It’s not fair for Chiefs offensive coordinator Eric Bieniemy to have to explain why Bieniemy was offered none of the seven head-coaching vacancies filled last month by NFL teams. Bieniemy doesn’t know why he didn’t get one of the jobs.
Ultimately, the people who didn’t hire him should be the ones to answer those questions. Publicly, that likely won’t happen. Privately, it quite possibly will.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid plans to ask those questions.
“I did have the opportunity to talk to a lot of the either owners or General Managers that worked to interview him, presidents and so on,” Reid told reporters on Tuesday regarding Bieniemy, via James Palmer of NFL Media. “So I’ll be curious to hear their comments about how he did or why he wasn’t picked.”
Reid’s curiosity amplifies a point that an executive from a team that wasn’t hiring a coach or a G.M. made recently. For all minority candidates who don’t get hired, the decision-makers should be required to provide direct feedback explaining why the candidate wasn’t hired.
It could be done anonymously, with an online survey process that promotes candor regarding the things the team liked and didn’t like about the candidate. The feedback could be extremely valuable to the candidates, who could then address any perceived deficiencies for future hiring consideration.
If interviews of minority candidates are required in part to give minority candidates experience at interviewing, the experience has far less meaning without feedback. If, as some continue to suggest, Bieniemy didn’t get a job because he doesn’t “interview well,” give him some specifics as to what it is that causes people to come to that conclusion.