L'enfer, c'est les autres

When I started out into the world of work it was just at the tail end of a recession. Jobs were tough to come by……very tough to come by. And the same old stories were being played out. In order to get the job you needed experience, but in order to get experience you needed………

I applied for hundreds of jobs…..HUNDREDS. Hours and hours spent completing application forms, tailoring my CV, taking visits to the post office. And each day I watched and waited as the post man came with a handful of letters, most of them rejections but on the odd occasion this would be interspersed with a letter telling me that they were no longer recruiting for the role at all!

Believe me, rejection is not something that you get used to. Rejection is not a pleasant feeling or experience. I kept all the letters. I still have the somewhere. I kind of figure that if these companies didn’t want to take a chance on me back then why the hell should I give them the use of my skills and services now?

To this day, I always take care when I am telling a candidate they haven’t been successful. I think about how it feels to receive that letter or that call. To be told that you are not wanted. You are not good enough. You do not have sufficient value. I ask you all to do the same.

Because rejection…..it sucks.

There have been a number of posts on HR blogs recently about recruitment techniques, recruitment technology and poor quality CVs.

Then I read this.

It appears we are all being duped and have no successful way of attracting, measuring or selecting.

So I am calling on all my fellow HR and business colleagues to stop what you are doing today and introduce sumo suit wrestling as the only reliable and flawless way of selecting….winner stays on!

Alternatives?

Let me be clear upfront. I hate recruitment. I hate people. Therefore I hate recruiting people. Actually that’s not entirely true, I love interviewing great people and bouncing around ideas when there is a spark, intelligence and a passion. I hate the crap that you have to go through to get there in the first place.

At the moment we are recruiting for my team. We have a mid-range HR Manager role, managing a small team and paying £50k (c.$83k) it’s a good company with good benefits, healthcare, pension, discounts, 25 days holiday, profit share. We should be recruiting good people. We put this on a well known HR recruitment website.

Foolishly I asked my PA to print me the CVs so that I can “test the calibre and see who’s out there”. My team have just come to check that I am ok as the laughter has been spilling out of my office. There are a number of observations to be made,

1) HR people are no better at CVs than the rest of the world, in fact they’re worse
2) There’s a lot of dross out there desperately trying to get a job
3) There’s a lot of financial services people out there desperately trying to get a job

Now on this last point, we are not an FS company, we are totally different. But ranting about your successes in HR at Lehman Bros that made a commercial difference……..You are the Weakest Link….Goodbye!

So despite the complete lack of professionalism, here are some of my favourites.

“With a strong track record of leveraging people and the organisation through making use of such tools as lean thinking/six sigma, change management, project management and building and maintaining relationships.” – And the ability to speak without breathing by the sounds of it

“A HR professional with a record of bringing a strong business focus and analytical thinking style to conceptualise and lead business-linked HR initiatives” – I was with you for the first half and then……

And then listed under key skills,

Typing speed 45wpm. Microsoft Office skills – This is an HR Manager role ffs
First HR nominee to receive 2 nominations for a staff star award – But did you get a Blue Peter badge?
Ability to work as part of an interview panel – Uhhhhhhhh yeah……

And finally my favourite,

“I play drums and sing backing vocals on a regular basis with a covers band – weddings, PTA parties and charity fund raising events” Words fail me…..

So does anyone out there need a job?

OK, so I know that this is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I have to spend a few minutes talking about one of my favourite subjects, the ineptitude of Recruitment Consultants.