Do employers even look at your results?

Hi there people, I am currently doing a series of posts on the theme of useful lessons I have figured out as an adult but my parents have never asked me about. In my last post, I shared my experiences about working with colleagues and clients from all over the world. In today's post, I want to ask a question that may not be as obvious as you might think: do employers even bother looking at a candidate's results? The reason why I feel this is an important issue to discuss with my parents is because they had worked all their lives as teachers and had simply assumed that if students would work very hard to get good results at school, they would be rewarded with the best jobs as a result of their efforts. Now my parents had never ever tried to apply for a job outside teaching, so they have absolutely no idea if employers actually did care about the grades of their job candidates or if that was a particularly important criteria when it came to recruitment. Nonetheless it was something that the working class families of Singapore believed in, that was why so many parents would put so much pressure on their children to excel in their studies. Now the reason why I want to address this matter is because a lot of these Singaporean parents and teachers are totally mistaken in just how much importance employers put on academic importance when it comes to the recruitment process; yet it is something these working class folks cling to so desperately in the belief and hope that if they work hard at school, eventually someone would recognize their efforts and reward them with a very well paid job. Deeply ingrained in this belief system is the concept of fairness, that life will be fair, that the well behaved students who have worked so hard for these great results ought to be rewarded for their efforts whilst the lazy students who couldn't be asked to study for their exams would somehow be punished - is this actually true? How much truth is there to this belief? Does it make any sense or is it all just wishful thinking? So whilst most people look at this matter from the point of view of the student, I want to explore it from the employer's perspective. 

The first issue I want to address is whether or not there is any correlation between a candidate having good results and being able to do the job well. Most companies would subject all applicants to some kind of test that is directly related to the job, so the applicants can be evaluated most accurately on their ability to perform well in that job because it is at best irrelevant and worst totally useless to have excelled in some kind of academic discipline that is not relevant to the job. This is why companies wouldn't simply give the job to the applicant with the best results as there is often little correlation between those results and what they can deliver in the work place. After all, these good results are achieved by students acing their exams and no company out there is going to pay you good money to study for these exams and take them, instead they expect you to do some real work. There is this implicit assumption that if you can do really well in the exams at school and university, then you will do well in those tests that employers subject you to but that is not always the case. This is because exams are a solo effort whilst these tests can often involve working in a group, so for example: let me share with you a simple test to work out how well a candidate works as part of a group. We would put the candidates in a small group of about five people and then give them ten T-shirt designs to choose from; they are then told that they have to pick one T-shirt design to give away to the public at an event so the team has to pick the design they consider not just the nicest but the most suitable considering the target audience. So obviously, there is no right or wrong answer in this kind of exercise, it designed merely to be a test to see how well you communicate your ideas and opinions in a group, whether or not you can persuade others in the group to listen to you and also if you are a good listener. After all, we already know that all the candidates have good results, nobody with poor results would be get that far in this process - thus it would be exercises like that which would tell us a lot more about how the candidate would function in the working environment. Another popular kind of test would be a puzzle, for example there are some 3D puzzles that would involve team work as you cannot see all parts of the puzzle from one angle and hence you will need more than one pair of hands to physically move all the pieces, so you need to communicate well with your team mates in order to solve it as a group. It is a lot easier to solve complex problems when people work together but that does depend on the members of the team being able to cooperate in this endeavour. Some people have the social skills to perform well in this kind of task, others don't - when we are trying to recruit the best candidate for the job, we are not going to leave this to chance or make any assumptions based on their paper qualifications; we will carry out the relevant tests to find the best candidate. 

