Yep, it’s a presidential election. While we generally don’t think of elections as job interviews, that is precisely what they are. Long, drawn out interviews with limited candidate selection. And while you might want to repost the job and get new applicants, you don’t get to do that.
As an HR professional who has two degrees in political science, I can’t help but combine both sides of my life into each election. It’s politics; it’s recruiting. It’s both.
So when thinking about who you will vote for, consider it like you would if you were interviewing a potential CEO. Your responsibility, as an HR leader, is to help find someone who will benefit the company as a whole–not the person you like as a person the most. Consider the following questions.
Before you hire for any executive position, you’re going to do a job analysis. What skills are necessary to fill this job? For instance, think about the core responsibilities of a United States President.
- Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces. This candidate will need to understand the current military status of the country and work with senior military leaders. This person must be able to gain the respect of senior leaders and the troops in general in order to be successful. An understanding of military history and ability to see long term consequences is a must.
To keep reading, click here: The world’s longest job interview: a presidential election
I am glad this was presented in terms of judging a political candidate as if they were a person to be considered to be hired for the job. We, the taxpayers/citizens, are the ones doing this hiring. All this talk of equity evaluation, looking past appearance, and judging by skill is being ignored for the popular notion of the correct expected look and the ability to sound like they know something when they have no proof–a gifted silver tongue talk produces no results–in other words an entertainer versus a person of action. I have told many politicians to their face, that I judge what they do for us who put them in their current office rather than their rhetoric words of promises. I watched the debate last night live before the edited media version was put out, and that’s one way to see the true way the politician acts in their words and overall personal presentation. We have 2 candidates with known backgrounds and historical facts of their actions concerning the key elements of the debate, so it didn’t matter how they “appeared” in their back-forth responses to the questions asked nor did their constant bickering blaming. This was not a courtroom proceeding where one tries to present the facts in their version of the truth but what the debate showed is how the two individuals varied in their answers to the questions asked. One gave the popular view and accused the other of ignoring the needs of the people. In contrast, the other pointed out that the accuser had plenty of options and time to fix the issue mentioned but did nothing, ignoring the people’s needs. The question is do you want a finger-pointer person or a person who has a plan of action posed to go?
When you said apparently only you dream of treating it this way (I’m sure you didn’t mean it literally, but) I had to post:
No, no, me too. Please. Please someone realize that we are in fact hiring someone for a role and they should in fact endeavor to present their qualifications and plans *as relevant to the job* as clearly as possible.
That it will never really happen as long as two giant organizations making their own rules up about who is allowed to be a candidate is depressing, so I do feel like the “two employment agencies with exclusive agreements” should somehow change too, but at least the candidates acting like they’re applying for a job would be an improvement…