What HR Can Learn From The White House Gate Crasher Fiasco

Unless you have been in a turkey induced coma the past few days, you are well aware that the White House had it’s own version of Wedding  Gate Crashers occur last week when two fame seeking high society wannabes got past the Secret Service.  

While my first thought was that Oscar Wilde was right when he said “Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life,” (if you don’t believe me, check out what Night at the Museum did for attendance at the American Museum of Natural History), my second thought was that HR pros can gain from the Secret Service’s pain. 

While HR doesn’t get to wear cool sunglasses, ear pieces, and guard the President like the Secret Service, they do guard your organization’s front door.  Not literally, of course, but figuratively as HR is on the frontlines of every hiring decision and their role is much the same as the Secret Service’s role was that faithful night – Keep the Gate Crashers out!  

There are two big ”watch-outs” for HR pros as they guard the castle and ensure that they do not fall asleep at the wheel like our friends at the White House:

1. Looks can be deceiving - Let’s face it, one of the main reasons that Tareq and Michaele Salahi got into the White House gig was that they not only looked the part, they owned it.  This is the age old problem with judging a book by it’s cover – it only gets you half way there.  It is easy to fall into this trap - the candidate went to the right schools, knows the right power players in your company, wears the right clothes and, you guessed it, says all the right things in the interview. The challenge here is to not rush to a decision just because on the surface the candidate is a ”no-brainer.” HR’s role is to ensure that the hiring manager and the organization dig a little deeper, ask the tough questions, check references, and most importantly have the courage to turn away someone who only looks the part.

2. It can be easy to forget your main role when you have too many - While it may be hard to believe, Fox news reports that the normal greeter and name checker was noticeably missing…

Cathy Hargraves, who until June had been in charge of supervising guests lists for state dinners, told Newsweek magazine that she was told by Obama Social Secretary Desiree Rogers in February that she wasn’t needed to serve as official greeter and name checker because “in these economic times, I don’t think we’re going to have very many lavish expensive dinners. It wouldn’t look very good.”

This means that the Secret Service had to wear three hats – official greeter, name checker, oh and um, what was that third one again…right, security.  Hindsight is 20/20, but the Secret Service obviously forgot that one of their main duties that night was making sure the right people got in and the wrong people didn’t. The point is HR can’t forgot the crucial role they play in ensuring that anybody who walks through your door has both the right skills and is the right fit for your organization – if HR drops the ball you will almost certainly have more Gate Crashers than a White House dinner.