Submitted by ADefiniteDescription t3_yrifbw in philosophy
DrakBalek t1_ivtt5t7 wrote
One small critique:
>Of course, everyone spending a few extra hours on applications is not so bad. Except that the same incentive structure iterates. Everyone has reason to spend ten hours polishing, now fifteen hours polishing. Everyone has reason to ask friends to look over their materials, now everyone has reason to hire a job application consultant. Every applicant is stuck in an arms race with every other, but this arms race does not create any new jobs. So, in the end, no one is better off than if everyone could have just agreed to an armistice at the beginning.
Except everyone has a threshold for accepting diminishing returns. The incentive structure doesn't result in everyone escalating the amount of time and effort that goes into an application, because at some point, each individual is going to stop. I'm only going to put in so many hours on my application for any given job, because I recognize the difference between one and three hours is significant, whereas the difference between 15 and 20 hours is not (or at least, it's less significant as I add hours; hence, diminishing returns).
Beyond this (admittedly nit-picky) observation, I find the rest of the article to be rather refreshing and insightful. I think there's good opportunity to use a lottery system as part of a selection/hiring process and if it results in employers dropping all these stupid hoops form their applications, that's a net win for everyone.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments