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

[Caliga]

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

[dps]

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.

That makes the assumption that the culture of the HR department is the same as the culture of the rest of the company--a questionable proposition at best.

[Sheilbh]

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.

Yep. I think of Stephen Fry on poetry. Technical jargon are ways for people who know about something to express a specific meaning quickly - iambic pentameter, andante, some programming thing.

Buzzwords seem to be a short way to express a baggy concept - synergise, pivot.

From the outside they all look the same, but they're actually very different.

[Malthus]

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.

Yep. I think of Stephen Fry on poetry. Technical jargon are ways for people who know about something to express a specific meaning quickly - iambic pentameter, andante, some programming thing.

Buzzwords seem to be a short way to express a baggy concept - synergise, pivot.

From the outside they all look the same, but they're actually very different.

Yup. I'd put it more shortly: some terms are used to add clarity and precision; others, for exactly the opposite reason - to remove clarity and precision.

As you say, outsiders may not be able to tell the difference.

Lawyering is a job where knowing that difference is very important. 

[Sheilbh]

Yup. I'd put it more shortly: some terms are used to add clarity and precision; others, for exactly the opposite reason - to remove clarity and precision.

I did think of saying that but I didn't want to be unfair to any management consultants on the board.

Lawyering is a job where knowing that difference is very important. 

Law's a great example of words that to an outsider are baffling and sound like they're trying to confuse, but are actually clarifying.

[The Minsky Moment]

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

And yet lawyers would never rely on HR for hiring decisions . . .

[garbon]

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.

I don't think you need to be conversant at buzzwords, I think you need be able to willing and able to fit in appropriately and part of that is jumping through requisite hoops as you'll inevitably have them even when working. Showing an inability to play the game whether that's keywords or what have you - seems like a bad thing.

Besides, I'm not talking things like "synergy" but keywords that let HR know you actually know something about the position - so methodologies, types of disease areas like oncology and quantitative are key words when looking for a pharma market research position.

[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.

That makes the assumption that the culture of the HR department is the same as the culture of the rest of the company--a questionable proposition at best.

A willingness to be compliant and "know the game" so to speak transcends individual company/departmental cultures...I think.

[fhdz]

True but is it really all or nothing?

No, because you never really get "all else being equal".

[alfred russel]

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.

That makes the assumption that the culture of the HR department is the same as the culture of the rest of the company--a questionable proposition at best.

As an aside, I recently saw a situation where there was a group of managers that were not particularly competent at the technical stuff they were supposed to handle. Someone apparently came to the decision that the easiest way to deal with this was to guide them into less technical matters in the department, for example, bringing on board new employees. The problem with this strategy became apparent when some new hires were found to be lacking some basic skills.

Actually--this is probably related to how people end up in HR, and then screwing up the hiring process.

[alfred russel]

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

And yet lawyers would never rely on HR for hiring decisions . . .

Things are a lot easier when you aren't a publicly traded company that has to release financial statements showing the money you have available for potential plaintiffs, are likely thinly capitalized with ownership that start new businesses with less disruption than most, and also aren't making massive numbers of hiring decisions that are as susceptible to showing discriminatory patterns.

[The Minsky Moment]

Things are a lot easier when you aren't a publicly traded company that has to release financial statements showing the money you have available for potential plaintiffs, are likely thinly capitalized with ownership that start new businesses with less disruption than most, and also aren't making massive numbers of hiring decisions that are as susceptible to showing discriminatory patterns.

Yeah that all sounds like a huge headache.

[alfred russel]

Fucking lawyers.

[dps]

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.

That makes the assumption that the culture of the HR department is the same as the culture of the rest of the company--a questionable proposition at best.

A willingness to be compliant and "know the game" so to speak transcends individual company/departmental cultures...I think.

What I'm trying to get across is that the "game" that HR is "playing" isn't necessarily the same game the rest of the company is playing.

[Ideologue]

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

And yet lawyers would never rely on HR for hiring decisions . . .

Which is another reason everyone with HR degrees should be taken out and shot.  They're just one more facet of the de-lawyerization of legal services.  Also, regulatory compliance employees.  Especially regulatory compliance employees.

How about everyone over 35?