I’m hiring right now in my job and I’m excited to have so many candidates who are women of color in my pipeline. It’s important to me (and most of the company) to have a more diverse and inclusive workforce. For most of my tenure we’ve been a majority white company, but we have taken intentional steps in the past couple of years to change that.
The most important thing in hiring is to hire the best person for the role. Of course, it is. But for some reason when my mom said this tonight I got triggered by it.
And as I keep thinking about it it’s not because this statement isn’t true, it’s because I’ve seen it wielded so often to shut down discussions about diversity in hiring. I’ve been part of conversations where we bring up having a more diverse workforce and the first thing out of someone’s mouth will be that we need to hire the best person for the job.
The implication: a candidate from a historically marginalized group would not be the best person for the job.
It completely derails the discussion and forces you to commodify someone’s identity to “prove their value” as a potential best person for the role, rather than talk about how to reach a more diverse candidate pool, interrogate potential barriers or biases in your hiring process, and figure out how to make inclusion and belonging a part of the company culture.
To be very clear – my mom was right and was not using the phrase in this context. I should definitely hire the best person for the job! I would never reject someone because they were white, but I am going to make sure my candidate pool is diverse and consider the benefits of bringing on a person of color to my HR team to better support and reflect our diverse group of employees.
With Love,
Natalie