Question

Is it unethical to hire someone you are familiar with (family member, friend, former colleague) instead of a higher-qualified candidate? Discuss why or why not, or if it depends on certain factors.

Answer 1

Answer:

Basically given a choice between a person who is familiar (family member, friend, former colleague) and a higher-qualified candidate, it is basically unethical to hire a person who is familiar to you.

The reasons it would be unethical to hire a person who is familiar over a higher qualified candidate are:

Preferential treatment: The hired person might get preferential treatment over others.

Biased approach: Due to the fact that the persons hired is known, the approach for that person is always biased and you would never be neutral.

Patronage: A patronage will develop because of the same.

Conflict of interest: There would always be conflict of interest were the person might take personal benefit from the position being held.

Misuse of position or office: There is misuse of the position where the standard operating procedures are skipped and bypassed to benefit the known person hired.

Favoritism: There would be favouritism in the decision making process and the known hired person may get good assignment and better appraisals later on.

Set wrong examples for others: This spoils the culture of the organizations where people would feel that it is closeness that matters and not result. People would try to bring in familiar people in the system and fair hiring process will not happen.

Unjust to the higher qualified person: It is the biggest unjust for the person who is not hired even though he/she is better qualified.

Moreover, if at all there is a person who is familiar to you, it is best that if possible you keep yourself away from the hiring process for that position and go by the recommendation of the capab;e neutral person involved in the hiring process.