In March 2004, with the U.S presidential compaign heating up, President Bush’s White House team made what would seem to be a questionalbe hiring decision. It’s not clear how much screening they did, or who did it, but almost as soon as the White House recommended Nebraska business executive Tony Raimondo to be the administration’s assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing (manufacturing czar”), Mr. Raimondo had to withdraw his name from consideration.

The candidate withdrew his name after blistering critisim from Democratic nominee John Kerry, Among other things, the president’s manufacturing czar was supposed to develop strategies for beefing up U.S manufacturing capacity and creating more manufactring jobs in the U.S, but it turned out that Mr. Raimondo ran Nebraska’s manufacturing business that had set up plants in China, and outsourced a portion of his company’s jobs there. Senator Kerry said Mr. Raimondo therfore hardly seemed like the ideal person to champion keeping jobs in the United States.

1. What should this position’s job description look like?
2. What are the ideal job specifications for the person in tis position?
3. How should we have gone about recruiting and screening for this position? What selection tools, specifically, would you use?
4. Where do you think we went wrong?