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?

Oliversmumsarmy, or perhaps it's because your daughter is just better qualified

Or performs better in interviews, or is in a less competitive field so she isn't failing to get a job because there are simply far more good candidates than vacancies.

I highly doubt he is being discriminated against because he is/appears to be a middle class white male.

After all, as a group they are not under represented at top universities or in the professions or senior posts. You don't see job adverts with the footnote 'middle class white males are under represented at Company X/in Industry Y so we welcome applications from this section of society' do you?

There are more FTSE 100 chief executives called John than there are women. There are probably more called John than are not white too.

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

I would look very closely at the assessment centre methodology, especially its test of "personality".

Most are implicitly biased toward MC language and behaviour and the kind of behaviours learned in advantaged schools. They also often bias toward male or female candidates for particular jobs/industries.

We had to invest significant time in developing assessment methodologies which reduced this bias - they still are not perfect but it helps.

I would give a high degree of value to a candidate able to show work experience already if they had good feedback from the job.

I don’t think there’s anything positive about it. Discrimination is discrimination.

In a world when candidate B is always going to look better on paper, there is something positive about it.

I would consider A the better candidate because of the internship. B is sitting doing nowt. A will also not ‘perform’ as will on tests because of the background - private school kids are taught how to pass tests better, that’s a fact. A has also, in my opinion, shown more tenacity than B because of the background issues and will have faced discrimination and yet there s/he is putting herself/himself forward for a role that many wouldn’t. And as for ‘personality’ - I want a diverse work place because that in itself enriches that workplace, I don’t want an identikit team of people from the same backgrounds, the same colour, the same sexuality.
So my answer is go with the best candidate but to me that clearly is A- the one actually working for money and gaining experience.

Oh and A won’t be insulted. A will take every opportunity afforded him/her because the game is so far stacked against them anyway. We need positive discrimination unfortunately unless you really do think that the next person for the job is always the white, straight, middle class, male. Personally I don’t.

B had lots of "support and encouragement from his parents "

The clear inference being that the poor immigrant didn't. How do you know op?

Sounds like a quite offensive prejudice to me.

I'm totally in favour of positive discrimination when it's been thought through and is applied fairly and transparently.

YABVU

Hire both if you are feeling that virtuous

Oliversmumsarmy, or perhaps it's because your daughter is just better qualified😂😂😂😂😂

I highly doubt he is being discriminated against because he is/appears to be a middle class white male

Judging by this thread I think he could be.

One poster even mentioning the colour of his skin should mean he shouldn’t get a job.

B is a better fit for the team and scored the highest on the tests according to op but she
wants to give A the apprenticeship because she thinks it will help him

B is a better fit for the team and scored the highest on the tests

No B performed better on some tests which may or may not assess fairly. Very few eliminate bias.

However A has a demonstrated track record of significant effort and employment which makes A far less of an unknown quantity in terms of the working world.

NRTHT

I would think that A is better as they are already in an internship.so surely if both good this would make them better? I would have thought this made up for slightly less marks in A Levels but still good marks.

Oh look, op hasn't been back. Called it at 11am

Well, apparently some posh boy who’s had everything fall in his lap is ‘better’ than someone who’s had to fight and strive every step of the way. Reminds me of some of my uni ‘mates’ who took the piss out of my working full time hours around my degree while living off an allowance from their parents. Never understood what they were so proud of, that their parents had money? I knew what I was doing was a hell of a lot harder and actually something to be proud of.

YABVU. It’s horrible for B, the higher achiever who has worked extremely hard and actually deserves the job, to not get it because A ticks certain “equality” boxes. The best candidate should get the job, end of. How is it fair to discriminate against B for being fortunate? And how is B supposed to get a job if people keep turning him down despite the fact he’s the best candidate?

I stand by the idea you are patronising towards the immigrant application but am now wondering whether your organisation has a discriminatory bias. The comment ‘a better cultural fit’ smacks of bias based on characteristics and perhaps behaviours that are entirely irrelevant to the post. Almost a racist undertone hidden in a faux worthy ‘look after the immigrants to show how nice I am’ stance.
It actually makes me feel quite uncomfortable.

