While I really do agree - you can train skills, but you can't train personality (well, unless you're a parent, but that's another story), I also think on both sides of the table, we need to be aware that there will always be a bias.

"If we let personability—some indefinable, prerational intuition, magnified by the Fundamental Attribution Error—bias the hiring process today, then all we will have done is replace the old-boy network, where you hired your nephew, with the new-boy network, where you hire whoever impressed you most when you shook his hand. Social progress, unless we’re careful, can merely be the means by which we replace the obviously arbitrary with the not so obviously arbitrary."
http://gladwell.com/the-new-boy-network/

(I read this as some small consolation for all the interviews that I've been on for jobs that I was turned down for.)

(PS despite the use of the word "boy" I don't necessarily think Gladwell's referring to a GENDER bias... or is he?)

Christina Salazar
[log in to unmask]
Systems Librarian
California State University Channel Islands
________________________________________
From: Code for Libraries [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Roy Tennant [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2014 10:26 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Job Interview : A Libcoder's Helpful Advices

On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 10:07 AM, Kyle Banerjee <[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hiring someone is the most important/expensive thing that organizations do.
>

I couldn't agree more[1]. And that's why I advocate that organizations hire
based on personality traits, not experience. I realize that justifications
must be given in terms of the candidate's qualifications vis. a vis. the
position description, but if you aren't paying attention to personality
traits then you are missing the boat.
Roy

[1] http://roytennant.com/column/?fetch=data/101.xml