The Talent Shortage Myth and Why HR Should Get Out of the Hiring Business

[Jacob]

Sounds like a job in Dwarf Fortress.

Sounds about right. Cal would fit right in. It's a wonder he ever left, to be honest.

[dps]

For larger companies, HR is needed in the recruiting process. If you look at most companies, the higher paying positions are overwhelmingly male and white (compared at least to the general population). If you decentralize the process, in a lawsuit you are asking to get hammered. A lawyer finds a couple cases where it seems like there might be discrimination, you then look at the makeup of the company as a whole, and you have a solid case that there is a culture of discrimination.

With HR, you get relatively comprehensive CYA. You can document how you reach out to minority groups, detailed descriptions of non racial / gender discrimination searches to identify target candidates, and then documentation of why the interview process selected the candidate to hire that it did.

It's possible to let HR be involved to the extent that they need to be, but fend them off from the extent that they want to be, though.  It's possible where I work, at least.  HR is more than happy to let us 'do their work for them' when it comes to recruiting and screening, and really one could argue (as he is) that this shouldn't be their job anyway.

Yeah, with the company I worked for from 1988-2002, essentially HR could veto people we wanted to hire after we interviewed them, but otherwise they were just there to administer benefits and the like, and explained to managers about what we could and couldn't do during the hiring process and when disciplinary action was necessary.  They didn't have any role in recruiting or interviewing applicants.

[fhdz]

Sounds like a job in Dwarf Fortress.

You have no idea how accurate that joke is.

[garbon]

For larger companies, HR is needed in the recruiting process. If you look at most companies, the higher paying positions are overwhelmingly male and white (compared at least to the general population). If you decentralize the process, in a lawsuit you are asking to get hammered. A lawyer finds a couple cases where it seems like there might be discrimination, you then look at the makeup of the company as a whole, and you have a solid case that there is a culture of discrimination.

With HR, you get relatively comprehensive CYA. You can document how you reach out to minority groups, detailed descriptions of non racial / gender discrimination searches to identify target candidates, and then documentation of why the interview process selected the candidate to hire that it did.

It's possible to let HR be involved to the extent that they need to be, but fend them off from the extent that they want to be, though.  It's possible where I work, at least.  HR is more than happy to let us 'do their work for them' when it comes to recruiting and screening, and really one could argue (as he is) that this shouldn't be their job anyway.

Yeah, with the company I worked for from 1988-2002, essentially HR could veto people we wanted to hire after we interviewed them, but otherwise they were just there to administer benefits and the like, and explained to managers about what we could and couldn't do during the hiring process and when disciplinary action was necessary.  They didn't have any role in recruiting or interviewing applicants.

Seems like they serve a good purpose of keeping out people unable to attempt "name"dropping key words.

[fhdz]

Seems like they serve a good purpose of keeping out people unable to attempt "name"dropping key words.

All other things being equal, I'd rather have an employee with actual skills and ignorance of industry buzzwords than the converse.

[garbon]

Seems like they serve a good purpose of keeping out people unable to attempt "name"dropping key words.

All other things being equal, I'd rather have an employee with actual skills and ignorance of industry buzzwords than the converse.

True but is it really all or nothing? After all the former isn't likely to be very good at workplace cohesion / fitting into company culture. They might be good at their specific tasks but don't appear particularly savvy at some of the negotiation stuff that comes with a workplace environment.

[Jacob]

True but is it really all or nothing? After all the former isn't likely to be very good at workplace cohesion / fitting into company culture. They might be good at their specific tasks but don't appear particularly savvy at some of the negotiation stuff that comes with a workplace environment.

That depends on your workplace culture, does it not?

I've certainly worked at places where an over reliance on buzzwords, acronyms and faddish management techniques would indicate a very poor fit.

[garbon]

True but is it really all or nothing? After all the former isn't likely to be very good at workplace cohesion / fitting into company culture. They might be good at their specific tasks but don't appear particularly savvy at some of the negotiation stuff that comes with a workplace environment.

That depends on your workplace culture, does it not?

I've certainly worked at places where an over reliance on buzzwords, acronyms and faddish management techniques would indicate a very poor fit.

I think that's missing what I'm saying which is that an important part of being a successful employee is knowing how to adapt / play the game. In the current era, it is important to play the game of dropping keywords into one's cover letters and resumes/CVs.

Your bit about buzzwords/acronyms and "faddish management techniques" is here nor there - unless I guess one has a culture where those are enshrined - in which case it would be foolish to reveal how much one despises them.

[frunk]

True but is it really all or nothing? After all the former isn't likely to be very good at workplace cohesion / fitting into company culture. They might be good at their specific tasks but don't appear particularly savvy at some of the negotiation stuff that comes with a workplace environment.

I've never found industry buzzwords to be useful in, well, any context.

[Admiral Yi]

Technical jargon is just buzzwords with its own army.

[Jacob]

Technical jargon is just buzzwords with its own army.

More or less. To be sort of serious, I'd say that the proper use of technical jargon is to efficiently communicate nuanced concepts amongst people who are all educated in a particular field. Buzzwords are used to show membership of a group or to claim some sort of status; while they can be technical jargon originally, they're not used as such and are in fact stripped of nuance and meaning through over- and mis-use.

[DGuller]

Yeah, there has definitely been a paradigm shift when it comes to the use of buzzwords.

[Jacob]

I think that's missing what I'm saying which is that an important part of being a successful employee is knowing how to adapt / play the game. In the current era, it is important to play the game of dropping keywords into one's cover letters and resumes/CVs.

I think that while that various processes has caused that to become important to succeed in several sectors of the employment market, success in that field is pretty orthogonal to what you actually want from your employees.

Basically the incentives and deliverables are misaligned from an employee perspective, creating a risk which should be addressed and mitigated.

Your bit about buzzwords/acronyms and "faddish management techniques" is here nor there - unless I guess one has a culture where those are enshrined - in which case it would be foolish to reveal how much one despises them.

Au contraire, mon ami. My point is both here and there. To wit:

Here: It's a counter to your point that being conversant in them is required to be a successful employee.
There: It is also counter to your implication that being conversant with the screening process vocabulary indicates a good workplace fit.

Finally, I contend that the workplace fit that should matter is not compliance with HR generated hoops, but fit with the company culture, attitude and skills; being conversant in HR generated key-word matching only matters where HR has taken control of the culture.

[Neil]

For larger companies, HR is needed in the recruiting process. If you look at most companies, the higher paying positions are overwhelmingly male and white (compared at least to the general population). If you decentralize the process, in a lawsuit you are asking to get hammered. A lawyer finds a couple cases where it seems like there might be discrimination, you then look at the makeup of the company as a whole, and you have a solid case that there is a culture of discrimination.

With HR, you get relatively comprehensive CYA. You can document how you reach out to minority groups, detailed descriptions of non racial / gender discrimination searches to identify target candidates, and then documentation of why the interview process selected the candidate to hire that it did.

HR is nothing more than a compliance machine.  They're simply there to check off the EEOC boxes at the end of the application.
YES I AM A NON-HISPANIC WHITE MALE OF EUROPEAN DESCENT I'LL ACCEPT MY REJECTION EMAIL NOW

And that's why you really can't blame HR.  It's lawyers that have ruined everything, as always.

[Jacob]

Yeah, there has definitely been a paradigm shift when it comes to the use of buzzwords.

I believe we've pivoted away from using paradigm shift.