Case Study: Should an Algorithm Tell You Who to Promote?

In this fictional case, a vice president of marketing and sales for the cleaning division of a global consumer products company is struggling to make a promotion decision. She has two strong internal candidates. One is a brand manager on her team with whom she’s worked closely over the past few years. The other is a rising star from a different division who was recommended by the company’s new people analytics program. Both seem equally qualified, though the vice president knows one candidate far better and is therefore worried that she might be biased, in part because the candidate is also a woman. With the decision looming, she has to decide whether to trust her intuition or the firm’s algorithm.

Aliyah Jones was having trouble paying attention to the farewell toasts. Although she was sad to see her longtime colleague, Anne Bank, go, she was more consumed with trying to figure out who should replace her.

As a VP of sales and marketing for Becker-Birnbaum International, a global consumer products company, Aliyah knew she needed a talented marketing director to support her division’s portfolio of 34 products. After working with HR to narrow down the list of candidates, she had two finalists, both internal: Molly Ashworth, a brand manager on her team in the cleaning division, and Ed Yu, a rising star from BBI’s beauty division.

Aliyah liked Molly and respected her work. Two years earlier, Molly had spearheaded a new subscription service for BBI cleaning products, which had, despite a slow start, shown strong growth in the past two quarters. Customers seemed to love the convenience, and the R&D, marketing, and executive teams had gotten excited about the service as a platform to test new offerings. Having mentored Molly through the pitch and launch of the service, Aliyah was intimately familiar with her protégé’s strengths and weaknesses and was certain that she was ready for the next challenge.

But soon after the position had been posted, Christine Jenkins, a corporate VP of HR, had come to Aliyah with Ed’s résumé. Like Molly, he’d joined BBI right out of business school and been quickly tapped as a high potential. He also had his own BBI success story: As a brand manager in the beauty group, he had revived its 20-year-old FreshFace makeup-removal product line, increasing sales 60% in three years. Perhaps more important to Christine, he’d been recommended as a 96% match for the job by HR’s new people-analytics system, which she had championed. (Molly had been an 83% match, according to the algorithm.) The goal of the HR initiative was to use data analytics to inform hiring, promotion, and compensation decisions. Ed was flagged not just because of his stellar performance but also because of his interest in transferring from New York to BBI’s headquarters in London. Aliyah was happy to have two insiders in contention — she had come up the ranks herself at BBI — but that made the decision more difficult.

As the COO made another well-deserved toast to Anne, Aliyah thought back to her interviews with Ed and Molly.

“I’m sorry I’m so late,” Ed said, looking a little discombobulated. “My Uber driver insisted he knew a shortcut from Heathrow — but he was wrong.”

It was hard not to draw an immediate comparison to Molly, who was always buttoned up and calm, but Aliyah reminded herself to keep an open mind.

“No problem,” she said. “Shall we get started?”

“Tell me what interests you about this job.”

Ed explained that while he was proud of the growth FreshFace had experienced under his leadership, he was ready for a new challenge. He’d enjoyed diving deep into one product, but felt his skills were better suited for a position that would allow him to work across programs and direct a larger portfolio.

Sharp, clear answer, Aliyah thought. “What have you learned in beauty that would apply here in cleaning?” she asked.

This was an important question.