The Hiring Process Is Broken

[Donnachaidh]

http://andywergedal.wordpress.com/2010/12/17/the-hiring-process-is-broken-fast-company/?utm_source=Jacco+Valkenburg&utm_medium=twitter

Most job seekers will tell you today’s hiring process has become a dysfunctional assembly line fraught with hyper rigidity that is more focused on identifying why candidates aren’t right for the job than it is at identifying potential transferable skills and upside. This finding a “square peg to fit a square hole” approach might have worked well when companies were looking to fill clearly defined and very specific manufacturing roles, but it is not equipped to effectively evaluate today’s multitalented job seekers. With the advent of applicant tracking systems, online applications, and technology that should help organizations more effectively and efficiently screen applicants, things have instead gotten worse.

As companies have grown from a collection of small- to medium-sized regional players to massive, multi-national corporations, so too has the need for a sizable Human Resources function. Screening applicants, which was once handled by hiring managers with years of deep experience within their verticals, has been outsourced to recruiters who oftentimes either lack adequate details about the job or the same level of subject matter expertise as the hiring manager. And this ineffective screening has only been compounded by the innate challenge of sifting through a never ending supply of candidates who fall along a continuum of completely unqualified to incredibly talented.

Huge companies and an explosion in the number of applicants means most companies had to become great at developing job descriptions more than identifying candidates based on their–potential. If a job seeker’s background is even slightly outside of what a hiring company is looking for, it’s extremely difficult (if not impossible) to even make it through to a first round interview. Recruiters get frustrated with candidates who lack minimum qualifications and incredibly talented candidates get frustrated with spending hours poring over their resumes and cover letters and never receiving a phone screen, or even worse, a rejection email.

Management consulting firms and similar sectors that value diversity of thought and pure intellectual horsepower seem to find a way to look past a pre-determined and narrowly defined range of academic disciplines or previous work experience. And they might be on to something.

More at the link --

[ck4829]

1. K&R

[The Straight Story]

2. k&r(nt)

[ixion]

3. two recent issues have emerged: credit checks and not hiring the unemployed

These are two disturbing trends that ought to be nipped in the bud, in my opinion.

[Deep13]

12. agreed. nt

[xchrom]

4. recommend

[patrice]

5. My sense is that you're getting evaluated on stuff that has nothing to do with whether you could

do the job BETTER than other candidates.

Even if you make it to an interview, it feels as though a decision has already been made and that they are just going through the legal motions.

It's perfectly possible to hire certain pre-selected people without ever having to say anything specific to anyone involved in the process and doing so REALLY does shore up one's own position in any organization.

[DragonSlave]

26. The last job I got hired to was because

The guy that hired me thought I would be a cool guy who liked to party and drink (like he does). When he found out that I had misled him, I was laid off.
The moral of the story is "fake it till you make it". Grab your plastic smile and pop culture references!

[marmar]

6. K&R

:kick:

[Demstud]

7. Having been rejected by a computer

it can be a bit humiliating and frustrating to know my application was rejected without ever being viewed by a human being. Was filling out an online application for a retail job a couple years ago when during the process I apparently answered a question in the "wrong" way or something I wrote triggered an automatic instant online rejection letter. I think it was "have you been involuntarily terminated in the last 5 years".

[Retrograde]

19. That's a rather broad question

"Have you been involuntarily terminated" covers everything from "Fired for embezzling funds or not showing up" to "Let go along with half the company when revenues plummeted " to "Job moved to a different town/state/country and I can't follow" with a whole lot more reasons in between.

The computer-approved resumes are just as frustrating from a hiring manager's viewpoint: I once worked with a recruiter who thought that programming for a college radio station and writing computer programs was the same thing.

[MH1]

8. and besides that, with 10% unemployment, some companies only seem to hire H1Bs

That's a very broken system.

[area51]

11. or if you listen to this study,

30½% unemployment.

[MindPilot]

9. The jobsites are the worst example of that

and those little spam-factories begat the sites that charge to broadcast your resume to all the other job sites.

The bottom line to to getting hired is "you gotta know somebody" and that hasn't changed in like forever.

[LuckyTheDog]

10. I agree and I blame HR professionals

Putting HR between applicants and hiring managers has been a very bad idea from the start.

[Fire1]

13. I still believe it's not what you know but WHO you know. n/t

[rucky]

14. Especially true in today's job climate.

The only way to get through the HR gate is to bypass it. It's amazing they have job security.

[Lisa0825]

31. This can also be true in a less objectionable way....

My employer employs over 10,000 people in my state, and is one of the top 50 employers (rated by employees) so we obviously get a huge number of applicants because a lot of people want to work here. If someone knows someone, we will take an extra moment to look them up and give resume advice, or let them know specifically what they lacked or didn't meet. But then, I will also do that for anyone who reached my extension or my email. I can't do that for 1500 people per month, but if you are one of the resourceful, diligent people who takes the extra steps to find out how to reach me (such as going online to find the main HR number, calling, and asking which recruiter handles job X), I WILL talk to you, advise you, and honestly answer questions. Most people do not go far enough to get to this point, however.

So, if you make the effort to reach me, you are polite and professional, and you ask for input, you will get every bit as much assistance from me as the relative of the coworker got. Oh, and BTW, our director INSISTS that we make ourselves that available to the public and do NOT treat people "with contacts" any differently.

