An Athena

Type: Management

Problem: Staff are expected to spring, fully formed, from the brow of whatever institution they attended. Selection criteria are rigidly applied to prospective job applicants

Context: Staff hiring

Forces: A position needs to be filled quickly. Naturally, a certain level of expertise is needed. Management, for various reasons, do not wish to advertise directly. The people who screen the applicants do not have a good understanding of what the role needs.

Supposed Solution: Put together a list of requirements and place the job with an Employment Agency.

Resulting Context:

The agency, being unlikely to have a deep understanding of what the role actually needs, stipulate that only people with precisely the required skills are suitable. Alternatives are not considered.

Over time, selection criteria become standard and, like the goddess Athena, successful candidates are expected to enter a new job fully formed by their previous experiences.

When it occurs on a large scale, this practice effectively locks people into roles they have already performed. The opportunity to move on and learn new skills is greatly limited. All learning is presumed to have occurred previously. Taken to its logical conclusion, this means college.

Design Rationale:

Related AntiPatterns: GlassWall. DryWaterhole considers the effect of these practices on companies.

Applicable Positive Patterns: An open mind.

AntiPatternCategory: Management

Also Known As:

Examples in the Literature:

Examples in Practice:

The classic example is the role requiring '3 years' (it's almost always 3 years) skill experience. The skill could be a language like Java. But what is actually expected of someone with 3 years java experience'? Do they just need to know good Object Oriented techniques, or do they need to have an in-depth knowledge of java libraries?

In the first case, someone with extensive experience in another OO language (eg C++, but maybe not C) should be adequate. The second case is more restrictive and probably does call for extensive java experience.

Which are you?

: Having just spent the best part of 6 months looking for a job, constantly requiring X years of some given skill has become a considerable annoyance - something with which my eventual employer has agreed. Does something magical happen on the third anniversary of you joining a given shop that magically makes you more competent than you were previously? --AnonymousButNoLongerUnemployedCoward?

CategoryAntiPattern