@Oliversmumsarmy

*I quite often put a lot of weight on experience with a competitor

But if you can’t get the job with the competitor in the first place what do you do?*

Sorry I should have explained better - it would be more of a factor in deciding in the final 2, more often than not they don't have experience at competitors so it's not an issue. But if someone is broadly good at interview, good work related exercise AND with experience at a competitor, they're in with a very good shot of the post.

C8H10N4O2

B didn’t just score better on the tests as per the opening post

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

However A has a demonstrated track record of significant effort and employment which makes A far less of an unknown quantity in terms of the working world

If A and B had gone for the same internship and the bias had been towards A because of his immigrant status the B doesn’t stand a chance. How can he get work and prove himself if he is up against A’s and employers despite saying he is the perfect candidate give jobs to someone else because they feel that their parents are poorer.

From my experience those from immigrant families have much more supportive and driven parents than the average British parent so saying that B had more supportive parents doesn’t actually ring true and sounds more like a false prejudice against immigrant families.

If you hire A, who is not the best candidate for the job- are you possibly setting them up to fail? That could fuck up their chances of any kind of future completely.
Think objectively - not emotionally.

I do find it amusing that people are assuming these candidates are both male. There's some unconscious bias already.

So the salient facts are that A went to a bad school, got OK A level results and is currently workng in a paid, year long internship. B is at a better school, has not got their A levels yet and has no work experience.

From those facts I'd assume A should do better in the interviews due to being a bit older and having a years more life experience. And yet B has done better in the tests. Possible reasons for this:
a) B is the better candidate and will do better in the job
b) The tests are not measuring the right competencies and a different set of tests will give a different result
c) A fluffed the interview due to nerves or bad preparation and might interview better on a different day
d) A has not learnt anything from their internship and will be a bad employee
e) B is a charming and charismatic bullshitter so did well in the interview but did not work hard at school, will get awful A levels and be a bad employee.

How many people were involved in the interview process and how diverse are they? What is the consensus opinion on which candidate was best?

If A had had the privileges B had their marks may have matched or surpassed B so YANBU.

People with privilege often use that to gain more privilege for their children, buying an advantage for them over children from less privileged families. If the government wont ban private schools then the more employers who refuse to be fooled by higher grades purchased through privilege the better.

B didn’t just score better on the tests as per the opening post

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

Which of those was not a test? ("personality" is usually an output of the assessment process, another test)

I didn't comment on family supportiveness because unless the OP knows the hypothetical candidates' families there is no evidence either way.

However the one objective fact is that hypothetical A has gained actual work experience whilst B has not.

It's not fair to say "...posh boy who's had everything fall in his lap'", just because he went to a private school. He may not be 'posh', whatever that means, and he may well have had to work very hard. I know plenty of people who were privately educated who were not over indulged and they had to work hard to achieve the grades.

The fact that he is going for an apprenticeship rather than some other type of higher education shows he is motivated to work.

I feel a bit sorry for the op, she is trying to do the right thing and, at the moment, doesn't know which choice to make. A headache! Especially as they both appear to be good candidates. I honestly don't know what to suggest.

If A had had the privileges B had their marks may have matched or surpassed B
So two people both score an A grade, but one is worth more than the other because the candidate came from a poorer background? Therefore B is basically being downgraded due to social factors beyond their control. It doesn’t seem very fair that B is automatically regarded as inferior because they were born into a middle class lifestyle.

It also depends on your definition of best candidate. I've been in jobs where we have made a big effort to look for candidates with relevant skills and approaches that aren't shown in traditional who got the best scores on test ways. However we were clear and open about our approach and what things we valued. It can be trickier if you haven't been clear and then people complain like the guy who didn't get into Cheshire police because they went about things in a bit of an unfortunate way whilst trying to diversify the police.
I think it's completely fine to recognise that good doesn't look like traditional middle class child.
There are lots of qualities that someone growing up as the oldest child particularly if they had caring responsibilities and did a good job in education in spite of the school. Ideally your recruitment process should draw these out, that way it's not patronising and tokenistic, it's a well thought out plan that recognises talent comes in many forms.

I would also say that there is lots of evidence that poorer children are routinely disadvantaged compared to middle class children and if its unfair when it occasionally happens to middle class children then it's really unfair that it happens on a daily basis to poorer children who have very little social mobility.