Why Standards Are the Wrong Tool for Hiring

I was once asked in a job interview: What's the difference between complicated and complex?

I failed.

I got hired anyway. Because the hiring manager understood that a wrong answer doesn't define the candidate. That wasn't a standardized process with a scorecard. That was a human who read the context.

This question has shaped me to this day. And ironically, it's the key to a problem that almost every company has, one that becomes most visible in hiring processes of all places.

What a Standard Is

A standard is a unified specification that ensures repeatability and predictability. DIN, ISO, whatever the source: the core is always the same. Standards exist to achieve reliable results in known situations.

That's not a flaw. That's their purpose. And for the right category of problems, they're brilliant.

Complicated vs. Complex

There's a framework that cleanly separates these categories: Cynefin, developed by Dave Snowden. It distinguishes four domains: simple, complicated, complex, and chaotic.

Standards and best practices belong in the "simple" and "complicated" domains. There, problems are decomposable, analyzable, and predictable. An engine. A tax return. An algorithm. More expertise leads to better results.

Complex problems work differently. The parts influence each other, and the outcome cannot be derived from the individual components. Three people deciding where to have lunch: few, simple parts, but the interaction between preferences, moods, and group dynamics makes the outcome unpredictable. Cynefin says for this domain: Probe, Sense, Respond. Experiment, observe, adapt.

Not: Apply a rule.

And now the crucial question: In which domain does hiring belong?

Hiring Is Complex

A job interview is not a machine you can take apart.

It's a system of people, expectations, chemistry, context, and timing. Small differences—a different question, a different day, or a different interviewer—can lead to completely different outcomes.

Hiring is often not even particularly complicated. The individual steps are simple. But it's highly complex because people interact. And this is exactly where the problem arises.

What Happens When You Apply Standards to Complexity

A standard approximates. It tries to make quality measurable by forcing all candidates through the same grid. The result is an approximation, not an insight.

And this approximation is asymmetric. In statistics, this is called restriction of range: standardized processes cut off the bandwidth at both ends. That sounds fair, but it's not.

If you're good, the standard doesn't make you more visible. You're forced into a box that doesn't show what makes you special. Your best work doesn't emerge under artificial conditions, but when you solve real problems with real context.

If you're bad, you're only minimally filtered. Most case studies can be passed with some preparation.

The real cost is a false negative: losing the best candidate because the process isn't built to recognize excellence, but to weed out the obvious. And you would have recognized the obvious without a standard anyway.

The Real Solution

If standards are the wrong tool, then what? The answer doesn't lie in better standards. It lies with the hiring manager.

A hiring process should be tailored to the hiring manager, not the other way around. The organization's job is to coach and support the manager so they can get the best out of themselves and out of the process. The goal isn't a better standard. It's a process that enables the greatest possible individuality while leveraging the manager's strengths.

That sounds like more effort. It is. But the opportunity cost comparison is clear: losing the best candidate to a standardized process is more expensive than investing in the hiring manager.

You don't need to build an argument against it

The definition of standard already indicates it wasn't made for this problem. It ensures repeatability and predictability, two properties that complex systems by definition don't have.

Every standardized hiring process approximates. That's not a bug. That's the architecture.