While at a local Salesforce user group event yesterday, a colleague spoke about how he received several new opportunities. This is obviously a good sign, as recently Salesforce opportunities are harder to come by than in the past.
The challenge he’s now facing is deciding which opportunity to choose from.
The conversation reminded me of the secretary problem, which involves determining the optimal stopping practice.
In brief, the classical version of this problem is stated as:
- You have one position to fill
- You have n number of applicants, which are interviewed one-at-a-time in random order
- After interviewing each applicant, you give them a score and need to decide whether to hire them or not. If you don’t hire them, you cannot recall them, and move to the next applicant
Given this, how do you pick the best candidate?
The solution is:
- Select a number that is about 10% of n. If you don’t know n, take a guess. Let’s call that number x
- Interview the first x candidates but don’t hire any of them. Instead, just record the best score
- Keep interviewing until you meet a candidate whose score is higher than x, and hire that person
The takeaway
The solution to the secretary problem can be applied to a number of similar situations. You can even use it to meet your life partner 🙂
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