Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)—yes, the composer of the Brandenburg Concertos—entered Leipzig not with a fanfare of trumpets but with something closer to a municipal shrug. After Telemann (1681–1767) and Graupner (1683–1760) had both leveraged the role to negotiate better terms of employment where they were, a city councillor recorded the now-famous verdict: "As the best men are not available, a mediocre one [mittelmäßiger] will have to be accepted." Bach, of course, proceeded to rebuild the musical life of Lutheran Germany with the serene ruthlessness of a master craftsman. The episode is a usefully awkward parable for contemporary hiring. Councillors then, like hiring managers now, went unicorn-spotting. They drew up baroque wish lists—pun intended—and, in doing so, almost missed the person whose output would define not just the role, but Western music for centuries to come.
What this episode shows, is that chasing a perfect fit is an error of judgment disguised as diligence. It often confuses signalling with substance, selects for appearances over capability, and rewards likeness at the expense of excellence.
The Unicorn the Council Couldn't Catch
Leipzig's selection committee behaved rationally, if narrowly. If the story sounds familiar, that's because it is. Organisations still prefer the luminary whose availability flatters the hiring manager's brief and arouses your competitor's envy. When that fails, the search continues for someone exactly like the luminary—but cheaper. The modern job description has thus become an exercise in corporate arrogance: 14 must-have skills, the ability to deliver "immediate strategic impact", yet for a salary that might be charitably described as hand-to-mouth.
The modern fable is that in thin information environments, where very few people have preexisting knowledge of the candidate, signals are having ever more stress put on them as managers try to bridge the gap. Signalling has its uses, but it takes on sinister overtones when organisations start designing roles to maximise signal purity rather than gaining a profound understanding of whether the candidates likely output will be of long term organisational value. Strong signals are not always strong instruments. They are, at best, proxies—and sometimes no better than baubles.
When talent managers and HR seek fit, they often select for behavioural fluency in interview settings—what is technically call method variance—rather than assessing the capability to do the work. Hence the enduring superiority of work-sample tests: "do the work, then let's talk". Bach's audition cantata—BWV 22—was, in effect an eighteenth-century work sample.