[izzybeans]

15. I talked to a hiring manager recently and she

echoed the "looking for why you are wrong for the job" mentality in the conversation. The reason she gave was because they had so many resumes they could afford to do so.

It's what happens when its a buyers labor market. The material and symbolic value of our skill set diminishes with the supply.

That's why it takes bringing in CEOs of the largest and/or most visible employers in the country as if they were foreign leaders to lobby them to change their practices, stop sitting on the money we gave them, and hire our citizens.

[hootinholler]

16. Humans are not RESOURCES

They are Humans, not coal or steel or copper or some other commodity to be traded and consumed.

-Hoot

[MindPilot]

20. Human Resources is the name of the department -- not the actual people.

The people are called "human capital".

Disgusting ain't it?

[hootinholler]

22. I understand where the term comes from.

When all of the corporate world decided that a personnel department was passe' and their personnel were resources or as you state capital to be consumed or spent. This was the same time the supply side lie was being planted in the collective psyche and short term profit became the holy grail.

Show me a company that still pays attention to long term strategy and still has a personnel department and I'll show you a stable place to work.

Disgust doesn't begin to cover it.

-Hoot

[SocialistLez]

17. It all depends on where you're trying to work. I lost out on a job because of my school schedule

It's understandable.

They need someone who can close and with my school schedule, I'd be running 15-20 minutes late for class.

The lady really wanted to hire me but oh well.

[lumberjack_jeff]

18. HR is simply a keyword matching algorithm

If 95% of the keywords provided by the company are present in the scanned resume, the applicant merits a phone screen.

So write your resume to satisfy those keywords.

Am I suggesting lying to the computer? Yes.

The interview is the point at which you'll decide if you can commit to doing the job well. I don't worry about wasting anyone's time, because in an interview for a poorly matched job, I'm wasting my time too.

I take work ethic and conscientious job performance seriously. I don't take the hiring process at all seriously. They are a worthless barrier to be circumvented by any means necessary.

"But that's wrong!" you say. "Little lies become big lies!" "As the branch bends, so does the tree". That is probably true, but consider this; a company which incorporates this screwed up methodology in their hiring system is a tree which is already horizontal. It is a system designed to avoid any effort or risk by the people doing the hiring.

[rucky]

21. Check out the number of views for this OP

over 10,000 + way higher than anything else on the first page.

[jtown1123]

23. I have a feeling a large percentage on DU are unemployed or have a close family member who is.

Such a depressing time for Americans.

[rucky]

24. Yep. I was just laid off on Monday

Third time in two years.

[jtown1123]

25. I am so sorry to hear that. best of luck on your job search.

[Yavin4]

27. I Think That The Job Sites Like Monster, CareerBuilder, Dice, etc. Are The Real Villains Here

It use to be that businesses would advertise in their local paper(s) for applicants. Today, anybody from any where in the world can apply to a job posted on Monster, including recruiters. Thus, HR depts. get inundated with applicants, which makes reviewing applications by humans impossible.

[Lisa0825]

28. Speaking as an HR person.... we are not all evil.

It is easy to pick us as a scapegoat when you do not get past us. But the truth is that my hiring managers do not have the number of man-hours to review 300 applications for relatively entry-level positions. I provide a service to them by reviewing the apps for them (manually, one-by-one) and sending them the apps that have the requirements that THEY request. No, I am not simply a barrier for you to get by in order to get to a manager who wants to see you. I am someone trying to help the manager by providing a manageable number of qualified applicants for them to review, from which they will have the choice to interview.

I moved to this job from being an employment counselor at a state workforce office, and I still see part of my job as helping applicants, even though my first obligation is now to the department.

Don't broad-brush us. My co-workers and I honestly care about people. We are not the enemy. We have a job to do. We want to help people and we want to provide the right match to the hiring managers. We don't relish turning anyone away.

[StarburstClock]

29. Well said. Don't forget the entire field of study in industrial psychology.

Criminal corporations have used their HR departments as slave managers whereas real companies with real HR people are there to HELP people's careers, not destroy them. Yes people, those companies are out there but there aren't a lot of them now due to 30 years of hideous "deregulation" and outsourcing. A lot of companies use HR departments as a pure front for lawsuits, a bunch of fakes who's only job is to make sure the criminal companies don't get sued for their numerous employment violations. But real HR departments utilize the latest scientific data in an entire field of study in order to make people live more healthy and productive lives and therefore add a real service to the companies they work for.

The problem is criminal corporations, not human resources.

[FamousBlueRaincoat]

30. Yeah but

A lot of them are evil. It's just like anything else, and really depends on the company.

I've worked places where HR just handled hiring paperwork, insurance, payroll, and termination paperwork. They were basically clerical workers like anyone else. I'm pretty sure I could have done their job with a couple hours training, but I won't begrudge someone just because they have a good job that pays way more than mine. Nice people.

And I've worked at places where HR took an active roll in union busting and worker intimidation. There were some evil people there.

[Lisa0825]

32. Consider this....

In most larger companies, HR encompasses so many duties that there is a lot of division of labor. Recruiters do the hiring. Employee Relations handle grievances. Comp handles pay.... etc.

So the person who is handling one's application probably has NOTHING to do with payroll, insurance, terminations, or union busting.