The Ethics of Interviews

Let’s try this one as another hypothetical. Suppose for a moment that you are a hiring manager, attempting to fill a critical position within your organization, and that you have an internal candidate for the job who you feel will be the ideal choice. We will stipulate that there is no ulterior motive involved; the internal candidate isn’t the CEO’s nephew, or your sister’s boyfriend, or the person who gets everyone in your work group the really good prices on cheese curds from the local dairy. We will also stipulate that there is no particular objection to hiring this person on diversity/EOE or other regulatory grounds. Do we have an ethical obligation to publish the opening and accept applications from outside the organization before making a hiring decision?

In the United States there are Federal laws that require us to offer equal opportunity to all applicants, but I refer here to an ethical, rather than legal, obligation to do this. Even assuming that circumstances would allow us to forgo any additional search for candidates and proceed with the hiring of our internal candidate, should we consider external applicants for the position? As usual, the question isn’t as straightforward as you might think…

On the one hand, we have a fiduciary responsibility to the owners of the company (the stockholders, if we are a publicly-held corporation) to spend as little of their money on extraneous matters as possible. If we can avoid the expenses associated with a full-on search for additional applicants we are obligated to do so. At the same time, promotion from within is good for morale, which will increase worker satisfaction, improve productivity, and thereby also improve the performance of the company, to the benefit of the owners and everyone who works there as well. But what if we’re wrong about the internal candidate being the best one available?

By the same token, our responsibility to the owners, the employees, and the other stakeholders requires us to find the best choice for this position, not just the most expedient choice. If there is a better candidate available for the job, and we never become aware of that person because we do not advertise the position, interview other applicants, or do anything beyond simply approving our internal candidate for the job, then we have not truly fulfilled our responsibilities as the management team. But the existence of a better candidate is an unknown (and generally unknowable) possibility, and even if such an individual exists he or she may not apply, or accept the position if it is offered. Meanwhile, we have established that conducting a search for additional applicants will require resources (time and money) that will not be available for other purposes, as well as potentially damaging morale…

Which leads me to the question: Does our responsibility to obtain the best possible employees for any given position supersede our responsibility to contain costs, improve employee morale, and take care of our existing workers? Or does our responsibility to manage the company’s assets and maintain stability and profitability supersede our responsibility to seek out the best resources, human and otherwise, that are available to the company? Or can we simply take refuge in the applicable state or Federal laws, conduct applicant searches and interviews that comply with the regulations placed upon us by our respective nations, and let the proverbial chips fall where they may?

It’s worth thinking about…