Adding to my previous post, now that I’ve watched both the Nevada and South Carolina Democratic primary debates.
The debate format is terrible for many reasons, but from my professional perspective, the problem is that it bears no resemblance to the actual duties of the job. I learned more about the culinary philosophy differences of Chef Fernanda vs Chef Brittany while watching “Chopped” in a pub last week.
Which gives me an idea: If we must have a televised spectacle, let’s incorporate a final-round interview best practice, the “realistic job preview”, into a reality-show episode for each candidate.
A potential setup: Give each candidate a scenario, a panel of 5 experts, and a time limit. They don’t get to choose the experts; however, they decide how to consult the experts and for how long (within the time limit). When their time is up, they share their solution to the scenario problem, and explain how they arrived at the solution.
I’ll leave it to the executive producers to design a judging scheme for each episode. What I care about is that voters would have better insight into how each candidate would behave while on the job.