Not to hire the best person?

[Undaunted77]

We are looking for an apprentice.
Candidate A is a second generation immigrant, eldest sibling in a large family living in inner city social housing, attended a notorious local comprehensive and got OK A levels. Is currently 3/4 through a year long paid internship at one of our competitors.

Candidate B comes from a middle class family, for a while was educated at private school, lives in suburbs, has had a lot of support & encouragement from parents. Is forecast to get better A levels than candidate A did. Has only just left school and has no job yet.

Both are good and very motivated candidates - but B’s scores in all the elements of the assessment centre were undeniably better than A’s, and in terms
of personality is probably a better fit. B also has no job at present whereas A is mid-internship.

Would we BU to offer the apprenticeship to A, on the grounds that the opportunity may be more transformative for A, and A has not enjoyed the same advantages as B?

Sounds like B is the best candidate on paper ....unless A is doing very well in the internship already which means they have demonstrable workplace experience/skills etc which could tip into their favour?

MMMM but A has an opportunity - he is in an apprecentiseship. His experience would count for a lot in my opinion but if he is not the best candidate hire the best candidate! Nuts not to!

On paper B sounds like the better candidate and currently has no opportunity, whereas A is already in an internship?

BTW, your post is incredibly patronising and hiring someone because you feel sorry for their background and/or upbringing is awful

You go for the best candidate, you can’t give a sympathy job!

How pathetic - patronizing to A and grossly unfair to B. I hope this isn't for real. Why should B be punished for their background when they are undeniably the best candidate for the job? If A has an internship at one of your competitors then they are jot disadvantaged at all. Or are you wanting to tick your "immigrant" box? Nonesenical bullshit OP.

Are you running a business or employing people as a charitable act?

If the former, you need to act in the best business interests and not your own sense of doing social good.

To me, A sounds like the stronger candidate. I would almost always pick someone with relevant work experience over predicted better grades. Not having to teach someone how to behave in an office is a big bonus, they usually get up to speed faster and should save you time/money as a result.

Depends how close the culture fit and assessment factors are though.

You hire the best person for the role.
You would be very unreasonable to do otherwise, and it’s quite worrying that you’re in a position to hire when you can’t work that out for yourself.

It’s also very that you claim to know so much about the background of each candidate, even down to the level of encouragement from parents etc. You can’t possibly know what actually goes on in people’s lives (unless you have some close connection to the candidates in which case you should have removed yourself from the appointment process )

In this case the best person for the job is A as they have real work experience and has an internship with a competitor. The grades don’t matter.

I thought that the whole point of scoring in assessment centres was to attempt to adjust for differing levels of socioeconomic advantage.

Are you for real?Based on your bizarre social assessment of these candidates and the knowledge you believe you have about their families and backgrounds (how?) .

Virtue signalling with very weak evidence to support your ridiculous idea.

You hire the best candidate for the job. I feel like you've posted this with an agenda

It would be discrimination to not hire the best candidate. Especially as B is a better fit for company culture. For me company culture fit would be one of the few reasons I'd pick a weaker candidate "on-paper" over a slightly stronger one as I have first hand experience of the hiring a poor culture fit being a reason to leave a company (ie. Working with the new employee in a small team actively made daily work life unenjoyable).

To take the thin edge of the wedge, it is not much different to positive discrimination leading to an under qualified woman being hired over a better qualified man.

When those two candidates came to your assessment centre B out performed A. Offer the job to B.

A sounds fickle because they're applying for a different role after c9 months of current role. Plus they already have experience to help them in the future. B doesn't have a job or experience so deserves a chance to get them on the bottom rung.
But have a for the virtue signalling

Teddybear- the OP says candidate B is the best person for the job. S/he’s not asking us to decide, and she isn’t basing it simply on exam grades. S/he is asking whether it’s unreasonable to hire the person who overall isn’t as good for the job. Which of course, it is

B also has no job at present whereas A is mid-internship

This would be the most relevant part for me if they have a good reference

A sounds fickle because they're applying for a different role after c9 months of current role.

It’s a 1 year internship so of course they are

I feel that you need to think very carefully what "best for the job" actually is.

Candidate A has proven ability (academic and practical) whereas candidate B only has predicted A-level grades. Are you sure that your "best for the job" is not actually coloured by prejudice? What is your assessment centre methodology and is it actually trustworthy or does it measure pure nonsense like personality types?

Yes, YWBVU.

You should appoint someone on their merits, not their background whether that be privileged, deprived or anywhere in the middle. What you are proposing is negative bias and no better than not employing someone because of where they come from, their accent or some other personal characteristic over which they have no control.

Apart from all of that, surely you should appoint the person who is the best person for the job because it is the best thing for your business?

B has better grades, did better in the assessment and you think will fit in better. So he is the better candidate all round based on the assessment criteria you have formulated to find you the best candidate for the apprenticeship. If it was just a case of B having better A-level grades but A performed better than B in the assessment centre and you thought A would fit in better then I could just about see why you might plump for A. But in the scenario as you present it, you would be wrong to appoint A over B.

I would hire A not for any virtuous reasons but because they have already proved they are capable of getting up every morning, going to work and holding onto a job. B might have higher test results (but is that surprising considering he's had better opportunities available to him than A) but has no job track record. That would be enough for me.

This. Not because of any background reason, but because he is currently 'proven'. Candidate B is only predicted to do better.

Your recruitment practices sound very unprofessional if you know that much about these candidates' backgrounds.

You recruit the best person for the job. You don't take it upon yourself to stick your nose into their background and family, and decide who 'deserves' it most.

I'd be interested to know your HR department's response to your approach, given that you are using candidates' personal information to profile them - which requires certain disclosures under the GDPR.

Seriously seriously disagree with PP.

Of course B is going to be the 'best candidate' because they've been given the best opportunities and their privilege has allowed them this. If we continued down this thought, the amount of black kids at top universities would continue to be tiny.

I think you hire who YOU think is best. Not in the tests, not in terms of how they came to interview (private schools prep you for this) but the person likely to work the hardest. A seems a better fit to me as he has the most 'real' experience.

I'd hire A. Bullshit that he'd be upset he wasn't the best for the job. Obviously not many people have grown up like this as I have.

B is a better fit.

That is where it ends as beyond that you are being discriminatory, you may argue it is positive towards A but the net result is still negative towards B who as you yourself say is the better fit

Plus you are opening yourself up really what happens if B requests feedback - well you were the best fit and you did score the best but we felt that A deserved the opportunity because of his background

Yay for social mobility, presumably, but nay to decision making like the op describes - which is the very foundation of it? What odd responses.

Also, equal opportunities means it's not in the slightest abnormal to know this facts about the candidate!!!