Here’s the quadrant I’m thinking about most this week.
I’m preparing some trainings for people applying to law school, and there’s some persistent and forceful advice around the importance of law school ranking. My lawyer clients and aspiring lawyers will probably understand this world, but it’s instructive for everyone, I think.
On the X axis is the question of what factors attorneys (generally in big firms) value when hiring other attorneys. On the Y axis is what studies have shown contribute to attorney effectiveness. (Now, how you measure effectiveness is a whole other conversation — is it hours billed, client satisfaction, caliber of work, business generated for a law firm, retention and promotion rates…. but let’s just assume this is a good measure of an attorney’s attractiveness to the firm.)
What do we see here? One of the factors that attorneys think matters actually does predict performance — law school grades. But two of the factors — law review and undergraduate honors — are actually negative predictors. And four additional factors are not relevant to success.
Meanwhile, military experience, work background, publications, and robust outside interests are predictors that are ignored or overlooked by hiring committees.
You’d think information gathered from data would change hiring practices, but that’s not what happens. Data that contradict an existing worldview, or threaten the identity of people in power, aren’t always incorporated. Read more about how lawyers use (and ignore) data here.
The gaps embodied in this matrix are specific to lawyers, but I am certain they exist in every role. A hiring committee has a theory of what matters, and their theoretical mental model is only partly accurate. It will include things that don’t matter, and it will overlook the things that do.
The challenge for individuals is to recognize those expectations without accepting them as true. Persuading gatekeepers is part of growth. But gatekeepers, like everyone else, have an incomplete understanding of the world, and their heuristics won’t reflect what you are capable of, or even what your mental models for success should be.
