Courtney looked agitated. “Look, I have too much to do already. One of my best supervisors quit last week, gave us two weeks notice. I’m afraid I won’t be able to find anyone that fast, much less get them trained.”

“So, you weren’t prepared for this?” I asked.

“This is so annoying,” Courtney replied. “I have more important things to do than to conduct a bunch of interviews.”

I was silent, raised an eyebrow.

“The problem is,” she continued, “I just talked to this candidate, only person I have talked to. Within the first three minutes of the interview, I liked him. I think he might work out.”

“You have only talked to one candidate and you are ready to make an offer?”

“I know, I know. It’s like trying to buy a car and signing for the first one you look at.”

“And, what’s wrong with that?” I prompted.

“Well, you really need to look at more than one car, even if you come back and buy the first one you looked at. You may think you know what you want, but you need to get some perspective. I mean, last time I bought a car, it took me a month. I must have looked at twenty different cars.”

“What took so long to make the decision?”

“I guess I didn’t know what I wanted. I looked at half a dozen before I started writing things down. The more I put on my list, like I really wanted a white car, with power windows, from only one of two manufacturers. Once I had a list of things I wanted, the choice got easier. When I got to the last car, I knew for sure, that’s the one I wanted.”

“You knew which car you wanted, because you wrote down the critical role requirements for the car?” I smiled.

“We’re not talking about cars, anymore, are we?”

“It’s really difficult to find good people out there, these days,” complained Byron. “Look at these resumes.”

He pushed the stack over to me. I glanced at the page on top.

“I will take your word, that none of these resumes meets the standards you are thinking for the job. Tell me, how did these resumes make it to your desk?”

“Oh, we have a good process to weed out the bad ones,” Byron replied. “By the time they get to me, I should only see the top three or four candidates. But none of these people are qualified.”

“Do you think some overqualified people got cut from the stack?” I asked.

“Oh, sure, our people know what we are paying for the job and they can spot someone who is overqualified as easily as those who are under qualified.”

“And who is involved in this process?”

Byron’s head turned to the side and his eyes went up to the far wall behind me. “Well, the hiring manager.”

“So, the hiring manager directly receives the emails from your job posting?”

“Well, no,” Byron backpedaled. “I don’t want to burden him with looking at all the resumes, so we have them sent to a generic email box. Irene is our receptionist, and she opens the emails and prints out the resumes.”

“And she delivers all of them to the hiring manager?”

“Well, no, she, well, first she sorts them, so they are organized. She puts all of the ones from out-of-town in one stack and all the local ones in another stack. I think she also checks to make sure they have two years experience. I don’t want the hiring manager wasting his time.”

“And then she delivers them to the hiring manager?” I asked, trying to get the details of the sequence.

“Well, not exactly,” Byron continued. “Irene then gives them to one of the supervisors to cull over. I really don’t want the hiring manager wasting his time on unqualified resumes.”

“I see,” I nodded. “I think I am getting the picture.”
_____

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