We often cannot afford to conduct a fair selection/resource allocation/evaluation process. We use heuristics to help us reach good-enough decisions. We rely on information that we cannot justify relying upon, and we bring all kinds of assumptions and prejudices that we do not want anyone to know. We might also be bound by law to value certain values that we might not care about.
So, we offer guidelines or instructions to the applicants that reflect what a fair process looks like, but has little to do with the actual process (unless perhaps superficially). That’s, perhaps, why we often omit explaining our decisions to the applicants.
We need to figure out why we are using the process that we are using, understand why it actually works fine, refine it, and explain it to the applicants. We will get more of what we want, rather than more of those who have more experience with applying.