What Constitutes Quality in Recruitment and Selection: Tips and Insights
.avif)
Objectively defining and evaluating quality criteria in the context of diversity and inclusion is precisely what ensures true quality!
"It sounds perfectly logical, of course—who wouldn't want quality?"
Real-life scenario: You’vejust started going over the list of candidates with the selection committee when a hand shoots up: “Yes, but… it’s all about quality. Don’t we want the best candidate?”
Ikram:“We do hear that a lot—that it really has to be about quality. It sounds very logical, of course, because who doesn’t want quality?’
Roeli:‘Exactly, so I also think it’s a very safe statement, because if you say you want quality, everyone agrees with you. My follow-up question is usually: “What do you mean by quality? And is your quality also my quality, or the quality of your colleagues?” Because quality isn’t an objective concept.’
Ikram:‘But if I may stir things up a bit, as a manager I can certainly set objective standards for quality. For example, I can require that someone have completed a specific program or have a certain number of years of experience.’
Roeli: ‘Certainly, but we already only select candidates who meet these pre-set basic requirements, such as education and years of experience. If they’re still rejected on the basis of “quality,” then there’s probably something else going on.’
Ikram:“Soyoureally have to distinguish between the criteria you set together and everything else we use to select candidates. I think the people who say, ‘We want quality,’ are confusing the two.” So a broad concept like quality isn’t just about the criteria, but also about aspects like “who do I feel comfortable with” and “do I see you as someone I can relate to”—the ‘like-me bias.’”
'I think we avoid uncomfortable discussions by passing off gut feelings as quality.'
Roeli: “So the counter-question should be: ‘Try to define what quality means to you, and express it in measurable terms.’ I think we avoid painful or uncomfortable discussions by masking a subjective gut feeling with a term like ‘quality.’”
Ikram: “Isthat perhaps why this myth about quality remains so persistent? Because it really is the easiest way to just keep doing what we’ve always done?”
Roeli: ‘I think so. It reminds me of a real-life example from a company where, for years, they exclusively selected trainees who had completed their university degree in four years after graduating from high school and, preferably, had also held leadership positions. According to the recruiters and managers, only these specific candidates met the required “quality.” Until the company’s director remarked: “We need to stop thinking that the people who breeze through their education quickly and smartly are the best people for our company. We need people who have demonstrated that they’re willing to fight against the odds. Don’t we find those very people among the ‘stapelaars’? Those who went from VMBO to MBO and then on to university via HBO?” So this also makes you pause and consider whether you’re setting the right criteria and how objective they actually are.”
Ikram: “So, in conclusion, we must even question the criteria themselves, and we must continue to engage in dialogue with one another about what we mean by a flexible concept like ‘quality,’ rather than using this term to avoid such a—perhaps difficult—conversation.”
