Well, for starters there was no goddamn HR department involved…
Heh.
But yeah, HR are mainly idiots. One time I sent in my CV and got a call back from the HR manager and her undertroll. Undertroll asks me “So, do you have any non-contentious experience?”
Me: … [silence]… [shit, they haven’t even looked at my resume. Either that or they don’t even understand it…] 
Troll: Um, non-contentious means ‘outside of litigation’…
Me: … [oh fuck no. Troll thinks I don’t know what ‘non-contentious’ means. She’s trying to school me. :eek: But it’s written all over my resume. 90% of my experience is non-contentious - it says so right at the top.:o]
Yeah I could have handled it better, I know, but I was in genuine in shock at their idiocy.
Most business schools have either MS degrees, MBA concentrations, or PhD degrees in the usual business aspects- operations, finance, accounting, IT, and marketing.
HR isn’t nearly so common, and I’ve never even heard of a sales MS or MBA or PhD.
I’d say that’s pretty telling.
I wrote a long post but deleted it. Not worth it.
I’m an HR professional, who wanted to be one, who has a legit master’s degree in HR management, and all you people bitching about HR - you guys don’t have a fuckin’ clue.
I will say that at my company, HR legitimately does NOT play a part in hiring, it really is up to the hiring manager beyond the automatic disqualification during the online application process if you fuck up and can’t figure out how to answer the questions to not have your app kicked out.
So go ahead and keep saying all HR people are dumb, we couldn’t get jobs anywhere else, we’re all assholes, you’re better than us, whatever. I work really fucking hard every day making sure fuckers like you get paid on time, have benefits, your taxes are right, all the work that flows through the company can flow properly, people are where they are supposed to be, and people just make me do more and complain and bitch because they fucked something up or they can’t do shit for themselves. So I just work harder and take on more to make sure the company is functioning. So keep hating. Keep saying all HR is stupid because you don’t actually have a clue what HR really does, not everywhere. Maybe your HR person is a fucktard but I’m not. And I’ve met a LOT of HR people, a few were kind of re-re (but overall I think most people in general are kind of dumb), but most were pretty damn sharp. Maybe you guys just work at shitty companies? Or are lying?
Just out of curiosity, how do you know these things? Where you standing in the office when somebody said “Throw every application without a cover letter in the garbage unread”? Or did you get a letter from an HR department saying “We just wanted to inform you that your application was discarded because we didn’t like the font”?
Or maybe it was one of those HR morons who thinks nessesary is spelled with a c.
I’m not saying HR people are perfect and never make mistakes. Or even never act arbitrarily or lazily or spitefully. But I do think it’s possible that on a few occasions, there are applicants who need to consider that maybe they’re not the special little snowflake they think they are. Maybe two hundred people applied for the same job and the HR office sorted out the twenty best applications for the hiring team to look over - and half of the 180 who didn’t make the cut are convinced the HR idiots must have had some stupid reason like the wrong paper for cutting them.
Well of course. I don’t think anyone is claiming that every single HR rep is incompetent and lazy to a man. At the same time, I’ve been around to see HR do lots of inexcusably stupid things. Maybe it’s the type of people who tend to be attracted to the field, maybe it’s that HR reps are in an impossible position and shouldn’t be a part of the initial hiring process, maybe other factors or a combination of these. But there’s something really messed about HR at a lot of companies.
I work in IT and help desk. The stereotype of the arrogant, socially-awkward technician comes from somewhere. A lot of people (myself even included, from time to time) need to have a little more perspective and patience. That doesn’t mean we’re all horrible human beings who fuck up everything. But I think there is definitely something to the stereotype of the HR rep who is hiring for a job that they don’t understand by applying a set of standards no reasonable person in the field would accept. And I guess from my perspective, it’s one thing if someone isn’t quite as nice about changing your password for the fifth time as you’d like, and another when you miss out on a job that you’re qualified for because an HR rep didn’t pass along your resume to the hiring manager for no good reason. 
I am not in HR, but I did spend 8 hours reading resumes today. We have a position open that’s pretty basic admin. It’s part time, but pays better than unemployment and includes benefits. Also the organization is a pretty cool place to work.
Only a third of the resumes in the stack were worth the time it took to read them, the rest were crap.
Honestly if your objective says you’re looking for a specific job that has nothing to do with the one you’re applying for, or you mention that you’re very detail orientated, or if you have plenty of good experience but have never kept any job for more than a year, I don’t feel any responsibility to call and tell you that you suck.
At this point I’m ready to toss any resume that contains the word utilize.
That is the most retarded fucking thing I’ve every read in my entire life. And I used to work with the retarded.
Various boards where dudes who claim to be HR have said those very things. In fact some have said those sort of things here. I have also attended job teams where HR dudes have said this in person.
But they likely didn’t pick the best 20, that’s my point. Sure, half of those who applied were likely completely unqualified, but too many HR types would eliminate the other 80 simply based upon silly secret criteria- which means that the actual hiring team may miss some of the very best qualified as they used the wrong kind of paper or font or something.:rolleyes: That’s bad for the company- and the shareholders too.
Sure, no doubt.
Numbers added so I can address them point by point:
- Ok.