This then begs the question: what about the issue of 'morals' then? So here's the theory: if you have sacrificed all the fun you could have had in order to put in the hours of hard work to score those straight As in the exams, then you have demonstrated some desirable qualities that you can bring with you to the job. Hence the assumption is that the boss would rather hire someone who is hardworking, so the person would be willing to put in the long hours to complete a project and sacrifice everything from leisure time to sleep and even lunch breaks just to get the job done on time. But allow me to turn this around and look at the issue from another angle: let's say I have two applicants who both scored the same top grades their exams, we shall call them Aisha and Bastian. Aisha is your hardworking student who sacrificed her social life and studied extremely hard to make sure she went into those exams totally prepared, she wasn't leaving anything to chance as she was determined to do whatever it took to get the results she needed in those exams. Bastian on the other hand had an active social life, he didn't study as hard as Aisha, he played a few sports, he also had a part time job, but somehow managed to achieve the same grades as Aisha did despite not having put in as many hours of revision. So as an employer, who would you rather have on your team: hardworking Aisha or Bastian who is just naturally intelligent but not as hardworking as Aisha? Well, it would depend on the nature of the job: so if you're just looking for someone who will just follow orders and do as they are told, then you would pick Aisha, knowing that she would get the job done faster than anyone else. However, if you're looking for someone who will be great at taking the initiative to solve complex problems that blindside you on a rainy Thursday afternoon, then, you would definitely hire Bastian instead because he somehow managed to achieve all those great results whilst putting in much less effort than Aisha for those exams. Now at this point, you may say to me, "hang on a minute, aren't you being unfair to Aisha? Why are you assuming that she is only able to follow orders and can't solve random problems you might throw at her?" Well, in this case, the employers can only go by the evidence they have before them, so if you want an employer to know that you're great at taking the initiative to solve problems, then you need to show them evidence of that very trait. If you are applying for a job where they require a Spanish speaker, you need to walk into the interview speaking Spanish to demonstrate how good your Spanish is and only switch to English if they ask you to - you don't wait for them to ask you, "do you speak Spanish? Are you fluent?" Thus if Aisha has brilliant results but little else to show on her CV, then employers will make certain assumptions about how she achieved those excellent results and it is up to her to convince them otherwise.

The bar is set very low when it comes to morals for most jobs; you need to have a clean criminal record. Most companies can do a check to see if you have ever been charged with a crime. It is standard practice for companies to do this kind of background check if you want to do certain jobs (such as those that involve working with children and/or vulnerable people) and if they find out that you've had a speeding or parking ticket, they would probably be quite happy to ignore that as it is a relatively minor offence but if they uncovered something a lot more serious, then they might warrant that enough reason to deny you the job, in favour of someone without that kind of criminal record. So let me be clear: there's clearly a penalty if you do have a criminal record, it does show some kind of stain on your character or at least evidence that you have exercised bad judgement on that occasion when you broke the law. However, the opposite simply isn't true: there simply isn't any kind of 'bonus' for being of exceptionally good character. Let's take the example of an applicant who has done some volunteer work with a charity - the response of the employer when looking at this would be along the lines of, "what kind of skills did you pick up whilst volunteering there?" It wouldn't be, "I must reward you for having done charity work." After all, the employer has zero interest in rewarding people for good character per se, rather we reward people for bringing useful and relevant skills to the table so they can contribute more to the company. In the working environment, there will always be certain rules and regulations regarding our behaviour and conduct; the company would only require that you respect these rules - that's the minimum standard they have set and as long as you meet that minimum standard, they are satisfied by your conduct, but there is no special reward for those who have proven that they have good character. Allow me to give you an example to make this point in the most blunt way possible: many years ago, I had this colleague Andy (not his real name) who was always cheating on his wife - it was an open secret that everyone in the office knew, we just didn't talk about it openly. But did the employers care about Andy's personal conduct regarding his infidelity? No, it was his private life and wasn't relative to the work he did in the company. The employers really cared if Andy's sales figures were good and as long as he was hitting his monthly targets, they were more than happy to turn a blind eye to Andy's adultery. I knew the boss disapproved of what Andy was doing when it came to his adultery, but regardless, she chose to look the other way and just totally ignore it - it wasn't relevant to her. It was not up to her to police Andy's morals when it came to his personal conduct, she made a very clear distinction between Andy's personal conduct in his private life and his professional conduct when he was in the office doing his job. 

