Really?
They are that dense?
HR people should only be allowed to hire for the HR department. They have no idea how the other departments work or what they need. They have no idea of the nuances of personality that you look for in a lab tech and how that differs from what you look for in a salesman.
They can measure skills somewhat but unless they spend a great deal of time in a department they have no idea what is needed to fit into that department.
Not sure what size companies you're used to working for, but every large company over 5,000 employees that I've been with since 1997, HR *does* make all hiring and firing decisions and "managers" are responsible to simply "manage" their resources.
Yep, that's why it SUCKS to work in a big company in America these days.
There are a few HR recruiters with a very high level of skill in interviewing and picking people.
I will give two examples.
My father was the personnel director of a sales organization, and his main task was to recruit college seniors who would make good salesmen. Obviously, any mistakes would be very expensive in terms of wasted training, time, and salary. He was so skilled the president of the company trusted him totally, and gave him complete freedom to hire whoever he thought would be suitable.
In the late 80s, when I was working in the computer field, I attended a two-day course in personnel interviewing with my boss, my boss’s boss, and a number of other managers. As part of the course, the teacher would interview one of us, and then we would interview each other. The teacher was so good it he could find out everything about you with a few simple questions in twenty minutes. The class was miles behind; it was like a bunch of 18-handicappers practicing golf with a PGA pro. Nobody could believe the level of skill this guy had.