The Elusiveness of Merit-Based Hiring

Since early 2025, organizations seeking to curry favor with the current U.S. administration have disavowed earlier commitments to workforce diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and proclaimed that their hiring practices are therefore meritocratic. But framing DEI and merit as antithetical dichotomies, as various executive orders have done, does not mean that abandoning the former results in the latter.

Good DEI practice is designed to broaden the pool from which companies seek to recruit top talent rather than, say, limit their searches to members of reliable old boy networks. Good DEI practice does not replace hiring criteria like demonstrated talent and achievement with demographic criteria. And supposedly meritocratic hiring, in practice, does little to ensure that individuals are selected based on their likelihood of success on the job. Indeed, unbeknownst to many proponents of meritocracy, merit-based practices can be both elusive and illusory.

Merit is a compelling principle. However, many so-called meritocratic practices are fraught with error, even if done with the best intentions. Meritocrats often advocate for practices that they genuinely believe are merit-based but are not — what I call the merit mirage. They may also disparage practices that they believe are not meritorious but are (that is, they demonstrate merit skepticism). Understanding where many attempts at meritocracy go wrong will help leaders better navigate the alleged conflict between DEI and merit.

What Validity Means in Hiring, and Why It Matters

What laypeople call “merit” is referred to as validity by industrial-organizational psychologists who are experts in the technical science behind employment selection. Validity means that the selection practice is job-related: It cannot be assumed; it must be demonstrated according to accepted validation methods. A truly valid hiring process can select higher-performing employees. In contrast, face validity refers to hiring practices that appear valid (or job-related) to the layperson but provide little direct benefit to the organization beyond the appearance of fairness.

Some assessments that lack empirical proof of their validity have face validity and might be passionately supported by individuals who believe in merit due to the merit mirage. Many managers who are too busy to properly vet these types of measures fall prey to the use of such assessments. In addition, applicants who perform well on assessments that have little predictive value truly see the outcome as evidence of their merit, even though such measures are not valid.