Staying with the case study of Andy the serial adulterer, whilst you may think that he is a shady character for cheating on his wife all the time, the boss was quite happy to turn a blind eye to his personal life as it didn't affect his work performance. My point is simple: yes there will be a penalty for those who do cross the line when it comes to their professional conduct at work but if it is your personal life, they will most likely just turn a blind eye to it as long as you produce great quality work and make good money for the company. But is there a some kind of bonus for those who have exceptionally good conduct, you might wonder? Wouldn't the work environment be a lot safer and more conducive if you only hired the most trustworthy and well behaved people? You need to consider this: if the primary objective of a commercial company is to make money and increase profits, would the moral conduct of the employees have a close correlation to productivity? The simple answer is no, there is little or no correlation at all. Let's look at the places which prioritize morals and good behaviour over all other aspects: a good example of this would be a nunnery where the nuns want to prove their devotion to their religion and show just how very pious they are. Are nunneries highly profitable enterprises? No, quite the opposite actually,  they generate very little value. Sometimes they may operate some kind of small business (like making cheese to sell) just to generate a bit more revenue to sustain the nunnery but otherwise, they aren't that bothered about trying to make a lot of money through their activities as many nunneries would receive financial support and donations from their religious community. This is because the nuns believe that their reward that the nuns expect from their piousness isn't money at all - they have a completely different set of goals. However, it is lunacy to join a company that is trying to maximize profit and expect them to reward you for your good behaviour. Instead, employers are looking for traits that will help the company earn more money when it comes to hiring; hence the messy situation we have in the real world is exactly like the dilemma that Andy the adulterer presents: even though the boss disapproves and hates what he is doing in his personal life, he is nonetheless really good at his job, thus she chooses to turn a blind eye to all his adulterous activities. So would the boss hire a nun instead, given that the nun would have much better morals and conduct in her personal life? No, simply because the nun wouldn't be able to do the job as well as Andy and so the boss is obliged to hire the best person for the job, as her priority is to maximize profits for the company. 

So let's turn this around and try to put you in a hypothetic situation where you will realize how quickly you will forget this concept of morals: imagine you have a terrible toothache and needed emergency dental treatment because something is desperately wrong with one of your molars. Oh dear, you need root canal surgery on that tooth urgently. You have a choice of two dentists: Andrew who is very experienced, works very fast and knows exactly how to treat your tooth in under 15 minutes; or you have Angela who is inexperienced, works a lot more slowly and has been known to inflict quite a lot of pain on her patients. At this point you would probably say, give me Andrew, nobody wants Angela in this context. But wait, what if I then told you that Andrew regularly cheats on his wife, bullies his colleagues and on top of that, he is racist, sexist and homophobic? Angela on the other hand is a pious Christian woman who has a heart of gold and spends all her free time doing charity work. With that new information in mind (and the pain in your mouth from that toothache that desperately needs fixing), would you still pick Andrew over Angela? No, you would prioritize your experience at the dentist over any judgment of their personal conduct and morality. Heck, even if Andrew was guilty of something far more serious, you might choose to just shove all of that into a blind spot if you knew for a fact that he was going to provide a far less painful treatment to fix your tooth. You might even say something like, "look if he was really such a bad person, he'd be arrested or in jail already but the fact is, he's not, so in the eyes of the law he is an innocent man and whatever he gets up to in his personal life is really none of my business." But let's turn this around, if you had learnt about all of Angela's charity work and what an incredibly kind and generous person she is, would you let her fix your teeth even though you knew she wasn't a good dentist and that decision might literally turn out to be a painful one? Well no, you would probably say, "good for Angela for being such a wonderful person and I applaud her for all the charity work she has done, but I'm still going to go to Andrew to get my teeth fixed. That doesn't mean that I condone Andrew's behaviour, I'm just terribly afraid of pain and I have to put my needs first." So this goes to show that it is not like we don't care about the issue of morality and personal conduct when it comes to the people we work with, but all too often we find ourselves in a position when we have to prioritize other factors and are compelled to overlook their personal conduct. By that token, potential employers may admire you for certain things you have done to prove your good character but still give the job to another candidate who would serve their needs better. Is this fair? Well, let's try a little experiment to see how you react. 

