Beware of the "Perfect" Candidate

Recently on Twitter, one of the accounts I follow posted:

What’s interesting is that this advice actually applies to the other side of the table—the Hiring Manager—as well. If a candidate meets 100% of a long list of qualifications you’ve created, this may actually be a bad thing.

How is this possible? How is hitting 100% of a long list of qualifications a bad thing? Simple: the more the qualification list looks like the role in question, the more you are basically limiting your pool to people who have already done the job. The fact that they are still interested in your opportunity is actually a good indication that they were a mediocre performer at their previous job. If they were a high performer, they have almost certainly set their sights higher!

As a generalization, high-performers tend to be on an upward trajectory and will seek jobs that represent a stretch goal that they can grow into. This is one reason we teach companies to care less about “experience-for-the-sake-of-experience” and focus instead on uncovering past evidence of greatness that maps strongly onto the role in question.

Are there exceptions to this advice? Of course—it’s easy to imagine someone who has crushed their past few roles and is happy staying at their current level for lifestyle reasons. But the general trend holds true: companies that outsource their decision making to “[X years] in Product Marketing at [Y-Tier Company]” are generally going to suffer from adverse selection.

As a reminder, we’re not saying to never use qualifications. If a developer needs to know Python to join your team, they need to know Python. That’s fine. You can also have some reasonable threshold search criteria to ensure that you’re not wasting your time at the early screening stages.

Here’s where to be careful: when you see external messaging that says someone needs “X years of Y experience.” You don’t really want the experience as such: you want what you hope the experience implies. A carefully crafted Target coupled with a well-executed interview methodology and process will uncover reality. And you won’t have to rely on these crude qualification proxies nearly as much.