Queensland University of Technology's vice-chancellor says the institution will move towards "inclusive suitability" rather than merit because "the workforce needs to reflect the students coming through".
It’s hard to know exactly the impact of this change without knowing more about what their process was like. I work for a company that has the most rigorous hiring process I have come across in my career and we do not at any point reference vague terms such as ‘merit’ that are open to interpretation. We have a bunch of well definined things we look for with four different possible ratings for each including examples of what each rating means. Even then it’s somewhat subjective.
I guess what I’m getting at is if what exactly is meant by ‘merit’ was not explicitly defined and laid out in an objective way I really don’t think anything of value has been lost here because it means different things to different people and can lead to more feels based hiring decisions.
At present, they go through all the candidates and decide who they think (based on both the objective measures and their own personal subjective biases—which are impossible to avoid in any hiring situation) is the very best candidate for the position. They pick that person.
Going forward, instead, they go through all the candidates based on the objective and subjective criteria, and set a certain (probably quite high) threshold. Above that, all candidates are deemed suitable. They choose who from that list to hire with an explicit eye to making the faculty match the student body or broader population in race and gender.
It’s hard to know exactly the impact of this change without knowing more about what their process was like. I work for a company that has the most rigorous hiring process I have come across in my career and we do not at any point reference vague terms such as ‘merit’ that are open to interpretation. We have a bunch of well definined things we look for with four different possible ratings for each including examples of what each rating means. Even then it’s somewhat subjective.
I guess what I’m getting at is if what exactly is meant by ‘merit’ was not explicitly defined and laid out in an objective way I really don’t think anything of value has been lost here because it means different things to different people and can lead to more feels based hiring decisions.
How I imagine it’s done:
At present, they go through all the candidates and decide who they think (based on both the objective measures and their own personal subjective biases—which are impossible to avoid in any hiring situation) is the very best candidate for the position. They pick that person.
Going forward, instead, they go through all the candidates based on the objective and subjective criteria, and set a certain (probably quite high) threshold. Above that, all candidates are deemed suitable. They choose who from that list to hire with an explicit eye to making the faculty match the student body or broader population in race and gender.