How Hiring Managers Can Justify Their Final Selection Decision
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Don’t forget that hiring managers are CENTRAL to any organization’s DEI initiative. Last year, I published a newsletter on the urgent areas of accountability for hiring leaders, in which I mentioned Selection Decision Justifications. This week, I want to zoom in on that point and share with you an effective tactic I always recommend:
Justify the final selection decision.
One of the ways hiring leaders can eliminate biases is by justifying their final selection decision. It not only makes hiring the right candidate possible but also ensures objectivity. As the recruiter, you have to partner with your hiring leaders to help hold them accountable for selection decisions.
Before you learn how to do that, let’s dive into the what and the why of the selection justification.
What is Selection Justification?
Most people do not realize that hiring can become highly subjective without the right tools in place. This is why you should request that your hiring managers document in writing why the candidate was the most competitive for the role before making an offer. This is called selection decision justification, or simply, selection justification. Selection justification is about responsibly explaining why and on what basis a certain candidate was chosen over the others. Responsible justification checks and balances the selection decision.
Why Should Selection Decisions be Justified?
The ultimate goal of the hiring process is to choose the most competitive candidate with aligned skills, experience, and education to do the job while keeping the process objective, inclusive, and equitable. But it is not a process without hiccups. When it comes to hiring decisions, biases often disguise themselves as overt subjectivities, oftentimes without the knowledge of the decision-maker.
Justifying a selection decision helps identify why a candidate is being selected in direct correlation with the job description, and subsequently mitigates bias as well. Here is another all-too-important factor about selection justifications: it also helps to understand why other candidates are being rejected. Just as easily as bias can be embedded in the justification for why a person was hired, it can also be embedded in the justification for why a person was rejected. But before justifying why a candidate is more competitive for a role, ensure everyone involved is using the same job description and aligned toward the same goals and objectives. Only then you can achieve a holistic selection justification.
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