I know that there is a preselected candidate for a position to be filled at my department. What should I do?
One important consideration that you should take into account is whether there is an actual case of nepotism or not. Nepotism is if the preferred candidate is objectively inferior to at least one other candidate from all the information that is accessible to the selection committee. Or, in other words, if the head of the department is willingly hiring a worse candidate because they like them better, owe a favor to somebody, or have some other invalid reason to give one candidate preferential treatment.
The problem is that many "not really open" open positions aren't actually like that. In practice, what I often see as the main reason why a department or selection committee quickly zeroes in on a specific candidate is that they know much more about one candidate than about the others.
The most typical example is as such: There is an open search procedure, and a number of external candidates apply plus Alice, a candidate that has worked tightly with members of the department before, and which has been explicitly invited to apply. What you now see is a tremendous information asymmetry - the department knows little about the external candidates, but before they even open Alice's application folder they already have a great deal of information about Alice. They know what she can and can't do. Where other candidate's past successes are just a line in a CV to the committee, for Alice they know the full story, how she achieved them, what she has learned from them, and how this would help her be effective in her new position.
Recruitment is always a risky proposition, in academia just as in industry. We all have seen candidates that looked great on paper but turned out unsuitable for reasons that were impossible to glean from an application package. Faculty visits help, but how much can you really learn about a person in one or two days, especially in a somewhat artificial and often strongly rehearsed environment? In this situation, a risk-averse committee (and, realistically, this is basically every committee) has a strong incentive to go with Alice over a candidate that may have a slightly stronger CV, but also a much higher margin of error. As a consequence, a committee may prefer the "known candidate" Alice despite her weaker CV for completely rational reasons (which makes it different to nepotism). In essence, them doing so may be the optimal move for them given the information they have and how much they are willing to risk.
What should I do?
Depending on how close you are to your boss, I would carefully try to find out why they prefer one candidate so much over the others (i.e., talk with them about it). It is completely possible that you may find that their reason is solid given the information that they have. Even if you disagree with their reasoning, understanding it may make the situation easier to accept for you. And if it turns out that there actually is a clear-cut case of nepotism (your boss knows the selected candidate is inferior, but decides to select them anyway), you have a much, much clearer argument for any potential whistleblowing.
It seems that you object to rule breaking and want to stop it. You have two problems here:
- The rule has not been broken yet. It is only broken once the preselected candidate is hired.
- It is very difficult to prove the preselection occurred. As you said, the system ensures all candidates are judged the same way. Probably the hiring records will show that.
I see no point in whistle blowing until the preselected candidate has been hired. Even then, I see little point in whistle blowing without clear evidence that someone has committed misconduct. I do not think you will get that evidence.
The reality is that it is impossible to prevent people from forming opinions before they get all the facts. As a result, hiring committees will always have preferences before they read the applications. You just have to hope they are open to changing their minds when they get new facts.
There is nothing you can do to help your acquaintance at this point. If you are correct, their time has already been wasted and it cannot come back.
Unfortunately it is common practice in many countries that the advertisement of a position (which is required by law) is the last step of a hiring process instead of the first step. See for example this recent article in Nature “Job vacancies posted after being filled: it’s time to stop wasting everyone’s time”. So you are definitely not alone in this situation and I have by myself applied for several position where I had much better achievements than the pre-selected candidate in pretty much every category and I did not even make it to the interview or the interview (for a permanent positon) was a 15-min joke where I did not even get the chance to present my research ideas (quote “No need – we see this from your written application anyway”).
In your specific situation the question is if you actually have hard evidence:
- Did the list you found in the printer contain a written statement that these candidates are never going to get the position or was it just a list of name without further comment? If so: is there a printer log that you can take a photo of showing that this document actually came from someone on the hiring panel?
- “My boss explicitly said that she wants this person in a conversation with me and others” - Are the other persons willing to act as witnesses? If it is only you (and your contract will not be extended) they might just say that you want to take revenge.
Only if you are sure that one of the two options above will absolutely hold then you can consider reporting it. In a second step you can weight your arguments above if you should do it. But the second step is a personal decision of yours then (where other persons cannot really help you) while the first step is purely based on the fact if you have evidence hard enough or not.
One more thing: as stated in the earlier answer you should only report it once the "crime" has been committed i.e. the candidate was officially selected.