Last Friday’s Wall Street Journal included this revealing letter:

David Finch’s “Credential Bloat Is a Hiring Problem” (Letters, Feb. 19) is correct as far as it goes. Credential verification is certainly easier than skill verification. In fact, skill verification is intentionally made difficult. As a senior technical staff member I have been previously criticized by the human-resources department for asking technical questions during interviews of the flavor, “Please describe for me how you would approach solving or setting up the following type of engineering problem.” Similarly, questions like, “Given the following observations of a particular process, what do you think is causing that?” were off limits. In other words, delving into a candidate’s critical thinking skills was frowned upon.

HR exists to keep the company out of legal hot water and these well-meaning folks are totally without skills related to the core competencies of what we do. While a previous supervisor would be a trove of useful information about a candidate’s skill set, lawyers have ensured that checking with references, except to verify previous job title and salary, is forbidden.

All U.S. corporations are under intense diversity pressure in the hiring process. Credentials are easier to acquire than are skills, and thus quickly expand the available diversity pool to meet politically mandated diversity quotas. I know professors at major universities who were told point blank by recruiters that unless they quickly increased the diversity of their candidate pool, the recruiters would stop recruiting there. Quality is irrelevant in the face of diversity.

Rick Cunnington

Oro Valley, Ariz.

One more source of drag on the economy — pressure to hire people not because they’re the best applicants, but to fulfill quotas and thus avoid legal trouble.

Hat tip: John Rosenberg