One of the ways my blog has shifted over the last 18 months is that it has become less about what job candidates and employees are doing wrong and more about what HR and management are doing wrong. It has been one of those funny evolutions of a blog that you never see coming when you start. Maybe that’s the progression of my HR career which has basically gone through four phases:
- The “For Pete’s sake, is every employee and job candidate a complete moron?” phase.
- The “This must be a joke. Look at how stupid our managers are acting” phase.
- The “Forget all of those other people, am I (and everyone in HR) really this stupid?” phase.
- The “I wonder if I can do something to improve all of these things” phase.
I’ve been a resident of stage four for a while and I have been coming to terms with it. Will a smart remark pop out of my mouth when I get a typewritten resume obviously photocopied and updated with white-out and handwriting? I’m not perfect but generally, I’ve been much more solutions oriented than mocking oriented.
What’s Wrong With This Applicant?
A common thing I hear people in HR complain about are applicants and job seekers. Everything from spelling mistakes on resumes to not pronouncing their name correctly, I’ve heard it. And listen, if you process hundreds of applicants daily, I’ll give you a bit of a break. It is tedious work. But if it is the first time in months you’ve processed a resume and you’re complaining, there’s probably a bigger issue there: maybe you shouldn’t be reviewing resumes. When you’re nitpicking on the second resume you see because a tab isn’t perfect, let’s just hope your company has some room for failure because that hiring process may not be the best place for you.
Besides that, it may not even be their fault. Most of the serious errors that job seekers make in the selection process are the fault of the process itself, not mass incompetence.
Don’t Tick Me Off And You Get The Job
Serious job seeking errors aside, if you think that the idea of eliminating candidates based on petty annoyances is a good practice, you should get out of talent selection immediately. Get over yourself already. I love the funny ways that people in selection like to play God a little bit. “Well, I liked them but they double space after each sentence. I can’t hire a person like that.” Good grief, are you hiring a reporter for the Washington Post?
Job seeker errors that happen repeatedly can almost always be traced back to the company posting the position. For example, I knew an HR guy who thought he was a big shot and thought that everyone that applied should know his name and should be addressing correspondence to him. If they didn’t? Junk.
The problem? His name wasn’t anywhere on the site. You could do some digging and find him but he wasn’t looking for internet researchers. He was looking for people to pick up the phone and be helpful. If he was so caught up in his name being brought up, why didn’t he list it on the site? More importantly, why was he constantly trying to hire people even though his area kept tightening their budget?
The major issues and the things that repeated themselves were actions within the control of the company but took no steps to alieviate or fix the issue. That’s a shift in responsibility, right?
Do You Want The Best People Or Just Survivors?
We are currently in an interview era where people no longer nail interviews, they just end up surviving all of the rounds until they are the last one standing. It is like watching the worst reality show ever*. Keep your answers bland, don’t upset the 15 interviewers and you can pass on to the next level. If you think candidate selection is about hiring interview process survivors, it is going to be a frustrating ride for you.
Your process should be built around how you can figure out if a person will thrive in the position you are hiring them for. By the way, about those positions? Usually they don’t involve getting grilled by her office co-workers for an hour and a half at a time. If you are hiring a marketing person, get them in the room with the marketing team and have them work on a problem for an hour or so and see how they interact. If you are hiring a programmer, get them with the IT group and start pouring through code that needs improvement. If you are hiring a mechanic, start going through blueprints and looking at disassembled machinery.
Our selection process is mired in tradition for tradition’s sake. Let’s get over it and figure out a better way to pick the people who will help our companies move forward.
* Actually, I take that back. Temptation Island? That may have been the worst.
August 6, 2009 at 10:55 am
While I don’t work in HR (which is a good thing, trust me), I have had to go through the process of hiring a few people in the last 2 years. There are always a few that stand out on both sides of the spectrum, but more often than not there’s a big middle ground and trying to find something to set people apart can be mind-numbing.
But to your mention of phase #1, I’ve always remembered something I was told a long time ago: “If everyone you meet in a day is an asshole, guess what. You’re the asshole.”
August 6, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Job seekers are getting more and more frustrated at HR professionals (a person who has been in the biz for 18 months and then considered a pro??) and so they are starting to say hey lets look at what is wrong here.
August 6, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I hope that all HR people come around to your way of thinking. Just have people show you the skills that they talk about to decide if they are as good as they say.
I am actually waiting to hear back from a company that I’ve had a phone and in-person interview with, and if I make it to the third round, it will involve working with their current supervisors on the plant floor. It makes a lot of sense to me to let me show my skills in a real-life situation with the people I might end up working with.
August 7, 2009 at 8:12 am
Amen. Hiring managers must start to understand that they are investing in people – and for that investment they must expect a return. Therefore, they must focus on whether candidates have the talents to pull off the job, whether they fit in the job and what value they will bring to the job. The way to assess this is to put the candidates in an environment that shows what they know and how they respond. Successful hiring managers are using more talent-based questions, and interviewing in live environments to assess candidates on the spot reactions (the best indicators of actual on the job performance). Today, we are hiring thinking and responses; seeing them in action is the only way to determine if when hired, the candidate provide a return commensurate with the corresponding investment. Require a talent-based resume to start the process; assess candidates by having them respond to real work situations. See how they think, plan, assess and respond. These candidates may become your most significant assets – the intellectual capital of the company so the assessment process must represent real life, real work. Knowing this up front allows for a better choice – the ability to hire the right employee. And once the right one is hired, it is then up to the manager to ensure that the employee become emotionally and passionately connected to work as well…that is a topic for another blog.
August 7, 2009 at 8:31 am
Ha – good post. Once they’ve totally sucked the life out of you, “welcome abord!” Of course I can’t read a post like this without citing my own Micr*soft story….
http://virtualjobcoach.com/blog/?p=1673
August 7, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Really like those 4 career phases — they capture the journey to maturity/wisdom nicely. Do you think the progression applies equally in other career paths, t00? Substitute “customers/clients” for “employees/candidates,” and there you have it.
August 7, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Minor nit in the following text: . “start pouring through code that needs improvement…” -
It should be “poring over…” or “poring through…” and not “pouring through” – please check
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/poring-over-pore-and-pour/
August 8, 2009 at 7:58 am
HR interviewing with HR is another eye opening experience! The need for companies to re-train their HR Talent Professionals is more than obvious. The reliance on mind numbing ATS retrieval has taken over thinking and strategy in most cases. What I’m saying is that recruitment teams in companies should be able to speak to the qualities AND qualifications that make a candidate the right fit, to be able to build consensus for candidates that may seem “out of box” yet have characteristics and qualities that will energize and be a fit for the role.
August 10, 2009 at 10:48 am
Being a candidate going through the motions can be a bit like walking through a mine field–one little mishap can have big consequences. A good process check for all who hire! I especially like your suggestion of getting people in the room…
September 3, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Anonymous must be in HR