Two Reasons Why HR Stinks (and How to Fix It)
Source: EvilHRLady
By Suzanne Lucas
An acquaintance just got her first job after being a stay-at-home mom for many years. She’s a recruiter. Salary? $10 an hour.
Take that in for a minute.
She could make more money working fast food, yet a company is trusting her to be part of finding the best possible candidates for their company, and they only value her work at $10 an hour.
That’s problem number one. Inexperienced and untrained people recruiting for you will offer a less than great candidate experience. A less than great recruiting experience puts off good candidates and reinforces the notion that HR doesn’t know what they are doing.
Nick’s take
Those recruiters in the HR department of the company where you want to work — those officious people who control whether you get interviewed for that job you want… they get paid what?? Wait’ll you read what Suzanne Lucas says about their bosses in the HR department.
Now do you get it? Now, how much do you guess the last recruiter you spoke with gets paid?
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I am not surprised. In many companies, HR is filled with drones with essentially no autonomy to make decisions outside of a predertmined matrix designed by bureaucrats. No incentives to hire well. Do they get compensated for hires that stay a year or are promoted rapidly?
Just following the recipe, same as MacDonalds. Of course they are paid minimally.
I was once interviewed by a low level HR person that didn’t know anything about the job skills needed, company benefits, or what was required to do the job. I was asked useless questions. I was dumfounded. Received a letter a few weeks later that said I wasn’t qualified. I fired back a letter to HR complaining about the interviewer and said I would never recommend this company or ever want to work there. Company is still in business, but is a revolving door.
I once had an interview with an HR person who’d worked at the company for 6 months and didn’t have any clue about the work. I actually had to explain some of the terminology and abbreviations I was using that were common to the job/industry.
Like you, I was told I was unqualified.
Sadly, this story replays countless times in companies everywhere. While some employers have strict standards about who gets to talk with a job applicant, most throw their greenest HR clerks at even the most skilled and specialized job applicants — and the company’s name turns to mud. The companies don’t even know it has led to them getting trashed in the professional communities they need to recruit from.
I don’t rely on the HR applicant system to find job candidates. I am always interviewing competent and interesting people for potential jobs. If I have a job open, I contact people I interviewed in the past 6 months and tell them about the job. 75% of the time they are interested. The process takes 2 weeks and there isn’t any ghosting. I speak with all candidates directly and do not use email. If you want to hire thoroughbreds, you must treat candidates like thoroughbreds. Donkeys are plentiful but they will never win the race.
In 2003, I had a phone screening interview with a big oil service company, where the interviewer only fired of the usual crib sheet questions, seeming o take notes, without even following up the answers, just jumping to the next question.
Long silence, fired off an email, got “you are still on the short list” back. Never heard anything more, so supposedly they just need 17 years to make up their mind?
HR is loaded up with drones with basically no independence to settle on choices outside of a foreordained network planned by officials. No motivating forces to enlist well