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H/R departments try to make the entire job selection process into some sort of science. They make it much more complicated than it needs to be. You see, it's a big 'game' to most of them, and they enjoy the power they have over people's lives.
I liken job selection to the NFL draft.
It's a roll of the dice.
Out of every 100 people that are hired, 70 of them will probably do an acceptable job. 15 of them will be excellent workers, and the remainder will turn out to be a bad decision.
H/R departments: Get over yourselves. You aren't doing God's work, and most of the people you hire will turn out fine, no matter how many hoops you make them jump through, or how many interviews you put them through.
You are right to a point. There are exceptional, average and terrible people in every applicant pool, or every company for that matter. Let's say you are correct in dividing them proportionally 15:70:15. Shouldn't the hiring manager try and shift that ratio? Wouldn't it be worthwhile to hire 15:75:10? Maybe 20:70:10?
Every bad hire costs a ton of money, so I think it worth trying to minimize those bad hires. Don't you think it worth the effort? Are you proposing we hire the first person who meets minimum qualifications that applies?
In the NFL, mostly everybody WANTS to do the job, either because they are highly determined, or because they love football, or (to a lesser extent) want the money.
For day jobs, if you can find somebody who actually WANTS to do the job, that is very rare, and is what an astute employer should be looking for.
For example, my friend works for a top electronics manufacturer. You definitely have something in your house made by them. When they hire Electrical Engineers, they don't care where you went to school. They want to know that you will enjoy what you do. Otherwise, you'll leave after you get trained.
H/R departments try to make the entire job selection process into some sort of science. They make it much more complicated than it needs to be. You see, it's a big 'game' to most of them, and they enjoy the power they have over people's lives.
I liken job selection to the NFL draft.
It's a roll of the dice.
Out of every 100 people that are hired, 70 of them will probably do an acceptable job. 15 of them will be excellent workers, and the remainder will turn out to be a bad decision.
H/R departments: Get over yourselves. You aren't doing God's work, and most of the people you hire will turn out fine, no matter how many hoops you make them jump through, or how many interviews you put them through.
Come back when you've tried to hire someone for a job or are in charge of a million-dollar budget and people's livelihoods.
In the NFL draft, I'm not gonna choose a running back if I need a QB, and I sure as heck am not going to choose someone who hasn't played in the previous season.
I'm trying to hire 2 positions right now, inside sales and an executive assistant, and out of 10 resumes I can't find 9 where a person has worked 2 years straight at the same job. Few of them actually have experience in the positions I'm advertising.
It's not a power game. You have no idea what you're talking about.
There is no science to it. If anything it is almost the opposite of science. Instead of picking the most qualified candidate they insert bigotry, ridiculous crude psychological gimmicks, time wasting busy work to narrow down candidates and all of that gets tossed aside the second a friend or family member of a manager applies and then they complain about talent.
H/R departments try to make the entire job selection process into some sort of science. They make it much more complicated than it needs to be. You see, it's a big 'game' to most of them, and they enjoy the power they have over people's lives.
I liken job selection to the NFL draft.
It's a roll of the dice.
Out of every 100 people that are hired, 70 of them will probably do an acceptable job. 15 of them will be excellent workers, and the remainder will turn out to be a bad decision.
H/R departments: Get over yourselves. You aren't doing God's work, and most of the people you hire will turn out fine, no matter how many hoops you make them jump through, or how many interviews you put them through.
Using your logic, 15% of applicants are duds, 15% are cream of the crop, and the rest is just average.
So you're saying that it's easy to find the cream? or you saying to just hire the average and be done with it?
They enjoy that power? What power? Last I checked, the HR department doesn't do the hiring for me. I do the hiring. They help facilitate the process. And no, I don't enjoy the power. I just want to find someone to help me get things done right. No more, no less.
Location: In a city within a state where politicians come to get their PHDs in Corruption
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wmsn4Life
Come back when you've tried to hire someone for a job or are in charge of a million-dollar budget and people's livelihoods.
In the NFL draft, I'm not gonna choose a running back if I need a QB, and I sure as heck am not going to choose someone who hasn't played in the previous season.
I'm trying to hire 2 positions right now, inside sales and an executive assistant, and out of 10 resumes I can't find 9 where a person has worked 2 years straight at the same job. Few of them actually have experience in the positions I'm advertising.
It's not a power game. You have no idea what you're talking about.
You're right, it isn't a power game. It is a game of decisions, or people's inability to make decisions. Research after research has shown that companies exerting more resources/time in making decision do not make a better decision than the ones who do not.
With all due respect your mindset/logic is faulty.
I liken job selection to the NFL draft. It's a roll of the dice.
Don't agree with that analogy. In a NFL draft, one gets to see the full history of the player, watch their past games, understand their behavior on and off the field, their temprament, etc. In case of a job interview, the only history you can access is a piece of paper i.e. the resume. And there are no guarantees that what's on the resume is genuinely true or fudged. On the day of the interview, a candidate can put their best behavior and impress the hiring team but when they join the group, they can be back to their lazy self.
I think hiring can be compared to picking a player after watching him perform in just one game. It is up to the interviewer's skills to be able to extrapolate the candidate's strenghts or see if he just got lucky in that one game.
If only HR Departments operated more like the NBA Draft. I would be drafted number one with a sweet job based off of potential alone. Masters Degree in Public Policy and Planning, honor society, officer in the army reserve, 2 internships in city planning... but no jobs so far. Gotta keep applying.
My 2 cents on all this... I would agree with the 15/70/15 split of excellent/good or acceptable/bad.
Most jobs can be done by most competent people regardless of their education or experience. Other than that 15% of bad workers - most people are adaptable and can be trained to handle tasks.
Quite frankly, a lot of people eliminate themselves. The easiest culls that we do where I work involve identifying who did not follow application instructions, who did not tailor the cover letter, who has outdated materials like a letter of rec from 3 years ago, etc... That alone will usually cull 60-80% of applicants.
It's not even like the draft where you have scouts that have carefully cataloged players' particular skills and their proficiency at each in order to find the best fit. No, what happens in situations where you have 100 applications for 1 position is that several rounds of arbitrary culling factors are applied to get the pool down to a manageable size of 10-15 where the real competition kicks in.
HR does not make hiring decisions. HR just manages the process. They will drop people for things that are the applicants' fault ie: not submitting a required piece of paperwork.
Quote:
Instead of picking the most qualified candidate they insert bigotry, ridiculous crude psychological gimmicks, time wasting busy work to narrow down candidates and all of that gets tossed aside the second a friend or family member of a manager applies and then they complain about talent.
A lot of truth there. Even when it's not blatant and people have good intentions it still happens, ie: a family member of a colleague applies and even though you 'think' you are being impartial, people still have an idea in their head that exists, something like "so-and-so is a competent colleague so his brother/wife/cousin must be as well" so at the very least an interview for that applicant is a foregone conclusion.
Last edited by redguard57; 06-02-2015 at 02:38 PM..
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