I was given the opportunity to assist in the hiring process during one of my local internships. My boss handed me the resumes of about fifteen candidates that he was considering and gave me the task of ranking them with the most qualified candidate on top. He was anxious to hear my input because I knew about ten of the candidates through classes at BYU.
I was especially close friends with one of the candidates, named Jeff. He was a good family friend of my wife and I had spent a lot of time with him to help him prepare his resume. While I thought he would do a good job, his resume lacked experience and he had only completed a handful of college credits. My decision about how to rank Jeff's resume became a real ethical dilemma for me.
On one hand, I knew that Jeff was not the most qualified applicant. In fact, on paper, he may have been the least qualified. I felt uneasy about placing Jeff at the top of the pile because I did not feel as though I was fulfilling my duty to the company because there were more qualified applicants that might have been able to generate more profits. On the other hand, I thought that Jeff deserved to catch a break and I thought that he would excel if he was given the opportunity to work with me. In addition, I enjoyed our friendship and preferred to work alongside him over the other candidates. I felt uneasy about placing Jeff at the bottom of the pile because I wanted to help him and felt that he had not had as many opportunities to prove himself as the other candidates.
In the end, I placed Jeff at the bottom of the pile but made sure to point out his resume out to my boss. I explained to him that while he was not qualified for the job, I recommended that he at least be interviewed because I thought he would actually do well. My boss took a glance at his resume and then threw it away in the trash. While I did not get the results that I had hoped, I felt right about the ethical decision that I made.
