Edited from www.workforce.com
By Shari Caudron
Date published: 19.2.2003
Why Job Applicants Hate HR
Craig Goudy is a software developer in Denver who, like many other IT
professionals, was recently laid off. He's 45, articulate, and passionate
about his work, and he has over 20 years of broad business experience that
includes stints in finance, marketing, and public relations. You'd think
that finding a job would be a snap for someone with his experience and
enthusiasm, right? It probably would be if he could get HR professionals to
listen to him. But during a three-week period in April, Goudy made five
cold calls a day to HR people in companies he knows are hiring. "I call
them not only to give them a sense of who I am and what my experience is,
but also to find out the best way to approach their company from an
employment perspective."
To date, he's made about 80 calls, and well over half the HR people he
talked to seemed desperate to get off the phone, and only two took the time
to meet with him in person. "I'm amazed at how short they can be," he
explains. "It's almost as if a job-seeker like myself is a detriment to
what they are trying to accomplish."
How times have changed. Two years ago, HR professionals were on their knees
like beggars at the Vatican, tugging at the pant legs of any qualified job
candidates. With unemployment at record lows, companies were so humbled by
the need for workers that they were willing to do whatever it took to
entice worthy applicants. Now that the labor market has opened up, the
power has shifted, and HR is acting like an arrogant prince stepping around
the unwashed masses. Job-seekers are a burden, the flood of r�sum�s a
distraction, and cold calls from candidates are viewed with as much
eagerness as a telemarketer at dinnertime. At least, that's the perspective
of today's job-seekers.
Most HR people know the economy is bad and there are lots of people
looking. Because of this, they feel it's okay to jerk people around. This
isn't as much of an overstatement as it may sound. Talk to job-seekers
today (especially in heavily downsized industries such as high-tech and
telecommunications) and you'll discover they are so fed up with the
perceived arrogance, disrespect, and ineffectiveness of HR that they are
doing everything they can to avoid the function altogether. The perception
is "If you want to get work, the trick is getting around HR."
People are saying things like "I'm sending r�sum�s out to companies and
trying to avoid sending them into the HR black hole," which reveals the
depths of the job-seeker's despair. People refer to HR professionals as
"clueless pinheads who are overwhelmed," and "on power trips," and
apparently, "Job applicants will always have a better chance of being hired
by avoiding HR."
These complaints are supported by Peter Drucker, who believes that hiring
is one of the least effective corporate functions. "By and large,
executives make poor promotion and staffing decisions," he writes in The
Essential Drucker, (Harper Business, 2001). "By all accounts, their batting
average is no better than 0.333; at most, one-third of such decisions turn
out right, a third are minimally effective, and one-third are outright
failures."
Some believe the batting average is even worse, although to be fair, it's
not that easy to be a recruiter today. Because of the depressed economy, HR
departments are under enormous pressure, and many HR staffs have been
downsized. Thus, at the same time that more people are looking for work,
there are fewer HR professionals to field r�sum�s and focus on the best
candidates. Job candidates aren't making the process any easier, and often
well-known companies find themselves overwhelmed with r�sum�s, 95 percent
of which were from people who clearly weren't qualified.
Despite these challenges, an HR person who is seeking to become more
strategic would be well advised to understand the job-seeker's complaints.
Why? Because the labor pool, although abundant now, is going to tighten up
again in the very near future. Simply put, the people you scorn today may
be the ones you covet tomorrow. Furthermore, a job candidate you treat
poorly now might eventually become a customer or a competitor. If you
disrespect people today during the hiring process, there is no reason to
believe they wouldn't look for an opportunity to return the "favour".
By looking at what's broken and understanding how to fix it, HR can begin
to reinvent the hiring process and, in turn, polish the function's image.
After all, if HR professionals are ever going to be taken seriously as
keepers of the corporate culture, they have to begin by getting the right
people in the door without alienating them in the process.
A plethora of complaints
People complain that HR professionals don't always understand the
requirements of open positions, and what a successful candidate looks like.
So how can HR improve its understanding of job requirements. Probably a
dual screening process in which a technical person evaluates a candidate's
technical background and competence, and an HR person screens for soft
skills and cultural fit. It is pointless for HR to look at buzzwords on a
r�sum� our technical guys understand what those words mean and they should
be doing the first assessment of candidates.
R�sum�s suck as a selection tool. They ignore a candidate's most
significant characteristic, and mislead HR into believing that a person's
past is their future.Over-reliance on r�sum�s often leads to tunnel vision
about a person's capabilities. R�sum�s are a screening-out tool, and the
main problem is that they put people into little boxes and give companies
reasons not to hire you. Instead of relying so heavily on r�sum�s,
profiling and screening tools are best alternatives to give recruiters a
much broader picture of a person's capabilities.
Some companies ask candidates to prepare "job proposals," which are, in
essence, a sales pitch where candidates tell employers what they are
passionate about and what they can do for them. Wouldn't it be better to
hire people based on how excited they are about working for you in the
future, rather than on what they did in the past?"
The frustration doesn't stop at the interview stage
Once a candidate makes it through the initial job-screening and snags an
interview, you'd think the frustrations with HR would end. Sadly, that's
not the case. If anything, from a job-seeker's point of view, the angst
only increases. Their chief complaints? A lack of internal coordination and
follow-up, which pretty much means dealing with HR has typically been a
dreadful experience.
One theory is that the lack of follow-up is disrespectful, an attitude that
is brought on by HR's low status in organizations. Typically, the higher up
you go in a company, the better you are treated. Maybe it's a
power-and-control issue. People who feel UNempowered in their own companies
often take it out on those who are lower than they are i.e., those
attempting to get a job.
Regardless of where the disrespect comes from, the fact remains that it can
do a lot of damage, both internally and externally. As an externally facing
function, HR needs to be well-versed in how to treat the public. They are
spokespeople for the company, and they set the tone for what kind of
company it is.
So how are candidates getting work?
Given these frustrations, it's no wonder that job candidates are doing
everything they can to avoid HR. Primarily, they're getting around the
function by networking with colleagues to learn who is hiring and then
calling hiring managers directly, which isn't a bad thing from an HR point
of view. If you really want to hire the best people, and those people are
trying to find jobs by networking with employees, why not provide
incentives for employees to make those referrals? By training managers to
conduct interviews with candidates, HR can minimize its negative impact on
the hiring process.
The point is that HR must do whatever it can, within the constraints of
limited resources, to improve the hiring function (and improve fast). In
the near future, the tables will turn and HR will once again be in the
beggar's shoes, and may remain there for a long, long time. The labour
market is always very tight. Without enough bodies to go around, the most
qualified candidates will be attracted to companies that treat them well
from the very first point of contact.
Best Regards
Ujay
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