Seems to me people that have a job title where the first letter begins with "C" and rhymes with "Reef" are given a much wider berth when it comes to the types of thing that would get the average worker thoroughly passed over in job screenings.
As an aside - I've always heard "to give a wide berth" used in the same sense as "keep at arms' length" or even "wouldn't touch with a barge pole". I'm curious as to whether it's also commonly used in this sense?
Interestingly, the way I'd phrase this case is to "give them more leeway" which is a closely related nautical term but seems to be used the opposite.
Edit: Thinking about it, I guess to "give them more leeway" is to give them more room to maneuver, while "give a wide berth" is to give yourself more room.
They have already been selected specifically. This is different from the average worker who came out of a stack of resumes that needed to be whittled down fast.
