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Not in all companies. I've worked for more than a few where the form was a stock form bought off an office supply place, HR had no idea of the departmental budget, and had ZERO say in any hire.
We have worked in VERY different places. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I have yet to work for a company where HR was not the main part of the process. The department manager would get involved AFTER the HR interview. But I also get the feeling that you work in a more technical area where most of my HR until now has been in sales.
You will be a better job applicant if you can tell us idiots in Human Resources what we want to hear: that you are not wasting your time home alone watching soup operas
We have worked in VERY different places. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I have yet to work for a company where HR was not the main part of the process. The department manager would get involved AFTER the HR interview. But I also get the feeling that you work in a more technical area where most of my HR until now has been in sales.
I'm in sales--in a technical (not I/T) field. I also owned a business for a few years.
We have worked in VERY different places. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I have yet to work for a company where HR was not the main part of the process. The department manager would get involved AFTER the HR interview. But I also get the feeling that you work in a more technical area where most of my HR until now has been in sales.
We have worked in VERY different places. Not saying there is anything wrong with that, but I have yet to work for a company where HR was not the main part of the process. The department manager would get involved AFTER the HR interview. But I also get the feeling that you work in a more technical area where most of my HR until now has been in sales.
IME, HR was always the screener and, sometimes, the closer.
If I apply directly to a company, it is usually HR who screens me. If interviewed, I've been interviewed first by HR -- they go over my background, but also present all the company benefits. Then I interview with the hiring manager(s). Afterward, it's a little tricky on who you communicate with. Typically though, HR will extend the offer or email the rejection.
With other companies though, HR does not have direct contact with the applicant until after the offer has been accepted. Depends on the company and the situation.
Lately, it's the recruiter or temp agency who screens me, then I interview with the hiring manager.
As someone who has worked in HR there are ways around this issue.
If you want someone with a specific skill set, state so in the ad and also put that they will be tested. This way anyone who is not knowledgeable will likely be scared off at the prospect of taking a test on their skills. There, you have the way to avoid people who have no clue what they're doing.
As someone who might be looking at being unemployed again in the near future, I can tell you job hunting is not an easy process. On a given day there are only so many job openings I can apply for. The rest of my time is spent working out, doing homework for school, or spending time with friends and the BF.
While yes, I can seek out other accounting classes and programs, none of them are free. Learning new software will not be free. If there are free classes, they are generally offered to people who are either collecting welfare or are on low income. At least that's how it is in my city. It's a little difficult to learn new software without paying for it. The best you can hope for is a 30 day trial, and then you will have to teach yourself. But it's not the same as real world experience.
I'm prepared to work a bunch of part time or temp jobs if I have to, but the main thing is being understanding that right now the job market is extremely tight. I would not fault someone if they did things that were part of their normal routine while unemployed.
Because of government reporting requirements most medium or large companies REQUIRE all applicants apply through the corporate website and this will go directly to Human Resources. So those of you who think that those evil HR Idiots are not seeing your resume and not prescreening you for the hiring manager are mistaken.
In the organization I work for Human Resources will do Key Word Searches and other types of queries so that the very busy manager does not have to spend their time going through 100s of unqualified candidates. But if for some reason if the manager does not trust our screening they can spend hours and hours looking at terrible resumes and calling uncommunicative applicants. But 99% of the time the hiring managers are happy to allow us to prescreen the people who apply and do the government reporting.
I work in Human Resources and spend a good percent of my time in recruiting and staffing. (As well as training) and have become very frustrated in the lack of skills most job candidates have selling themselves.
The long term unemployed job candidates are usually unemployed for a reason, they can't sell themselves! Here is a question I ask nearly every unemployed candidate and almost everyone gives a very poor answer:
"I see you are not working right now, what are you doing to stay busy every day while you look for a job, outside of job hunting?"
Most people will say they are watching lots of television, playing with the computer, and bumming around town. Or they will insist that they are spending 12 hours a day looking for work. WRONG ANSWER! What they should say is they are totally devoted to their chosen career and they are doing everything possible to learn new skills so they will be more productive once they go back to work.
Agree or disagree?
Meh, I feel its kind of like an "I got you!" question some lower level staffing agent making $14.00/hour and living with his cousin in a two-bedroom apartment would ask. I've been Human Resources too and a resume and cover letter should speak for themselves - it should tell me this person has X, Y, and Z skill sets. It's because they HAVE those skill sets that I'm interviewing them in the first place.
What they're doing when they're not applying for work I could really care less about. No valuable skill that I'm looking for is going to be developed in the course of a few days or weeks. If the person doesn't know Quickbooks, or Calculus, or how to lay conduit by the time s/he gets to the interview, well then s/he ain't gonna learn it in the next few weeks and probably shouldn't even be at the interview in the first place. It's ridiculous to think that a candidate is going to develop anything valuable for the company in his or her few hours of spare time.
It's a pointless question is what it is, but I can see how someone could trick themselves into thinking they're gleaning some kind of valuable information by asking it.
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I have never watched a soup opera in my life!
