Reply #17: It's very simple. [View All]

You have one job to offer and get 500 resumes. After filtering based on experience, education, and applicability, you end up with five highly qualified candidates. After the interviews and vetting take place, you still have three left. How do you pick from the three?

This is the point where hiring nearly always runs into personal bias and opinion, and the decision ends up being made by trivial, nitpicky details. Like who pressed their suit better. Or who had the whitest teeth, and would therefore be more appealing in a client meeting. Or who took an extra year to finish their degree. Or, even, who walked in with the crocodile folio and obviously has no "environmental sense". I mention these because I have sat on hiring committees, and I have SEEN people selected or excluded from positions over these very "issues". When everything else is equal, the decision tend to come down to trivial, pedantic details.

Like who drank more in college, and was dumb enough to post their puke geyser shot on Facebook.