The Pidgeonhole Principle is a mathematical law that states the following: given N bins (or pidgeonholes) and N+1 objects, any arrangement of said objects in said bins will result in at least one bin having more than one object. The proof is fairly trivial as well: place the first N objects in the N bins such that the first object goes in the frst bin, the second object goes in the second bin, …, and the Nth object goes in the Nth bin. At this point you have one object left over and every bin has one object in it. Place the leftover object in any bin and that bin has two objects in it. QED.
Not unlike other mathematical terms that have colloquial meanings, the term “pidgeonholing” has exactly the reverse meaning. Given an empty bin and a selection of candidates for that bin, whoever is selected (hopefully the best fit) is expected to exactly fill the bin. I speak, of course, of a traditional hiring procedure: a company posts a job opening with a specific job description, several people respond, of which one is chosen, and that person does the job outlined in the job description.
Based on first impressions, apparent qualifications, and (unfortunately) the standard piece of marketing that every job-seeker should master — the resume &mdash employers develop a sense, accurately or inaccurately, of what the employee’s skills, interests, and potential within the company will be. Likewise, the employee will quickly develop a sense of what they are expected to do. The situation is exacerbated when the job was recently vacated, sicne eveybody within the company has already gotten used to the previous employee filling the job in exactly the way that the previosu employee filled the job.
However, everybody is different, and (in the spirit of innovation) should not be expected to color within the lines (I always had trouble with that when I was a kid). Especially in a small business, where few (if any) of the employees are as specialized as the average cubicle farmer, it’s important to use every hiring opportunity to find people who not only fit the necessary qualifications, but also have an interest in taking an active part in the company.
Frequently, it’s discussed that one question a company is trying to answer over the course of the interview is “what will you bring to insert company name here?” Large companies already know what they want. They’ve been solving the same problems for so many years with the same solutions that a new hire is not going to be able to rock the boat unless specifically engaged to do so. A small company or one that is seriously engaged in the spirit of innovation, on the other hand, is constantly encountering and solving new problems (and creating new ones as a result), so there’s always opportunity for new perspectives and new people to provide new solutions to move the company forward.
Lots of people have guidelines they use when hiring that are more like heuristics than useful techniques (one I’ve heard was “I don’t hire .NET programmers because they don’t know how to think like programmers — just how to solve problems that Microsoft has already solved using tools that Microsoft has used to solve them”), but few (if any) outright ignore the expected qualifications during the interview (once someone’s applied, the chances are pretty good that they meet the qualifications) and focus on how much the candidate enjoys doing cool things with their qualifications and solving new problems.
In the end, the curious and inquisitive types are the people who drive innovation and it’s really not fair to force them to operate in a box. Without a certain level of expectations, the work that actually needs to get done is in jeopardy, but employees shouldn’t be limited to only doing the tasks that are listed in their job description. I make a point to encourage everyone that I work with to go above and beyond their job description. If you get an idea and are interested in it, pursue it. Small, innovative companies haven’t answered all the questions yet, mainly because they haven’t found all the questions yet. In the end, if everybody just does what will eventually need to get done, everything gets done a lot quicker and more efficiently.