Misunderstood

A response to the Misunderstood Activity
created by Jenn Harren (@j_harren)

Number of views: 365

I teach in the business school, specifically Human Resources (HR) courses.  One concept that is important is that scientific (objective) methods of Recruitment and Selection tools and techniques are superior based on research to practice-based (subjective) methods.  The impact of not understanding this concept is that students may become HR Professionals that use methods that could discriminate against certain job candidates, be unfair, unequitable, and generally choose poor candidates for the short and long term for employment.  One factor in misunderstanding is that they have been told to “trust their gut” in many other situations.  They also could have witnessed countless employers in the past use subjective methods as they are very prevalent in the workplace.  Third, they could feel that once they have the education and gain more experience they will have better internal, subjective methods to select candidates and will not need to rely on objective methods.  These are wide-spread misconceptions not only in students but society/work as a whole from my understanding.

An analogy that can help make the concept make sense to students is: if I want to find out the best 100 meter runner in London, ON (or insert location), I will announce a race is coming to possible fast folks (i.e. go to other races to advertise, advertise on runner’s websites and within runner’s magazines/equipment stores, talk to coaches, etc.).  Once all the viable runners are assembled, I will typically run heats, which lead to quarter finals, semi finals and a final race.  The fastest runner will be determined by a machine that measures their speed with a high degree of accuracy.  I would ensure each runner got the same/similar advantages – weather, track conditions, time of day, access to equipment, computerized timing, etc.  What I would not do is just ask the runners who is the fastest and take their word, or use subjective methods to record scores (i.e. they can time themselves or others do this vs. a computerized system.

Another analogy could be acquiring their CHRP (certified Human Resources Professional Designation).  A student would need to complete the required education and course work, then write a multiple choice exam.  They either pass or fail based off of a predetermined cut off score and the scores of those that write the exam in that sitting.  Each exam writer would be in a similar setting with no outside help.  If they pass, it is based off of their knowledge and not their smile, handshake, rapport with the exam marker, etc.