A few things have happened in the last few years that make me believe that the meaning of the best is a lot more influenced by our own biases than we will ever

A few things have happened in the last few years that make me believe that the meaning of the best is a lot more influenced by our own biases than we will ever be ready to admit. This is a huge issue with hiring: 1. The study about blind interviews in orchestras mentioned in the article. Think about it, most people in symphonic orchestras have a university education, and often with more years of education than your average engineer, they learned all about critical thinking etc... They are artists, whom are usually considered more open minded (ok debatable). But, they as a group, were able to acknowledge that they have strong biases to the point of trying (and eventually adopting) blind interviews. This, tells me that these people have a strong sense of the fact that they are aware that they biased, and able to admit it, and aware that it might influence their interview process, yet, the experiment showed that they were not able to see passed gender! This has seriously made me rethink about my beliefs about being conscious of my own biases. 2. I have worked for company A, which hired only the best (besides me I guess ;-) ) pretty much as described in the article, I have recommended people I had worked with previously and whom I knew were amazing, but they didn't get hired. I was seriously surprised, but you know the "it's better not to hire one of the best than err and make one bad hire". Ok. 3. I then worked for company B. I recommended somebody who was hired at company A. That person was not a friend, but somebody who passed all interviews with flying colours at company A. I worked with that person and they are extremely smart. Everybody at company A was amazed how smart that person was, even after seeing them fly though all the oh-so-though interviews. Working for close to a year with that person, and everybody was still positive about how smart and good that person was, so they aren't just good at interviewing. That person was turned down at company B. PS: Yeah, maybe I just need to stop recommending people, I now realise I'm the common thread in people not getting hired in my story!