Why "just hire the best person" doesn't work.

Good intentions don't build diverse teams.

The kernels are popping!

Over on LinkedIn this morning, I gave a brief overview of my process when hiring thanks to a great question from someone in my network. But there’s a 2000 character limit on that platform, and there’s so much more to cover - especially about what goes into building a truly diverse team.

So, pull up a chair. I’m glad you’re here.

And as the great Tabitha Brown says, Let’s get into it.

---

Here's the thing everyone knows but nobody wants to say out loud: if hiring was already merit-based, we wouldn't see the patterns we see.

We wouldn't have studies showing that resumes with white-sounding names get 50% more callbacks than identical resumes with Black-sounding names. We wouldn't see women getting interrupted more in interviews. We wouldn't watch people from non-target schools get written off before they even speak.

The system is working exactly as designed - to keep replicating the people who built it. (Yes, we’re back to the system again. It’s behind everything, and even when we think it’s broken, it’s really just doing what benefits those in power the most).

When someone says "just hire the best person," they're assuming we already know how to identify "best." But our definition of "best" has been shaped by biases so deep we don't even recognize them as biases anymore.

---

Let’s start with what usually happens:

• We post jobs in the same three places we always post them. We screen for keywords that match our existing team members' backgrounds. We get excited about candidates from companies or schools we recognize.

• Then we interview people who "feel right" - who communicate like us, who remind us of successful people we've worked with before, who make us comfortable.

None of this is conscious discrimination. It's pattern recognition run wild.

But the result is that we keep hiring variations of the same person while convincing ourselves we're being objective. We mistake familiarity for competence, similarity for culture fit.

The efficiency we think we're gaining through automated filters and "culture fit" conversations is costing us the best talent. Every algorithm that screens out "non-traditional" backgrounds, every interview where someone doesn't "seem ready" could be eliminating exactly the person who would transform your team

This is one of the reasons that most Fortune 500 boards look like pictures of the same middle-aged white man, just done up with different hair and glasses. Or why you can sift through a week’s worth of new role announcements on LinkedIn, and at least 75% of them seem to be from one white man proud to announce that after a “rigorous search”, the best person for the open executive role is (drumroll please)… another white man.

I’m not hating on white men, and I’m not saying that white men aren’t qualified. I am saying, as loud as I can, however, that they are not the only ones who are qualified and that if after a rigorous global search your best option is someone who looks and feels exactly like the person being replaced… you might have a few issues to work through.

Most hiring managers never interrogate their own process. They assume that they are thorough, and that they’ve given everyone a fair shot. They don't consider that their bias might be the barrier.

---

And let’s talk about the tough questions we choose not to ask:

• Are we evaluating skills, or are we evaluating comfort?

• What definition of “qualified” are we using?

• Are we looking for potential, or just checking boxes against some invisible template?

• What assumptions are we making about what success "looks like" in this role?

• Are we confusing confidence with competence?

• Who decided these specific requirements were actually necessary?

• What experiences are we automatically counting as "relevant" versus "irrelevant"?

• Are we hiring for the job we posted, or for some other job that lives in our heads?

• What stories are we telling ourselves about why certain candidates "wouldn't be a good fit"?

• Are we measuring ability to do the work, or ability to navigate our broken interview process?

• What would happen if we hired someone whose career path looked completely different?

  

---

So how can we get past this, to build teams that are truly representative of the modern world, and who aren’t just echo chambers of what is comfortable?

When you’re more intentional about your hiring process, the quality doesn’t go down. It goes up. You get people you never knew existed. You get amazing teams with diverse and different perspectives who are excellent at seeing opportunities and solving problems. You get a richness that is impossible with homogeneity.

I covered a bit of what worked for me already in my LinkedIn post, but here’s a deeper dive on what I think is needed if a leader really wants to attract, build and retain a truly diverse team.

The real work behind all the “tips and tricks” is confronting the uncomfortable truth that our entire concept of "qualified" has been shaped by systems designed to exclude.

Recognize that "culture fit" is often code.

