To think that HR recruitment people over-engineer the recruitment process to justify their own jobs

[vulgarbunting]

I have recently been looking for a new job, and have had face to face interviews over the past couple of weeks with about ten different companies.

Out of those, I was really pleased when I was offered a job by a really well respected company, that I would be excited to work for. All good.

When pulling out of the process with two other companies, HR came back with 'but we absolutely loved you, please come back in for a relaxed final stage interview, we are so excited to have you interviewing' etc. etc.

So against my better judgment, I went back, despite having verbally accepted the original role offered.

I've just been rejected for both of them. In both cases for utterly bullshit reasons that they either knew about from my CV, or seemingly plucked from thin air. I feel like they have wasted both my time, and my emotional resources for dealing with rejection.

During the interview process with all companies I was made to do maths and verbal reasoning tests (despite being middle management, not a grad role), presentations, case studies, and interviews with various team members.

HR are basically just there to think of the most long winded ways to recruit someone, to justify their own existance in their jobs.

Arrrggghh!

[wasonthelist]

Yanbu just that. Wish I could find a link, but some CEO famously fired almost all of Human Remains and improved company performance overnight.

[VelvetSpoon]

YANBU.

Although recruitment agencies are even worse.

The current vogue seems to be 'technical tests' which can take anything from 3-12 hours to complete in your own time.

And then if you do well enough, you get an interview.

After which you will probably get told you don't have the right experience or some other BS excuse because the 'reason' would have been obvious from your CV, which they saw before they asked you to do the test!...

[Pippidoeswhatshewants]

Dh is urging me to step away from this thread, he knows how much I love HR... IMHO the "professional" HR people I met in my last job were a bunch of utter fuckwits, up their own arses and thoroughly out of touch with the real world. I especially loved the way they helpfully suggested a private nanny agency charging £400+ a day for ad hoc childcare to people on or just above the minimum wage.

[howtorebuild]

The three HR people I knew were horrifying disrespectful regarding information sharing, they were very itchy and laughed at others misfortunes.

[Mistigri]

Evidence suggests that interviewing is a terrible way to select employees. I suspect this is especially the case when HR people are involved!

I work for a big company and our HR is shit. If I did my job that badly I'd get the sack. Does anyone have anything good to say about HR people ever? Because if they do I've never met them.

[00100001]

Our HR is excellent

[Nettletheelf]

Hahahahaha. Most HR people I have met are bloody useless, so I can't disagree with you.

[londonrach]

Yanbu! Cant agree more. It takes over three months where i work to go through hr....

[vulgarbunting]

Ahh always nice to know IANBU.

It still doesn't stop me crying into my wine for being rejected.

[annandale]

I've met some fantastic HR people, though they did rather stand out from the crowd.

Any CEO can make a change and get exciting results. Were they sustained?

[Prettykitty111]

our HR lady (small firm) is fucking dreadful. If she was actually managed by a decent HR person she'd be long gone. Recent classics include

• diagnosing one person loudly in front of the whole team as dyslexic (she's not) because she hadn't had chance to spellcheck a document
  
• pulling a new young member of the team over and telling her her (perfectly fine) white blouse was too see through and she should go home now and change and make the time up during her lunch hour
  
• sulking and not talking to anyone for three weeks because she didn't have dog care and our CEO wouldn't allow her to bring her incontinent dogs into the office every day
  
• having a physical fight with another manager over who an intern was supposed to be reporting to, in front of said intern
  
• paid family members to come in and do odd jobs cleaning, photocopying etc in the office but always paid a full day when they are only in a few hours
  
• spending everyday for a month on eBay, forums and which style sites buying her husband a present, doing no work at all and then making pointed comments when another colleague had two weeks of with a very sick child
  
• hiring the worst candidate (older, shy, didn't fit in at all and refused to learn anything new) for a job because she didn't want to employ the young, enthusiastic other option and then refusing to do anything productive whilst this kind, lovely but ultimately out of her depth lady stayed for two years causing mayhem and upsetting staff and customers.
  

We fucking love her! Our Christmas party outfits get shorter and shorter every year in an effort to piss her off and she is furious that no one will friend her on Facebook so she can't see our night out photos. She drops hints all the time she wants to come clubbing and drinking with us....

[Spectre8]

I haven't come across a HR function at any of the companies that I have worked for that have been great. At my last place, I went to make a formal complaint about a manager bullying me, and what prompted me to takei t further was this person almost physically hitting me in the face with an object. The HR lady just laughed in my face, because waving a whiteboard rubber within a millimetre of my face and saying "I am going around erasing shit like you" is hilarious not to mention I was told I must of instigated that reaction despite saying I hadn't even spoken to that manager in question all day.