Imagine if you're surfing on Youtube and you stumble upon a video about a great charity in Mali which is doing a lot of essential work for the villages in the rural north of the country. At the end of the video, there is a chance for you to donate to that charity. Do you actually click on the link and then proceed to make a substantial donation to that charity? Probably not, because if you're like me, you probably get hit with ads like that all the time when surfing social media. However, it doesn't mean that you have any doubts about what this charity is achieving in Mali: in fact, you probably have a lot of admiration and respect for the charity workers who have made such huge sacrifices to be working in such difficult conditions. What stopped you from donating is the lack of personal responsibility to be the one who 'rewards' these charity workers for their good deeds - you simply feel that it is not your job to be the one to have to support that charity. Perhaps it is a cause that isn't that close to your heart, perhaps it is not something that you could relate to personally or maybe it was simply the fifth such video you had seen today but at the end of the day, you just weren't moved by the video to react to it by supporting that charity by making a substantial donation. Does that make you a cold hearted, uncaring person? Perhaps, but let's try a different example. I have been volunteering at my gymnastics club for years and have probably put it thousands of hours of free labour there as a volunteer coach. I do it because gymnastics is and always will be a true passion for me but coaching is a lowly paid job, I earn a lot more in finance and thus volunteering is still a way for me to keep gymnastics a part of my life without having to commit to a regular coaching schedule as a coach working there for the money. So if I have to travel for work or just feel like taking a short holiday, I can do so without worrying about leaving my head coach in the lurch. But do I run round the gym reminding everyone that I am an unpaid volunteer despite being their most experienced and knowledgeable coach (who happens also to be a former national champion)? No, only my closest friends and the staff there know about it, I don't feel the need to broadcast it as I had chosen to volunteer on my own terms, it was entirely my decision and it was not because I was expecting everyone I meet there to reward me with some kind of goodwill. Likewise, when I see someone like Angela who has done something so generous and kind, I don't feel like I have to be the one to personally reward her for her good conduct as I believe that Angela probably did all that charity work without expecting anything in return. After all, it is not really "volunteering" for a charity if you are expecting something tangible in return! We do what feels right to us on our own terms without expecting the rest of the world to notice what we've done and then somehow pay us back or 'reward' us for our very good conduct. 

Thus let's go back to our two candidates Aisha and Bastian, if I came across a candidate like Aisha, no doubt I would approve of the sacrifices she has made and the qualities she has displayed in being able to commit to studying so hard to achieve those good results, but I would not feel personally responsible for rewarding her for what she has done. After all, Aisha's decision did yield her the results she wanted: she aced her exams and has her straight As to show for it, that is her reward already, she doesn't need any additional reward from a third party like an employer. Likewise, when I volunteer at my gymnastics club, I have a lot of fun whilst coaching there, I make loads of friends with the other gymnasts there, it keeps me active and healthy, I get so much out of it and that's why I choose to do it even if nobody will come up to me and say, "thank you for volunteering, we really appreciate everything you have done." Mind you, I have received little gifts from the staff like a cute little potted plant and some chocolates when I stepped in at last minute to help cover a class when a few coaches fell sick, but if you asked me if I would have done all that unpaid volunteering without those gifts, the answer is yes, of course I would. Sure the gifts are nice and always appreciated, but even without them, I'd still gladly volunteer as I have a very clear idea of what I am getting out of this experience even without those little gifts. Thus as a potential employer, I would be far more practical about what I think Aisha can bring to the table as an employee rather than feeling the need to reward her for her good behaviour as a straight A student. I would also expect Aisha to think and behave like an adult, that means I expect her to find ways to reward herself through the choices she makes, rather than expecting other adults like me to reward her as if she was a young child I was trying to nurture by encouraging good behaviour. Look, I'm not saying that nobody will ever notice the amount of hard work and sacrifices that Aisha has put in, quite on the contrary, I think that is very evident for everyone to see. The only thing I dispute is whether or not anyone would actually rush in to try to reward Aisha upon realizing what she has done. But what do you think? How would you react if you were in a position to choose between Aisha and Bastian? How would you evaluate these two different candidates and would the concept of morals or behaviour matter at all to you? Would you gladly hire someone like Andy who is great at his job, even if you do not approve of his conduct in his personal life? Would that be an issue for you or would you gladly just shove that into a blind spot? And would you ever go out of your way just to thank or even to praise someone for their conduct or behaviour?  Leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.