The Myth of "Fit"

I’m proud to say that I am a graduate of Bradley University which I attended in the late 60s. But I also want to point out that I am one of those who eventually made it to graduation without being a very good “fit” for the school. Enrolled in the college of Engineering, I was classified by the fraternity system as likely to be too busy with study to really spend the effort and energy required to become a good brother. Within the college of Engineering, I was unaware that much of the process of transforming me from incoming freshman into a college graduate engineer would involve my becoming familiar with the standards that would make me fit into extended employment with Caterpillar. The College of Engineering would later be renamed the Caterpillar College of Engineering in appreciation for corporate support and in recognition of corporate commitment to recruit and place program graduates. “Fit” as a Bradley engineering student was the equivalent of being prepared to work for Cat.

The relationship between an employer and a university, like that between Caterpillar and Bradley Engineering is what should be meant by “fit.” It was easily recognized. It was relevant to the skills and practices of the job. It was verifiable. It took account of years of the employer influencing outcomes of the program. It enabled Caterpillar HR personnel to make a fairly reliable educated guess that a job candidate with a Bradley degree would be able to quickly learn Cat’s way of doing things.

Holding this relationship as a model of “fit”, I suggest that “fit” has become far less about requisite adaptability and far more about a mystical property that enables HR personnel to hold onto their jobs by delaying hiring of the qualified. In a supplier’s market, which is what the jobs market undoubtedly is, a job is a rare enough commodity that each one made available attracts offers from large numbers of applicants. Each offer is relatively the same. The candidate offers his or her services and efforts in exchange for a salary and possibly some other benefits. The relative sameness of this offer enables an HR person to look for criteria outside the required measurements of qualifications and previous performance to try to select the ideal candidates. This is where HR goes to the hiring person and delays the selection of a candidate while claiming to be looking for “fit.” Whatever HR is looking for, it is a long way from the Bradley engineering degree that Cat believes will predict an employee’s long-term success in the job.

It falls short in being:

·        Not easily recognized

·        Not relevant to the skills and practices of the job

·        Not verifiable

·        Not related to anything the employer has established or done to lead candidates to previous mastery of policies and work habits

·        Not likely to guarantee employee adaptability to the employer’s way of doing things.

Bill Burnett, in “The Peak Interview”, suggests

So why are you so focused on talking about your features and benefits in the job interview.  The truth is, it’s not about you.  It is about the relationship you create with the hiring manager.  Telling them what they already know about you won’t distinguish you.

Why?

Because the research tells us that the hiring manager hires the person he or she likes the most.

(Burnett, Bill, 2012, retrieved from http://peakinterview.com/ThePeakInterview.html)

Burnett’s point is that rather than being concerned with whether a candidate actually fits in the sense that the Bradley engineer fits at Caterpillar, the HR recruiter for the job is actually looking for the hiring manager’s new best friend. The HR recruiter, concentrating on the “friend” characteristic, is looking for something I will call HRfit, which is not actually fit at all. Extending Burnett’s advice through the entire hiring process, the key to being hired is to be the best friend of everyone that a candidate meets within the hiring process.

If what Burnett proposes is actually true, it speaks worlds about the attempt of corporations to achieve excellence.  Concentration on HRfit is most viable as a method of perpetuating a top-down method of management within the corporation. It stands to reason that as the candidates for positions are similar enough in personal values to the existing management team, that those values will come to dominate the corporate environment. Of course, when there is a problem in a hierarchical system, having it filled with friends and great HRfits will just perpetuate the problems.  But this is not a concern to HR professionals who will, with an endless stream of “best friends” available, just keep locating new ones as they are required.

It is amazing to me that executive leadership allows itself to be played like this. The process presumes that top level managers are incapable of finding friends on their own without having to bring them through corporate recruitment. And it allows for positions to go unfilled for far longer than is needed while HR waits for the perfect HRfit candidate to show up. Not only does this leave qualified candidates without paid position for months at a time, it leaves the company short-handed as it works on long-range goals, and it produces overload of work being assigned to existing staff. These are hidden costs, and as long as the hiring manager eventually gets a new best friend, nobody wants to document it and raise flags about it for fear of being described as a wave-maker and one who is a poor HRfit.