Huh!
Yeah, but we all agree I am not your average PC type either. :-)
This is a very sticky subject, and I can see both sides. As for me, I am an HR Manager of a privately-held small company based in Texas. Which is MUCH better than a large publically-held company located anywhere else. Of course my experience is in this small little section in Houston, I don't know what other companies are doing, I'm just making sure my company is doing the right thing.
My job is to protect my company in case of hiring lawsuits, or rather any lawsuits generated by the employees or potential employees. Secondly, my job is to protect my employees from other employees, clients, contractors and general miscreants... heck, even from themselves sometimes.
And before everyone gets up in arms, Texas is a right-to-work state. There are more laws on the books to protect employees than you can shake a stick at. The only things protecting employers are their HR people, their legal people and the company’s own good sense in policies and procedures. And yes I know, that not always the best either.
As for hiring, I’ve heard the “don’t tell anyone until a decision is made” school of thought. I’m not a fan of it. The reason it exists is that if you tell someone they are “not it”, and they find out that you are still hiring, there is a possibility of a lawsuit heading your direction, especially if that person is qualified but you just don’t like them. I’m more of a fan of having a grading scale, each step of the process is worth so many points, and you need to have XX number of points to move forward. That way you can let the people who are “not it” know immediately, and you can tell them why. Just make sure that whatever reason is given is legal and JUSTIFIED.
There are horror stories on both sides, I’ve interviewed some supremely awful candidates, as well as some “knock them out of the park” candidates. I’ve also interviewed with some people and have to shake my head at the entire process.
I will give people this, most HR people have no idea what skill set they are looking for when they source candidates for a hiring manager. I recommend that whenever possible, find out who the hiring manager is and bypass HR entirely. Once the hiring manager likes you, they can maneuver around HR to get you into the position, especially when you are dealing with large bureaucratic type companies who have policy upon policy just to open a window.
I can tell you I’ve been seeing some really odd things lately. My company is a staffing company, we do Information Technology. In the last three months we have seen hiring companies just do, tremendously odd things. For example, this one client hired two people from us, these were full-time direct hires. In one case they let him go in 5 weeks, in the other case 4 weeks. Companies are giving NO leeway to candidates. The excuse their HR department gave was that the candidate was not senior enough, didn’t have enough experience and that they were letting her go effective now. Didn’t the three face-to-face interviews clear that up? There apparently was no other excuse given, just you aren’t senior enough in your skills, thanks, bye. (shakes head). And this is not the only company I’m hearing who is doing this, it’s way strange.
My company is currently looking to hire a phone sales person. This is just a small sampling from that process. We had 123 people apply for the position (this is a draw vs. commission sales role – draw is 30K a year, no cap on commission). In reviewing resumes I responded to 60 people that I was interested and would like to talk to them about their background and to call me (with a direct phone number) at their convenience. Of those 60, I had 12 call me. Of those 12, I eliminated 6 in the initial phone screen. Of the remaining 6, I scheduled them all to come in and to a face to face. 3 of them had criminal backgrounds so bad that I could not overlook them in the hiring process. (child abuse, felony theft, and case of child sexual misconduct). So that now leaves me with 3 candidates out of the original 123. Of those three, I brought two back for a working interview, and yes we paid them for their work. This is to see if they like the atmosphere, the team, the job, and to see what we do for a day. One of them flat out told us he was waiting for another offer to come in and he called to tell us he was taking that role the next day, and we did ultimately hire the last person.
I suppose like everything else, there are HR managers and departments you should avoid like the plague and there are candidates that need to be calssified as No Interest, ever.