I’d say it depends on the company. Yes, we typically forward resumes onto the hiring managers. If a candidate doesn’t pass a drug test, and their resume fits the position, then there is no reason for us to not pass on a resume.
As to looking at resumes, I can’t say for what you’ve experienced. For the two companies that I worked for, we scanned all the resumes. We did not ‘randomly’ throw out resumes. YMMV, obviously.
I have heard that this is what government HR systems do (the random word search), but I have no actual experience with this.
Further, at the companies I’ve worked for, the HR team is in coordination with compensation to create the job descriptions and positions. Generally the HR team knows what the hiring manager is looking for.
I specifically went into HR because I wanted to work with people (and employees and a host of other reasons). I’m actually an HR analyst, so I work with HRIS systems. I went from Cost accounting to HR precisely because there was no (or rather, very little) human element in accounting.
So it wasn’t that there wasn’t anything better to do.
Then again, this attitude isn’t surprising since most people don’t actually know what HR people do. My organization has been pushing to inform the employees as to the various things we do, so I can only imagine that if it effects our company it effects other companies.
Do you honestly think that the HR department doesn’t get information from the hiring managers about what the position entails?
Do you think this is how business works? Seriously?
I suppose it’s possible, there are messed up companies out there, but I have yet to work in them. Even when I worked for a small company, I had to go to the hiring manager to have them fill out the position rec. I never just made up job titles and such.
The reason we get a lot of ire in our profession is because people don’t know what we do. They think we pick the candidate to hire and that the hiring manager has nothing (or very little) to do with the process.
I just realized this is misleading - if a candidate doesn’t pass a drug test they won’t get the job. We don’t require a drug test in order for our hiring managers to look at your resume.
Basically, what happens is this:
Hiring manager needs a position.
Hiring manager gets authorization to post a position.
Hiring manager provides recruiting with position details.
Staffing coordinator puts up position on various employment websites (and our internal website).
We get 100 resumes (easily).
Recruiting provides hiring manager with resumes.
Hiring manager picks resumes of the people they want to interview.
Interviews ensue.
Hiring manager says “Joe is our guy”.
Staffing coordinator sends Joe forms and tells Joe to get a drug test.
Staffing coordinator monitors background/drug test.
When everything is a go, Staffing coordinator sends out offer letter.
Employee accepts and sends it back.
At my prior position, I conducted interviews and reviewed resumes. I gave my input, but the hiring manager still had to conduct interviews and review resumes as well.
That’s great. This company will succeed. In my experience trying to connect new graduates with jobs in their field, here is how it frequently goes:
Manager/Director wants a new entry-level person in their department.
Sends request to Hiring department of HR
Hiring department checks to see if this is OK with HR director
HR director checks with VP Finance
HR Director submits approval to HR staff
<file lost at this point, return to #1>
Posting finally sent out after 3 months
Applications received
Applications sent to junior HR staff member for screening; does not even vaguely understand what the position requires. Shitcans resumes without “Squills”. Shitcans resumes on plain paper. Does not realize that her own printer contains plain paper, and the resumes were printed on her own printer.
<return to #6 and Send out re-posting since “there were no qualified candidates”>
Screen out more candidates based on questionable reasons.
File sits on desk in HR for 3 weeks while person goes on vacation
Qualified applicants sent to manager
Interview times set
Most good applicants have job already, since it has taken 3 months; return to #6 or interview remaining candidate
Interview takes place by someone in company who has never even seen the resumes.
Candidate selected! Goes to HR Director for approval
HR Director on holidays. Delay 2 weeks
HR Director reports to Manager/Director that a candidate has been selected.
Offer made to candidate; 50% chance they have already accepted another job; of so, return to #6
I’m sure they do receive information. Many times they do not understand it, particularly if the position is technical in nature. Most people in HR avoided any technical courses like the plague; expecting them to be able to ascertain the abilities of technical candidates is akin to expecting a pig to be able to sing an aria.
Why would they do that? You do realize that recruiters want to fill positions, right? That time-to-fill is an important metric? That they actually want to hire qualified people so that they don’t end up in the same process 3 months from now?
You think?
That’s brilliant! We could have one side be Staffing and Recruitment, and then a separate department for Compensation, Benefits, Employee Relations, Labor Relations…IOW, see above. A lot of HR departments do work that way.
Here’s a question. If you can’t even convince the non-technical HR rep that you are technically competant to perform a job, how do you expect to convince the hiring manager?