[bruffin]

Totally agree.
Used to get a interview direct with manager and no stupid questions. Just straight forward experience questions.
I have heard of so many people spend hours on an online question form,get as far as a telephone interview , then told that they were not suitable because they have the wrong A levels, or wrong university etc even though it was on their CV.
I have never found a HR person who could calculate p/t holiday.

[Ellypoo]

YANBU I hate recruitment consultancy firms - people don't seem to actually look for their own jobs anymore though, recruitment agencies send through CVs for people who a blatantly not qualified/suitable just to try and justify the 25% (or more) fee. And then prospective employees wonder why starting salaries aren't that high - if you then have to also pay 25-30% of first year salary to an agency just for forwarding a CV before a probationary period has been worked/passed, there is no wonder!

[Ellypoo]

Oops didn't realise this was about HR rather than recruitment agencies.

[megletthesecond]

I swear blind our HR dept are in it to make everyone miserable so there's a constant staff turnover thereby keeping HR in work . Everyone moans about them.

[StrangeLookingParasite]

Oh I think it applies to both recruitment agencies and HR people. Nearly all I've ever met have been utterly useless, and the ludicrous, transparent 'personality' tests and the like, ugh, not enough time in the world to express my contempt.
And absolutely I think they try to make themselves look useful.

[Busyworkingmum71]

Jeez those are some shite sounding HR functions. Ours are pretty good by comparison!! Always keen to stress that they are there to make sure you are happy, and I feel able to take an issue to them. I have reported a colleague to them for bullying in the past, and they were very supportive.

The whole recruitment thing is difficult. I have done a lot of interviewing in the past and it is difficult to reject someone based on just a paper cv unless they are lacking in a critical skill or qualification or something. But if they have potential despite say not having a degree I might interview to give the benefit of the doubt. One of my best hires has been a candidate without a degree despite this being a requisite, because their personality, work ethic and enthusiasm offers more. I have also rejected candidates because after meeting them, despite having the right paper credentials they didn't come across well at interview I.e boring, self absorbed, wouldn't fit with the team. If they were boring, or self absorbed, for example, this is difficult feedback, so the recruiters might (I guess) adjust it to something more tangible, like lacking x experience or qualification.

Glad you hit the job you wanted in the end. I'd put it down to experience, you didn't want the other jobs, you'd accepted the first offer, perhaps you should have just said no to their entreaties?

[blueshoes]

My firm's HR is looking quite good in comparison. Some of them (generalist, recruitment) are simply excellent.

[Aussiemum78]

Lots of the work hr do is fluffy and disconnected from the actual business of turning a profit.

Being interviewed for a finance job by a hr person is awesome...because they have no idea what I do, and are trying to judge technical skills in areas they know nothing about.

Ditto with training, performance management etc.

Ironically, my CFO roles often involved doing "hr" as in negotiating contracts, any legal disputes, safety, training etc. I have HR quals (minor in my degree) but I see many HR positions as superfluous.

Don't get me started on the initiatives like free lunch and yoga. People see through cheap loyalty initiatives, people are cynical, they don't like being treated like a monkey wanting a banana. But some hr people think hearts and flowers beat a decent contract and working conditions.

[AbitSceptical]

The HR team at my company are pretty good. True, there are one or two pompous pricks, one or two 'fluffy' ones, but the generalists are very commercial and know their client groups really well. There are a mixture of idiots and good people in every function though.

Maybe you didn't get the jobs because you didn't interview well or were just not suitable.

Good luck with the job you have chosen, anyway. What were the HR people like there?

[WilliamShatnersPants]

The head HR at my company is fucking useless. I laid a formal complaint against someone - let's call him John Smith. All well and good until I got called into a meeting by John Jones who was utterly apologetic and also very confused about how on earth he had managed to offend me. She had bollocked the wrong person!!!!

I then chased her three times to see if she had fixed her monumental fuck up but she never responded to me. I ended up transferring to another division of the company so still don't know what happened.

[TooExtraImmatureCheddar]

Our HR is entirely useless. They don't interview, they just send out the wrong job advert and then say oh well, we advertised the post without including the need for a degree, so we now have to stick to that. They (large department) also once provided 9 different answers to the same question. The person asking the question proceeded to use the confusion to claim a benefit he knew he wasn't entitled to, while simultaneously harassing a staff member for legitimately claiming it.

[MissDallas]

IME, HR people are fluffy, lazy, over-emotional and spiteful. Bad combination. i stay as far aware from all and any HR people as much as I can. I am sure there are some good ones. Somewhere. But in 20 years of office work I haven't met any.

Apologies to any genuinely good HR people.

[ForalltheSaints]

I think over-engineering the process, whilst it does keep HR people in a job, comes from a different reason. I think the fear of being accused of an unfair selection process is the main reason- no company wants to be sued or go through any claim that their selection process hinders or stops a protected group (as Equalities legislation terms it). The unfortunate thing as I see it is that a process to avoid discriminating against one group of people can hinder another.