What if I told you I could find the ‘Best’ candidate, without fail, for any open position at your organization?

Because I can. At least in all the ways we typically define ‘best’. They will integrate into your team effectively. They will perform the best in your environment and culture than any other in the pool of candidates. They will stay at your Org longer, and be happier. And I can do that without you ever having to do a single in-person interview. I can do that without disclosing, or even needing to know, their race or gender, effectively insulating your organization from legal implications in the hiring process. It’s the ultimate meritocracy. A no-brainer right?

All of the above is true. I’ve built the system to do it. It works. But I won’t use it, at least not in its current form. Because I have some major ethical and moral concerns about it. As good as it sounds, the question arises “Is my only responsibility to make an organization the most effective it can be”?. Even if it turns out that doing so ignores, and actually harms, the greater society in which that organization operates?

Let’s take a very simple metric. A persons IQ. As a future indicator of success (measured by position and financials, not necessarily ‘fulfillment’) it’s actually one of the strongest corollaries there is. It’s also a much better predictor than a hiring managers gut feeling about a candidate.

So, why not just give IQ tests to everyone? Simple right? I mean, with all its faults it is at least an empirically measured standard not prone to the foibles and unconscious biases of a human interviewer. It could be normalized to offset certain environmental impact of various populations. Seems like a decent, merit based way of going about it.

But is that actually a good thing? Because from a societal vs capitalist point of view it has a very eugenics feel to it. Now put that IQ test on steroids and incorporate all the other elements like disposition, alignment with an orgs vision and values, team dynamics, and so on such as what my algorithms do. Is that information valuable? Definitely. But again, I ask, is it the RIGHT thing to do at a societal level?

Should I maximize the hires to fit into an organizations culture? Or should the organizations culture be maximized to operate in and find a balance of benefit to the society instead?

We talk a lot about training machine learning algorithms and the dangers of creating biased machines, it’s definitely a concern and one that most of us look for solutions to. But that’s in relation to negative, irrational biases or using historical data that simply recreates historical beliefs.

But what if the bias isn’t negative in the sense of racial or gender diversity, rather the bias is completely and utterly neutral to those things but its only bias is towards those who will succeed. Even if I created a fantasy world where environmental factors like poverty, nutrition, education bias, etc didn’t stack the deck against minorities, etc. I still don’t think society benefits from true neutral meritocratic hiring practices.

Yet this seems counter to everything a capitalist society is taught. It’s certainly counter to optimizing a businesses profits. The reasons are nuanced, but what drives people is the belief that no matter the obstacles they face…if they work hard enough, they can succeed. The American Dream as it were.

But because of that we inherently reject the notion that some people are born more capable than others. We translate that into just another one of those obstacles that you must overcome. But a *True* meritocracy would not give you points simply for having overcome more in your life. An algorithm doesn’t care, it simply predicts success. And while the algorithm may be more accurate, all of us WANT the stories of the person who works harder than others to overcome obstacles. Those people provide the hope for everyone else, which causes them to raise their own bar of expectations and tackle those obstacles. We want heroes. Fighters. We NEED those narratives. They raise all of society to a higher level.

But if we take away that hope and say the more likely person to succeed is the one who doesn’t have to work all those extra hours, and only hire those…where does that leave us?

I honestly don’t know. But until I do, I won’t be selling these algorithms.