Why Great Companies Use Patterns During Recruitment

Every great company uses statistical data to model the attributes of its great employees. In other words, the human resources department is expected to examine data, and arrive at a pattern which shows something like this: CandidateA we hired 3 years ago turned out great, CandidateC turned out great, but CandidateD failed. What are the attributes of those who did well within the 3 years we employed them?

They will start looking at data and the outcome could be any of the following: “they made good grades in school” or “they outperformed in our employment test” or “they were student leaders in college” or “they attended a university with integrated internship” or whatever, understanding that every company is unique.

Possibly, in the future, the company will then design their recruitment process to target similar students who outperformed in the past. They could say “no 3rd class student will be invited to our interview” because most underperform. This does not mean that all 3rd class graduates are going to underperform.

Simply, in a gaussian distribution (yes, statistics, get it), they could have seen that in every hundred graduates, 67 with first class /2.1, three 2.2 and and one  3rd class performed well. Statistically, there is no need to extend invitations to those with 2.2 and 3rd class degrees even though that will cost you about 4 good workers. Why do that? Companies have  limited resources and play to have the best strike rates.

Sure, this is not to say that because Shell did not hire you because you made 2.2,  that Shell will not retain your company in the future as a contractor if you go and start a company. This is not to say that because PwC did not hire you because you made a 3rd class, that the consulting firm will not take up a service if you want to engage them in your business.  That those companies did not hire you does not mean you cannot do any other thing;  they did not hire you because your grade does not track the patterns which have worked for them in the past.

We are all unique, but unfortunately, life works on patterns. At personal levels, that pattern-based model seems discriminatory. However, when you see that companies do not have unlimited resources, you will then understand why they have to use “something” to bring sanity in that recruitment process, and increasingly grades seem to be the factor of choice.  It is not their fault since those who think that the use of grade is not optimal has not provided a better alternative.

The Physics of Recruiting Well-Paid Workers in Nigeria

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