"I did not get my job on merit. And neither did you."

Conversations about recruitment often treat “merit” as the only important issue and critics of gender quotas often rely on that assumption, too. But in her powerful column today — which coincides with her speech at the Driving Gender Diversity in the Workplace event — UN Women Executive Director Julie McKay turns those arguments on their head. 

I did not get my job on merit.

Or at least not in the way that we typically think about merit. Consider a younger me, applying for the role of Founding Executive Director back in 2007 at the age of 23.

By virtue of years of experience alone, could I have been the most well-qualified, experienced person to start the staff team for the amazing NGO, then known as the National Committee for UNIFEM (now UN Women)? Of course not.

Like so many other roles (dare I say most), I was appointed based on a range of factors that influenced the decision of the Board. Past performance was absolutely a factor, and in my three short years in the full-time workforce (and a motley bunch of uni jobs), I had demonstrated that I was hardworking and dedicated to the organisations that I gave my time to.

But what outweighed past performance was a raft of entirely subjective factors. Today, as 200 business leaders gather in Melbourne for the Launch of the White Paper on Merit, I wanted to share with you some of those factors, in the hope that you too might challenge the assumption that merit alone accounts for success in the workplace.

Factor 1: Potential

At 23, I arrived at my interview for the role of ED with a book that I now think of as my ‘blue ocean’ book. Since I had seen the advertisement for the role, I had made notes about all the things that the National Committee could be, the potential partners, the programs we could run, the ways we could influence business and government to drive gender diversity.

I knew a lot less then about gender equality than I do now, but I knew that the National Committee had a unique position in the NGO sector to influence change, and I badly wanted to be part of it.

I am also someone who is very organised and process driven. I knew if we were going to grow sustainably, we needed a range of funding sources and we would need the business processes in place to manage partnerships, grants and supporters. I was comfortable working in an environment that didn’t have any of this in place, but also knew we would need a framework fairly quickly.

Related: To attain gender equality, we need to focus on men.

Also knowing one of the Board members and how hard she worked as a volunteer, I knew it was likely that the volunteers were exhausted, and desperately needed my role to take some of the pressure off them. So in the interview, I detailed all the ways that I thought I might be able to do that.

I am not sure what the Board saw in that interview – I hope it was my potential. My passion and my commitment to the business, to the cause – and to the legacy of the women who had gone before. For some combination of those factors, the Board described as me having the potential to do the role.

Factor 2: Willingness to accept the salary and conditions.

My starting salary was lower than my graduate salary, and my first office was in the dining room of one of my Board member’s homes. Need I say more?

Would there have been a much more experienced, entrepreneurial CEO willing to take on this amazing opportunity if the salary had been doubled or tripled? Of course. However, a major factor for a small charity is the capacity to pay, and so into the merit mixing pot went my acceptance of the pay and conditions.

Factor 3: Networks.

Like many of us when we go for a job or a promotion, someone has sent us the job ad and encouraged us to apply. For me, that person was one of my mentors – a woman who had known me a couple of years and who had actively challenged me to think more deeply about what I wanted to do in the world, my leadership preferences and how I would channel my passion for social equality.

Ask Mia: Mentors and Gen Y heroes.

It just so happened, that she was on the Board of the National Committee, and so could vouch for my character and my potential. The weight of that reference, I have no doubt improved my chances of getting the role.

I encourage everyone to actively build their networks – you just never know when you will need them!

Factor 4: Ability to commit to the role.

I am one of the lucky few who can honestly say, that my employer starts the day trying to support employees to grow and succeed.

Today, we are flexible and responsive to the needs of our staff (and they would tell you that too!). But back in the day, when it was just me and we were starting to build the staff team, was the fact that I was endlessly energetic and excited about the opportunity, and willing to work long hours to deliver results a factor in my success? I am sure it was.

At 23, I was used to working in a small team, I had experience working banking hours and I knew that getting this career break at such a young age would mean it was critical for me to demonstrate results – fast.

There was never any pressure to work harder, in fact my Board put leave in my KPIs, but the reality was, I worked more hours in those first five years, than I have in any year since.

Every day, our organisations make decisions about people – whether to hire, fire, promote or hold back, whether to put them on a big client, or give them a ‘safe’ option, whether to encourage them or discourage them from taking the next step. These are all decisions that are part of business realities.

But, what I encourage you to think about a bit more is this notion of merit. There is no evidence of an objective assessment of merit existing in our society. If you assume that men and women are born with approximately equal talents, then the fact that women make up such tiny proportions of our leaders, implies that something in the process is broken.

 Related: Why we need more women on government boards.

Merit is some combination of past performance and future potential. In our assessment of both these factors, there is significant subjectivity and bias. For more information about the myth of merit, please check out our White Paper being launched today in Melbourne.

Next time you hear that lunch room conversation about merit being the most important issue in recruitment and promotion, perhaps you will be able to share this story with your colleagues and challenge them to consider the assumptions they make, when they assume that the merit process is unbiased.

I did not get my job on merit.

Nor did you.

The sooner we come to terms with the fact that the notion of an objective ‘meritocracy’ doesn’t exist, the sooner we will address the issue of increasing gender diversity in the workplace.

Julie McKay is the Executive Director of the National Committee for UN Women.

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