Also, there’s more to a job than mere “technical requirements”. I’m also looking at resumes for analysts and managers. They can probably all do the job from a technical standpoint. I need to pick candidates who I think will fit in with the company’s culture.
I had once resume, the guy is litterally a rocket scientist. He spent a year working at Goldman Sachs. Then a year at Mckinsey. Another year at a hedge fund. Another year at some equally impressive place. Another year doing something else. I’m pretty sure if I hire this guy, I’m going to being hiring his replacement in a year.
So when the hiring manager gets a bunch of unqualified candidates, what do you think happens? He/She just shrugs and says, I guess I’ll just have to pick the best of the worst?
Here’s an answer: If you remain clueless to the technical requirements of a job how do you tell the difference between the candidate that knows his stuff and expresses himself poorly and a candidate that marginally understands the subject but can throw out some smooth buzzwords?
And Meatros the manager doesn’t get a list of unqualified candidates. He gets a list of marginally qualified candidates that he assumes are the only ones available. The best candidates were probably weeded out due to their inability to convert SQL to squill.
My best HR interview experience -
For my first job out of college I had an advantage since the market had 135 jobs for every 100 graduates. As a candidate I had the luxury of requesting that my questions concerning the job were answered properly. The clueless HR rep that screened me kept asking me beauty queen questions (Like if you could change something about your personality what would it be?) I ignored her questions and kept asking her about the specifics of the job which she reluctantly read to me from her notebook.
She reported to the hiring manager that I was polite but somewhat hostile to her questions. The manager said that he hired me in part due to my ability to quickly recognize that the HR rep was a chucklehead.
So IYO, the hiring manager does essentially shrug their shoulders and settles for less. IYO, the hiring manager has no inclination that something might be wrong? There are no such things as reprimands or poor performance reviews for anyone in HR?
I don’t doubt that this occurs at some places. I don’t think I’d like to work in a place where that attitude was present - what does it say about your potential boss? The idea that it’s common place is a bit hard to swallow.
I can’t really say much to this experience. It does seem odd to me that you would refer to the questions as ‘beauty queen’ questions and that you ‘ignored her questions’. Do you think that her assessment of you as ‘polite but somewhat hostile’ was inaccurate?
You realize that your job, most likely, does involve interacting with other people, right?
I’m rereading this and the conclusions that I come to are these:
You perceive yourself as marginal, yet able to spit out the buzz words (thus securing the interview with the Hiring Manager).
You don’t perceive yourself as marginal (you perceive yourself as a good catch), you can’t spit out the buzz words, yet you got the interview with the Hiring Manager anyway.
I’ll be charitable and say that:
It seems that your own example undermines the contention that the hiring manager only gets marginal applicants.
Why wouldn’t the hiring manager complain to the head of HR/Recruiting? If a hiring manager accepts that kind of poor screening from the recruiter with whom they’re partnered, well, that’s partially on that hiring manager.
This quote reminds me of the most annoying thing to me about the hiring process. Nowadays, it seems that the first qualification every employer is looking for is salesmanship. They look for people who are good cheerleaders for themselves first, only secondarily looking at their ability to do the job.
I’m lousy at tooting my own horn. Most of the time, I feel this makes me easier to get along with than an inveterate bragger.
Not every job is in sales, so it bothers me that I’m disadvantaged by my inability to sell stuff (myself) to the company. I don’t need that in the job, so why is it the most important thing they seem to be looking for?
That’s just flat out untrue. It depends entirely on what the “stuff” actually is. I’ll give you a case in point: One of my old housemates currently manages the IT department for a very well known company. He also has severe dyslexia, and his writing skills are well below average. Yet he manages the department impeccably, and for at least two days a week he has to run the entire show almost single-handedly. He can’t express himself on paper worth a damn, and in fact I had to help him write his resume, but he’s very smart, very hard working, and has earned numerous promotions, plaudits, and bonuses since he was first hired five years ago as an assistant technician. Communication skills are important, but they’re hardly the be all and end all of everything.
Any sense of yourself as a decent and worthwhile human being is an hindrance to a successsful job search! It’s not enough to CONCEAL your anger when you get kicked around by HR Departments and the job market, you must not FEEL anger, you must feel LOVE! Now, how many fingers am I holding up? You see three? I am holding up FOUR fingers, and you will not be holding a job until you SEE those four fingers, when I say they are there!