- What’s wrong with being detail oriented?
- Today, that’s not so weird.
Do it. Doooo eeeeeet.
- Ok!
- read it again
- Can you help me figure out why? There are some pretty good ones in the maybe pile because a year or less over and over makes me nervous.
-
Ah, a typo. Meh.
-
Lots of temp jobs and companies randomly downsizing due to the economy (or because the CEO and BoD have figured out that Wall Street often rewards companies that announce a downsizing with a stock price bump. ) The days of 30 years, then a gold watch and a full pension are gone in the private sector.
Mind you it could be a danger sign, but a couple of those in the last few years is nothing to worry about.
I don’t really understand this thread.
Where I work, HR has very little to do with hiring. I barely remember them being involved at all.
In my time at the company, I have had far more dealings with HR when I had issues with regards to benefits, payroll, etc. They’ve always been very responsive.
In that respect they are far better than, say, IT. When I have computer problems it’s a crapshoot about when they’re going to get resolved.
Fine, you push paper and do our benefits. *Stay the fuck out of the hiring process. *HR people don’t know shit about technical backgrounds, just like I don’t know anything about W4 forms and maintaining health insurance programs. The reason you get a lot of ire in your profession is because you get experiences like mine, where every HR woman (and it’s 95% women) is an emotional condescending twatface who thinks she’s SO much more important than the lowly Resources she manages. If you bothered to read the thread there’s many examples of HR being in charge of hiring for positions they know nothing about. Sure it doesn’t happen like that at your company, but that’s the minority.
Sure. Many jobs are temporary, contract based, or were simply downsized. After that you have folks who consistently moved laterally or upward as their (usually young) careers have progressed. A little farther down the line are those who simply had the means to move around a lot gaining experience if the personalities didn’t work out. It’s not at all unusual any longer for a younger, very skilled person to move about loads the first ten years of their serious working life. Some continue it even longer, as they are having families later and don’t have ties to keep them grounded. Many are simply looking for a company that is a good fit for them, one that treats them well, manages in a style that is clear to them and allows them freedom to actually DO their job rather than rubber stamping paperwork.
Take a look at the actual experience, it only needs a glance to see if it’s worth a deeper reading.
Careful. That kind of sexist remark is gonna get you reported to the emotional condescending twatfaces at HR.
Well then settle down, we’re not talking about you. We’re talking about HR who involves themselves in hiring.
I have worked in places where HR was firmly instructed not to screen resumes, ever, because they did such a pathetic, ridiculous job of it, that the manager would rather page through every single one than rely on their half-wit judgement.
Looks to me like there’s a lot of broad-brush tarring against HR here. When I was an HR manager, my biggest fight was with the other department managers because they refused to grasp concepts such as fairness in hiring, not turning down a qualified applicant for a position in favor of their niece’s brother-in-law’s second cousin thrice removed who happens to miraculously be available for every freaking open position at the company although he’s “the best fit for this job (even though he’s totally unqualified) and will be snapped up by another firm if we don’t hire him now” or even the simple concept of not getting sued for violating equal opportunity laws. Scoff all you want; however, Human Resources protects the firm by monitoring that kind of stupidity.
And it’s not HR’s responsibility (at least, not anywhere I’ve worked) to send out a thank you letter. That honor falls to the manager of the department looking to fill the position. I do recall more than a few places to which I sent my own resume or job application informing me up-front that they would not be contacting me unless I were in the running for a position. They even gave a time line for that.
I did get contacted by one person whose resume I threw away. Actually, his best friend who was one of the department managers contacted me about it. I told him that I threw the thing in the trash. My fellow manager was stunned that (a) I did that and (b) told him I did. My reason: the resume had three major strikes. Strike one: written in pencil. Strike two: the spelling and grammar of the cover sheet looked as though it had been scribbled by a semi-literate five-year old. Strike three: the cover sheet was addressed to me with my full name but prefaced by “Mrs.” although my full name is obviously a male’s name and, of course, the applicant’s best friend (the aforementioned manager) knew me so it wasn’t a secret that I’m not a female. I told that manager that his friend needs to submit a professional resume.
Here’s what the resume tracking (for professional quality resumes, of course) consisted of:
[ol][li]Enter applicant’s name and job applied for into database.[/li][li]Forward resume (minus personal identifying information such as surname and date of birth) to appropriate department.[/li][li]Inform department at designated time (set by company policy or the time stated in the job announcement) to submit manager’s short list of candidates to HR.[/li][li]Contact those applicants to arrange interview.[/li][li]After interviews are conducted by the appropriate department manager, said manager submits final list of contenders for position to HR along with report of interviews.[/li][li]HR reviews report of interview and resume to determine if there are any legal or policy violations in the selection.[/li][li]HR sends final sort list to company director (it was a small company) who then approved the hiring of an applicant.[/ol][/li]
I’m sure other firms do their screening differently but the rationale is the same: protect the firm and fill the position with an actually qualified person. You might even be interested in knowing that by protecting the firm, HR is protecting the jobs of everyone at the firm. As with so many other things done in the corporate world today, a lot of policies are the result of legal actions that have wiped out other firms.