When ‘Evidence’ of Professionalism Proves Nothing

 You like the applicant a lot, but, inexplicably, your manager doesn’t.

Nothing you cite about the applicant impresses her—not the applicant’s Harvard MBA, her glowing recommendations, strong track record, apparent fit with your corporate culture, pleasing manner and stylish, attractive appearance, eloquence in multiple-languages, international experience, well-articulated goals and credible, yet impressive self-assessment, fresh-faced enthusiasm, nor her professional, yet unassuming poise.

Nothing. It’s as though her consummate professionalism is invisible.

Frustrated and bewildered, you ask your manager, “Why are you unconvinced?”

Is Your Manager Blind?

Your manager, seemingly drawing upon some freshman statistics or sophomore logic course she had, replies, “All of that is merely consistent with her being a good hire, not at all conclusively or strongly confirmatory.”

Shocked, you take some comfort, however scant, in noting that at least she didn’t say these positives are all or mostly “irrelevant” as evidence or, worse, count against the applicant and the suggestion she’s a solid candidate.

Taking stock, you want to ask what the difference is between “merely consistent” and “confirmatory”—while waiting for your manager’s other shoe, viz., “irrelevant” to be dropped, and hoping there is some way to prove that the applicant’s package is more than merely consistent with being the right, or at least a very good, choice.

[If your manager maintains that your being impressed with the applicant’s attractive appearance is “sexist”, she would almost certainly categorize it as “irrelevant”—to the extent that it is disallowed by law, ideology or political correctness.]

How could your manager possibly dismiss all of this ostensibly positive evidence in support of the hypothesis “We should hire her”?

Manager Logic

Here’s how, as the manager might argue her case:

• The MBA: “An MBA may be necessary for some tasks, but hardly sufficient. What is confirmed at most is that one necessary condition has been met. By itself, it is merely consistent with the hypothesis that she is a good choice and that we should hire her. Alone it proves or substantiates little, if anything, regarding overall goodness of fit. After all, having a “Match Book At hand”—an ‘MBA’ so to speak—in your pocket is consistent with the prospect of a fire, but doesn’t confirm that there will be one.”

• Glowing recommendations: “Positive recommendations are consistent with being a good fit, but also with litigation-averse or lazy former employers who robotically sign letters departing staff write, much as hearing encouraging voices in one’s head is consistent with a lot of things, including lunacy, auto-suggestion, medication side-effects or communication with aliens. Again, the references may be a necessary condition for a hire, but not sufficient or even reliable evidence to justify it.”

In just these two examples, a pattern is established: the manager is dismissing apparent evidence as being merely consistent with the hiring hypothesis, because the evidence cites only what is at best a necessary condition, and therefore “proves nothing”.

Animal Logic

An exact analogy is the following case: Is each or any of the following proof or strong evidence that something is an animal, e.g., a polar bear, or merely consistent with it?

—Moves

—Requires continuous oxygen to survive

—Extracts and liberates energy from organic sources

—Reproduces

—Exothermic [gives off heat from its surfaces]

—Vulnerable to sudden extinction

—Produces CO2

—Potentially dangerous

If you believe that not only is there more here than mere consistency, but also that each of these, or as a set, is moderate to very strong, if not conclusive evidence that what possesses each is an animal, then congratulations—you’ve made a major, original discovery: that fires are probably animals. [Yes, fires reproduce and are vulnerable to sudden extinction. That’s what makes smoking cigarettes possible and requests to put them out useful.]

To illustrate the difference between mere consistency and confirmation, consider the trait of being right-handed: Having it, like having fingerprints, is consistent with being an accountant, a jazz saxophonist or an astronaut, but does not confirm that any right-handed person is any of these.

On the other hand, being right-handed does confirm that a given individual will not be able to skillfully use a left-handed can opener without considerable practice.

A Matter of Total Evidence?

You may have been tempted to argue that even though no one of these listed characteristics of fire and life in isolation proves anything, taken together, jointly, as a set—as a “total evidence condition”, they strongly confirm that what possesses them is an animal.

The problem with that argument is that even if it’s sound, the list equally confirms that the “animal” is just a fire. True, it makes both possibilities far more likely than almost all other hypotheses, e.g., the hypothesis that the list describes the Statue of Liberty or a football.

But it does so by strongly and simultaneously confirming two conflicting, rival, mutually exclusive hypotheses—that what is described is an animal and that it is not [since a fire isn’t an animal or even alive, right?—no matter what Sun gods, volcanoes, etc., humans have worshipped].

So even if evidence is evaluated in the context of the total available evidence, much as one jigsaw-puzzle piece has to be seen within the complete puzzle to grasp its relevance, the total evidence is still only merely consistent with the favored hypothesis, because it is also consistent with a key rival hypothesis, and therefore cannot prove or otherwise favor one or the other.

Applying this logic to hiring, even if many necessary conditions for the right hire are itemized and met, they may still amount to nothing more—individually or as a set—than evidence that is consistent with the right choice, rather than confirming it. 

The reason is that unless the list is truly exhaustive, i.e., comprises all necessary conditions that are therefore jointly sufficient for a unique result, it can, as the fire-animal case shows, be sufficient proof of totally opposite claims, which means being consistent with both, proving neither.

The Wise Use of Interview Evidence

There’s a very important lesson in all of this, for job applicants as well as those for recruiters: When applying for a job and in any interview, make sure that your self-presentation is perceived as confirming the wisdom of a decision to hire you, rather than merely being consistent with it, as your owning a briefcase or being a “team player” is.

That is, assuming you can, in your own understanding, consistently confirm you understand the difference.