Why Smart People Don't Get Hired
Tuesday, June 17th, 2014
For years I've marvelled at how many of my smartest friends and acquaintances have suffered prolonged periods of unemployment and underemployment. Despite having loads of relevant experience, lots of personality and even pedigree educations, many of them have often suffered exceptionally long periods between jobs: where even interviews were scarce.
One day, however, I happened upon an article about how "smart people" (i.e, people with higher cognitive abilities) tend to actually be subject to a greater (cognitive) "bias blindspots". In other words, they are more prone to incorrectly trust their gut instincts (heuristics) when making decisions. As a result, they often make more mistakes of reasoning than the rest of us mortals. In particular, smart people tend to see bias more easily in others than in themselves.
When I reflected on how this finding might have some bearing on the plight of my very smart friends and their job seeking challenges, a lightbulb turned on. Could it be possible that my friends' presentations of themselves to would-be employers reflected these bias blindspots? Could it be that their intelligence actually stood as a hurdle to their professional progress?
