.

It basically depends on a number of variables and information that you are unable to really give us.

I'd go for option A - Tank's loyalty factor is a biggie for me. If A has proven themselves a capable worker for the company already, why not reward them for that? And since neither are going to be unemployed if you turn them down, you're guilt-free on your decision anyway.

Amen to that, Tank. Coupled with, why you can spend years working through your breaks/lunches/staying late working unpaid overtime to get urgent work done...then get reprimanded for being five minutes late one morning, when you're never usually late.

Or how all that unpaid work factors in to the current debate over here in the UK about 'lazy' workers taking off too many sick days and how something should be done about it. No mention, naturally, of all that free time employers are getting out of them....

/me takes deep breath and carefully stows soapbox under the bed again...

LabRat

If A is a solid, dependable worker, go with A. B is an unknown quantity, despite the good interview.

I could get into a debate about "lazy" workers who call out sick too often, but I work an hourly job with no overtime. If you happen to be 15 minutes over on a call, come in 15 minutes late the next day. I have a few issues with some of my coworkers who tend to call out almost every Saturday.

So people like me are never supposed to get jobs? Are we supposed to be temps all our life?

Actually, Emily, I believe we are talking about two people who are fairly even in qualifications. No one advocates hiring someone who isn't qualified just because they are an internal candidate, merely that being a loyal company employee should be taken into consideration also.

Apparently, the 'weaknesses' of the current employee mentioned in the original post is not significant enough to disqualify them from consideration, but just might be enough of a factor to push the decision toward the outside candidate.

I just have a problem with companies who expect their employees to sacrifice and be loyal hard workers to benefit the success of the company yet think nothing of tossing them aside the moment the 'numbers' no longer fit the company bottom line.

Tank (who has had to bypass several jobs that he'd liked to have applied for because he had no way to prove to a prospective employer that he could do the job)

Well, you have a good point. Certainly, the company I was temping at seems to value their internal employees. I just wish I didn't have to look for work again.

Thanks, everyone who voted and commented. Interesting discussion! I deliberately kept the poll somewhat vague, or I could have answered some of the questions people were saying "it depends" about, since some of it wouldn't apply to this particular situation. Some fascinating discussion as a result, though!

And now, I thought you might be interested in to hear where this came from, and more specifically, what the result was.

First, fascinating that most people chose the internal candidate to hire. As it so happens, that's what was decided ... this was my husband's department (he's a college professor) deciding whether to hire the current person they were using for a 2-year sabatical replacement position, or to hire their top outside candidate who was a lot more impressive both on paper (higher creditials) and in the interview (and unlike most corporate interviews, faculty ones often consist of 12+ hours over 1-2 days, and include teaching a class or giving some other type of lecture, so the people doing the hiring can really see how a candidate interacts with students, conducts his/herself, etc.)

After much discussion, they finally decided to go with the internal candidate, in part because they figured the loyalty would go both ways -- since he already had roots in the community, they figured he wouldn't just move on in a couple years. In fact, they even went out on a limb to make the offer because the big boss (the Dean in this case) had a definite preference for the external candidate, and he actually made my husband (and the others on the search committee) come back to him a couple times before making the offer to convince him.

And after all this? The internal candidate REJECTED the offer and decided to go somewhere else. AND, he didn't give them his rejection until after the external candidate was supposed to give his answer to some other offers, even though they had told him what their deadline was and why. So now they've likely lost both people and need to start the whole darn process all over again, which at this point may mean having to hire another temporary and not hire anyone permanently for another year.

In this case, loyalty got them screwed.

Sounds like a Lex Luthor case study on Machevelli, LOL.

Kathy

Kathy

Having worked at a university I'm use to the process you speak of. The internal candidate probably wanted to take the job but had trouble coming to a decision. From what you said went on I'm sure he had some of idea that the Dean didn't really want him. The gossip mills run rampant in such settings. I would imagine in the end his emotions played a big part in what happened. Not taking it cause he felt not really wanted, and responded late as a means of revenge for not feeling that he was really wanted for the position. I've seen it before in both corporate and education settings happen this way.

You may well be right, Kmar. I actually told my husband that I thought John (the internal candidate) would be better off taking one of his other offers. I've often said that it's good to have a short-term job as your first one, so that you can make all your mistakes and learn your lessons, *then* move on to the company/school where you hope to build your career so you hit the ground running and impress everyone.

On the plus side, they contacted the external candidate early this week and he had not accepted any other offers yet. He apparently really wanted this job and was delaying his other places to see if it would come through. They made him the offer, did some negotiating, and he's supposed to give them his final answer on Monday. My husband thinks it's a good bet he'll take it, which would make everything work out ok in the end, since he really did like this guy for the job.

Let's hope so.

Kathy