I think a lot of our collective notions around “merit” need to be challenged in general. How is merit really measured? A person’s achievements? Who decides what qualifies as an achievement? If a person has the deck stacked against them (e.g. coming from a low income household, not as much access to quality education) and manages to get a college degree then it’s easy to say they’ve “achieved” more than someone who grew up privileged and obtained the same degree with similar grades.
But how should these things be weighed? If someone grew up privileged but is also exceptionally skilled, have they achieved more or less than someone who grew up underprivileged and obtained above average skills? Who has more merit? Who deserves greater recognition? And who decides if one skill or another is even meritous? Is the merit of a skillet ultimately just decided by how much the job market is willing to pay for those skills?
These aren’t meant to be leading questions; I genuinely don’t think there are any good answers here. When I’m in a position of making hiring decisions for my company, I make a point of not thinking in terms of merit. Instead I think about these factors:
Alignment: Will the candidate be interested and motivated in the work that we have available for them?
Qualification: Do I have good reason to believe the candidate will be able to competently handle the role we’re hiring for after a reasonable ramping on period? They don’t need to immediately have all the skills required, but I should see evidence that they have a good foundation to build off of and a willingness to learn what’s needed.
Perspective: Does this candidate bring and new and potentially valuable perspective to the role? This perspective could come from past work experiences and/or their personal life experiences. I don’t want a team that’s totally homogenous because that will fall too easily into groupthink and miss valuable opportunities to improve.
I think when people talk about merit they fixate on qualifications, but I genuinely believe that alignment and perspective are equally important. I would much rather take someone who is highly motivated but less qualified on paper than someone with amazing credentials who won’t really care about what our team is trying to do. I would also rather have someone who is going to challenge our team’s assumptions and bring insights from other fields and experiences than someone who will very competently agree with our status quo.
I think people who complain about DEI are totally missing the value of diverse perspectives, to say nothing of the moral concern of systematically reinforcing social divisions and the inequity that naturally follows from that.
someone with amazing credentials who won’t really care about what our team is trying to do.
That’s me. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that no business is going to give a fraction of a shit about me. My niche is preventing the company from losing money, not bringing in money. I’m a cost center with zero glamor. The people around me may care, but unless those people are directly running the business, it doesn’t matter. Likewise, I may care about the people and want to help them. But I will not care one bit about the company, or the shareholders.
I would also rather have someone who is going to challenge our team’s assumptions and bring insights from other fields and experiences than someone who will very competently agree with our status quo.
This is also me. “You can’t do it that way.” Why not? “Because we do it this way.” Not a valid answer. Don’t just teach me a procedure. Let me understand the goals, the tools, and the requirements. If another way of doing it won’t work, then you left out one or more of the above. My first big self-project at my last employer (which I was told over and over again was a waste of time, the suits would never allow it) is still running 24/7 on a big screen in the command center, 12 years later.
In practice, I’ve found that the people in charge really like boot-licking and really dislike being challenged. That’s two strikes against me, and many times they won’t need to find a third. I can’t feign excitement via worksona anymore.
I think a lot of our collective notions around “merit” need to be challenged in general. How is merit really measured? A person’s achievements? Who decides what qualifies as an achievement? If a person has the deck stacked against them (e.g. coming from a low income household, not as much access to quality education) and manages to get a college degree then it’s easy to say they’ve “achieved” more than someone who grew up privileged and obtained the same degree with similar grades.
But how should these things be weighed? If someone grew up privileged but is also exceptionally skilled, have they achieved more or less than someone who grew up underprivileged and obtained above average skills? Who has more merit? Who deserves greater recognition? And who decides if one skill or another is even meritous? Is the merit of a skillet ultimately just decided by how much the job market is willing to pay for those skills?
These aren’t meant to be leading questions; I genuinely don’t think there are any good answers here. When I’m in a position of making hiring decisions for my company, I make a point of not thinking in terms of merit. Instead I think about these factors:
I think when people talk about merit they fixate on qualifications, but I genuinely believe that alignment and perspective are equally important. I would much rather take someone who is highly motivated but less qualified on paper than someone with amazing credentials who won’t really care about what our team is trying to do. I would also rather have someone who is going to challenge our team’s assumptions and bring insights from other fields and experiences than someone who will very competently agree with our status quo.
I think people who complain about DEI are totally missing the value of diverse perspectives, to say nothing of the moral concern of systematically reinforcing social divisions and the inequity that naturally follows from that.
That’s me. I’ve been around the block enough times to know that no business is going to give a fraction of a shit about me. My niche is preventing the company from losing money, not bringing in money. I’m a cost center with zero glamor. The people around me may care, but unless those people are directly running the business, it doesn’t matter. Likewise, I may care about the people and want to help them. But I will not care one bit about the company, or the shareholders.
This is also me. “You can’t do it that way.” Why not? “Because we do it this way.” Not a valid answer. Don’t just teach me a procedure. Let me understand the goals, the tools, and the requirements. If another way of doing it won’t work, then you left out one or more of the above. My first big self-project at my last employer (which I was told over and over again was a waste of time, the suits would never allow it) is still running 24/7 on a big screen in the command center, 12 years later.
In practice, I’ve found that the people in charge really like boot-licking and really dislike being challenged. That’s two strikes against me, and many times they won’t need to find a third. I can’t feign excitement via worksona anymore.