When someone says a candidate "isn't a culture fit," what they usually mean is "this person doesn't remind me of people I've worked with before." Culture fit has become a socially acceptable way to eliminate people who think differently, come from different backgrounds, or challenge the status quo.

Real culture fit should be about values and work style, not whether someone went to the right school or uses the right buzzwords.

Understand that "pipeline problem" is usually bullshit.

How many times have you heard "we'd love to hire more diverse candidates, but they just don't apply"? That's not a pipeline problem. That's a you problem.

If qualified people aren't applying, it's because something about your process, your company, or your reputation is telling them they're not welcome. And that doesn’t mean there is an overt message being sent. It comes through in how you post the job, where you post the job, what language and qualifications you use. It is visible in what kind of recruitment firm you choose, and what your website looks and feels like when people do their research.

I know that I have chosen not to apply to several roles because the leadership teams on the corporate site looked like someone went crazy with a template in The Sims. Everyone looked somehow exactly the same. And we all have our things that tweak our antennae, but I immediately notice if the only women in the C-suite are leading HR, Legal or Marketing. I notice if there is only one non-white person - who often happens to also be a woman leading HR, Legal or Marketing.

And I notice if a supposed “global” company has a bias in operational leadership. For example, if a company is based in Genovia, and the leaders of the US/Canada region, the European region, and AsiaPac all happen to be… Genovian men, well - it’s a no thanks for me. That tells me there’s not space at the top for different kinds of people and thinking. Most companies would be surprised how many truly qualified candidates opt-out immediately after doing the slightest bit of research.

The pipeline of amazingly diverse talent exists. But are you set up to welcome it?

Stop confusing pedigree with potential.

We've trained ourselves to get excited about candidates from prestigious companies or schools. But here's what that actually measures: access to opportunities, not ability to do the work.

Someone who built their career at no-name companies might have had to be scrappier, more resourceful, more creative. Someone who went to a state school might have had to work twice as hard to prove themselves. Someone who moved laterally across functions to build competencies and capabilities is not less qualified than someone who followed the traditional path. Those aren't deficits. Those are strengths.

Question every "requirement."

Most job requirements are fiction. "Must have experience with our specific software." "Must have worked in our exact industry." "Must have managed teams of X size."

What you're really doing is screening for people who've already had the exact opportunities you're offering. That's not finding the best person. That's finding the most privileged person. Do better.

Accept that comfort is the enemy of progress.

The candidates who make you most comfortable are probably the ones who will maintain the status quo. The ones who make you slightly uncomfortable might be the ones who'll push your team to think differently.

That discomfort you feel when someone challenges assumptions or asks questions you hadn't considered? That's not a red flag. That's exactly what you need.

However, and this is important (see my previous post for more detail), you need to ensure that you are prepared to support the kind of candidate who will drive change. Because if you say you want this, and bring them on board, you do them a terrible disservice if you then isolate, punish or exit them for doing exactly the thing you knew they would do.

Building a diverse team is also about retaining a diverse team - and you can’t do that if there’s no space for that diversity to thrive.

Admit that "merit" isn't neutral.

And back to that favorite word - “merit”. We love to talk about merit-based hiring like it's objective. But merit gets defined by the people in power, and it tends to look suspiciously like the traits those people already possess.

Real merit-based hiring would account for the obstacles people had to overcome to get where they are. It would recognize that identical achievements might represent vastly different levels of effort and talent depending on where someone started.

This isn't about lowering standards. It's about expanding our definition of what excellence actually looks like.

---

If you want to build truly diverse teams, you need to understand that this isn't just about sourcing different types of people.

It's a complete evolution of how you think about talent, qualifications, and success. It means questioning assumptions you didn't even know you had.

It means getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. It means accepting that your definition of "good" might have been shaped by systems designed to exclude.

And it means doing the hard work of changing not just who you hire, but how you evaluate, develop, and promote people once they're there.

This isn't a quick fix or a surface-level adjustment. It's deep, systemic work that will challenge everything you thought you knew about what makes someone qualified.

It's not easy. But it's worth it.