In operations management there’s two terms that come to my mind that you are describing. These terms are directed towards consumers’ behavior in whether they wi

In operations management there’s two terms that come to my mind that you are describing. These terms are directed towards consumers’ behavior in whether they will buy a product. The first term is ‘Order Qualifier’ this is the minimum possible feature set (of goods services) that a consumer needs in order to purchase your product. The second is ‘Order Winner’ which differentiates a product from another product once the products have qualified, i.e. met the minimum requirements. You could apply the general principle to recruiting. To me the way your teacher described Calculus as something that differiantiates two job candidates that are equally qualified it seems more like an Order Winner, but you then went on to say you should narrow your whole group of candidates by that. You shouldn’t cut down your whole pool of candidates by an Order Winner, but by an Order Qualifier. As an example if you’re hiring web developers they may pass an Order Qualifier if they have necessary web development skills. The Order Winner might be that they have good people skills. That may be backwards depending on what you need gaurenteed more. If you feel they can be trained you can certainly do it the other way around. It all depends on what you feel qualifies them and what differentiates them in the final choice.