Conflicting Priorities from Principals

               Instances when agents have two principals with conflicting priorities can be troubling and complicated. Issues of power often come into play, and depending on the situation, ethics could factor in as well. By nature of the situation, there’s no one right answer in these cases, although there are some ways of handling the situation that are better than others.

               One specific instance that’s happened to me multiple times is when someone asks me what it’s like working at a company they’re interested in applying for. The company would prefer that I speak highly of them and would rate my performance as good if I painted a great picture of what it’s like to work there. The friend would prefer that I was honest, and talked both about the positives and negatives of working for that company so that they can make an informed decision. In these situations, my actions affect me personally as well – my credibility is at stake if I’m dishonest, but if my employer heard me speaking about the company in a bad light, that could have negative effects on my career.

               As I said, there’s no right answer here. However, from taking different courses of action in the past I’ve found that some strategies work better than others. Things tend not to work well when I oversell a company. In this case, students who aren’t a good fit for the company apply and there’s a mismatch between what the student wants and what the company provides, and that isn’t good for either party. Students also tend to take my advice in these situations less seriously afterward. While I satisfied the company’s short term goals of maintaining a positive reputation on our campus, I’ve failed their long term goal of recruiting good students that fit in well with the culture.

               In cases where I’m honest about both the features and pitfalls of an organization, some students that I talk to are dissuaded from pursuing that company, which might not be good for the company in the short term. The candidate appreciates it, though, because they don’t waste resources on a company that wouldn’t be a good fit for them long term.

               There are ways of handling the situation in between these extremes – like being honest but putting a positive spin on things, or simply not giving advice on it at all since I’m a biased source – and some of those can be effective as well. If there’s a way to handle these kinds of situations where both parties benefit (and especially where there’s the most possible social benefit), that would be preferred to a case where one principal gets exactly what they want and the other loses out. In cases where one principal wins and the other loses, outside factors about the specific situation would have to come into play.