The job search process can often feel detached and removed from reality. Does a piece of paper that lists my professional accomplishments thus far really explain what I am capable of doing? Does a company’s job description accurately portray the qualities needed for a position? Is the system really putting the right people in the right jobs in the right companies?

Malcolm Gladwell addressed this “mismatch problem in the workplace” at this year’s New Yorker Conference. Through a series of examples, he develops an argument that most of the ways candidates are evaluated for a job rarely reflect on how the candidate will perform in the job. When it comes to teaching, currently schools require specific types of credentials from teachers in their system such as certain test scores or a Masters degree. But, he continues, there is no correlation between these credentials and teacher quality.

Whether you have a masters degree or not…makes absolutely no difference in how you perform at the task of relating to and teaching kids…in the name of trying to make a better decision we’re spending all this money and spending all this time and none of it is having any effect. In fact we are doing the very thing that actually defeats the cause of finding better teachers. What we should be doing is broadening the pool as much as possible to find as many of these people with this ineffable, elusive gift called being a good teacher but instead what we do is narrow the pool…

Do you think that Gladwell’s argument holds up in your experience? If this mismatch problem exists, how do we overcome it? How can you truly judge the teaching ability of an individual? Is a better model to have more apprenticeships or student teachers? So many questions. I would love to hear your answers.