Comment by nknighthb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nknighthb | Hacker News Reader

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> their role is to get resumes in front of the real decision makers

I worked for a while for Company A, which was founded by a team that included senior engineers and senior management from larger company B, licensed technology from B, did critical contract work for B, and at one point was supposed to become the primary manufacturer of B's products.

Company A shut down. My resumé went into company B's HR department, never to be heard from again. Eventually I had to pull a string that led to B's senior management. Suddenly an interview process was setup.

I get there, and the first words out of the HR drone's mouth when we sat down, with a deeply confused look on her face, were "What's Company A?". She'd just suffered severe whiplash when a directive from on high had told her that she would be setting up an interview for a candidate she'd ignored. She wasn't new, she'd been there over two years.

Everyone involved in my hiring except her knew what A was, who I was, and why I was there. The interview process was little more than a check for whether I annoyed the hell out of the people I'd have to work with or not. I was being handed to B on a silver platter, a pre-vetted, pre-trained, instantly-productive candidate. The most senior technical person who interviewed me walked into the room, sat down, and said "I really don't have anything to ask you".

If you insist on using recruiters, do not put them in HR. Embed them with the departments they're hiring for, where they might actually learn something about the work the company does and what it needs.

This sounds like a case of bad (Too centralized? Too incompetent?) HR, rather than an issue with having an HR department. You get what you pay for with recruiters, and more broadly HR. If you go to the lowest price resource for Java programming, HR or Accounting, expect to pay the price later.

But you did the right thing too, which is working around HR to get your name at the top of the stack. There isn't anything nefarious about doing this. You're creating your own referral, which is the best source of employees for a company.

"Too centralized" is exactly my point. An "HR department" is a monolithic unit that operates in its own bubble. It doesn't understand what anyone outside its bubble does. It's an inherently poor vehicle for staffing the rest of the company. The people screening resumés should have some meaningful criteria by which to judge them, and it's just impractical when they spend all their time in administrative-land.

At my prior employer I found that I was 10X more efficient than HR at screening resumes, so I would do it after hours rather than trust them. But... This would be inefficient if I were the CEO. And I've worked in situations where the recruiter had done the jobs that they were recruiting for - now that was efficient!

I suppose, HR unit for recruitment belongs to the Taylor's scientific management; where companies were machines and recruitment unit would efficiently find resources to fill the openings. Also, resources were abundant and job openings were scarce, so HR's non-smart screening made some sense.

Now, for the technology world, the valley, or any company where people with unique skills are needed, HR unit struggles to help the company to hire the right people. That's why we hear everywhere rants about HR, recruiters etc. The solution may be to focus on newer tools for hiring or in contrary to focus on pre-modern methods; like leveraging your existing connections, using conferences, hiring competitors etc.

From a skills perspective HR maybe struggling, but recruitment is more than finding the right skills. It includes background checking, psychological screening, screening for fitness to corporate culture etc. I don't claim all HR are more skilled than everyone here, but most of non-HR people are not experts in all aspects of recruitment neither.

Background checks are contracted out to third parties, psychological screening is nonsensical and discriminatory, and HR has not the first clue what corporate culture is like outside their bubble.

> their role is to get resumes in front of the real decision makers

For recruiting technical people, it is ideal that the recruiters has relevant technical background. The reality is mostly the opposite. So you never know how many good candidates are filtered out because their resumes are lack of flashy keywords.

If the recruiters don't feel hurt, I prefer to screen the resumes by myself. The worse scenario is that you are scheduled for a phone interview. When you look at the resume, it is full of flashy keywords while lack of experience in "serious" projects. I fully understand the candidates are eager to get a job. But after you spent dozens of hours to talk to these unqualified candidates with flashy resumes, it becomes a negative flag. Well, these flashy resumes are a result of the tech-recruiting industry.

And this is why I believe the HR department needs to give less emphasis on Resume and the "flashy keywords" and focus on the projects that the candidate is involved in / what role he/she played in it. Just looking at the portfolio, you can have a pretty good idea of what you can expect.

In many places HR is just a dump for unproductive people that can't be fired.

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