Brigette Hyacinth recently posted this story of when she hired a candidate who didn’t meet the educational requirements that were part of the job posting:
I HIRED a candidate who didn’t meet the educational requirements. She didn’t have an MBA.
Here’s why:
It came down to her and another candidate. I liked her humility. The other candidate was very boastful about the college he went to and his accomplishments. The HR manager was really impressed with him.
As the hiring manager, I had the final decision and I chose her. She turned out to be an excellent team player.
I have learned over the years that having a degree does not make you better at performing a job. It does not override qualities as humility, authenticity, and integrity.
“My biggest MISTAKE is probably weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality. I think it matters whether someone has a good heart.” —Elon Musk
In today’s world, we need to place higher metrics on these qualities because they are becoming extinct.
What do you think of this decision? Is this one you’ve made in your organization before? Should we be doing more of this?
I know quite a few hiring managers that are afraid to go outside things like the educational requirements in a job posting. I think the reason don’t rely more on qualities such as humility, authenticity, and integrity is that those are much harder to measure. I can measure if you have an MBA. I can measure if you have 5 years of experience with a certain technology, skill, etc. It’s much harder to measure if someone is humble, authentic, and full of integrity.
The reality is that we all know that those things are important. However, we can easily get wowed by someone’s skills and experience that it blinds us to some of the other character traits that can make or break an employee in your organization. It’s sad, but true that these higher character metrics are becoming at least endangered species. Hopefully they never become extinct.
