4 ms·

https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 I'm not a fan of HR in general and it's frustrating that they are often the clueless

by mszcz 8y ago

https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 I'm not a fan of HR in general and it's frustrating that they are often the clueless gatekeepers.

wil421 8y ago
Sometimes it isn’t even an HR person. A computer will scan your resume and if you don’t match enough keywords a person won’t even read it.
- pc86 8y ago
  This is bad too (in its current state of sophistication) but I still think it's better than having some HR generalist with 6 months on the job and no technical knowledge scanning resumes before anyone who knows what they're doing gets to them. At least if you know your resume will be scanned by a computer before-hand you can optimize for that. It's hard to optimize for a person with no skill-set. The place I've worked with the best HR department realized that they didn't have any legitimate role in determining whether someone was fit for a job, only whether or not they were fit for the company. So they'd handle the background checks, the reference checks, etc, usually after the phone screen and before the on-site interview. But they didn't have any say in who got the job other than vetoing candidates with company-wide disqualifying features.
  - wil421 8y ago
    I recently changed jobs and the company I work for now does exactly what you say in your last paragraph. It was the best hiring experience I’ve been through. A couple other companies I applied to followed the HR screen first and I’m sure I failed. What’s weird is the same company that denied me has recruiters contacting me on LinkedIn monthly, as recent as last week.
  - bluGill 8y ago
    HR has one other job that you might not realize: make sure that your hiring/interview process is legally fair. You better not interview in such a way to make it impossible for some types of otherwise qualified people to pass (female, black...) while others find it easy (males, white...).
    - mszcz 8y ago
      Ha! Often times they do that poorly as well. My boss at a company I worked for recently wanted to hire a guy that is living in Poland but is self-employed in the UK. The HR said to him, literally, "we can't hire him because we don't know the implications of working with someone incorporated out-of-country". Yeah, not like it was their job to find out. That would be hard, could cut into their water cooler gossip time, no way!
      - bluGill 8y ago
        I don't know the legal system in the UK, but my guess is that what you describe is not illegal. I would agree HR is lazy for not to find out, but they have still done their job with respect to my post since nothing illegal happened.
- _pmf_ 8y ago
  That's actually better, since in this case there's reason to the madness, which cannot be said for the typical second order ignorant HR person.
  - moate 8y ago
    I mean, someone still had to decide what inputs to use for the algo. Ultimately somewhere a dumb human thought may have been involved.
  - huehehue 8y ago
    Maybe. How intelligent are the resume scanners? Just a few years ago, I shotgunned my resume to a bunch of big companies and experienced something like: Resume: "Ported XYZ from Angular to React, built a Rails app" Response: "Sorry, we need someone with JavaScript and Ruby experience" I think it's best to have two resumes, one that's more or less a big list of keywords, and another that you can show actual humans.
    - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
      I have a resume that contains a block on the left 33% of the page with the following: \subsection{Technology Fluencies} Java \textbullet{} Python \textbullet{} PHP \textbullet{} Ruby on Rails \\ Javascript \textbullet{} NodeJS \textbullet{} ReactJS / Native \\ SQL \textbullet{} SQLite \textbullet{} MySQL \textbullet{} DB2 \textbullet{} Redis \\ Postgres \textbullet{} Bitcoin / Blockchain \textbullet{} REST \\ ActionCable / WebSocket \textbullet{} JSON \textbullet{} XML \\ ElasticSearch \textbullet{} JWT \textbullet{} JUnit \textbullet{} Jest \\ TestNG \textbullet{} Selenium \textbullet{} Robot \textbullet{} Maven \textbullet{} Ant \\ ESXi \textbullet{} Docker \textbullet{} Flynn \textbullet{} Dokku \textbullet{} Heroku \\ Analytics 360 \textbullet{} Google Tag Manager \\ Salesforce DMP \textbullet{} Github \textbullet{} Git \textbullet{} SVN \\ JIRA \textbullet{} Vagrant \textbullet{} Ansible \textbullet{} Perforce \\ \subsection{Additional Fluencies} Amazon Web Services \textbullet{} Agile Dev. \\ TDD \textbullet{ }SDLC \textbullet{} SaaS \textbullet{} IaaS \textbullet{} PaaS \\
    - _pmf_ 8y ago
      > I think it's best to have two resumes, one that's more or less a big list of keywords, and another that you can show actual humans. You can probably integrate both by having a keyword-only layer in white on white below the real text.
- fatnoah 8y ago
  One of my favorite job search stories occurred many years ago. I'd posted my resume on Monster, etc. and also reached directly out to companies. For one company, I filled out their online application. It was the kind that asked you everything that was on your resume and then also had you upload your resume. About a month later I got a call from a recruiter at the company, passed the phone screen, and went in for an interview. During the pre-interview chat with the recruiter, I mentioned how annoying the resume submission process was. She replied that she found me while searching Monster for candidates and seemed surprised that their automated tools didn't flag my resume.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  Here's a life hack: put every keyword possible in white text on the last page of your resume. A human will think it's a blank page, a computer will think you've hit every keyword possible.
  - monocasa 8y ago
    I do the same thing, but with the public job description verbatim.
rv-de 8y ago
I just applied via a recruiter for a position as a director for software development. He told me the HR lady would like to see my abitur certification (sth like a high school diploma) ... I am 34 years old for christ's sake. I seriously considered not applying. Ah - and according to the recruiter an asset of mine is not being older than 40 - what? In short - a lot of HR people are causing serious damage to companies and the industry in my opinion.

by mszcz 8y ago

https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 https://dilbert.com/strip/2008-03-01 I'm not a fan of HR in general and it's frustrating that they are often the clueless gatekeepers.

wil421 8y ago

Sometimes it isn’t even an HR person. A computer will scan your resume and if you don’t match enough keywords a person won’t even read it.

pc86 8y ago
This is bad too (in its current state of sophistication) but I still think it's better than having some HR generalist with 6 months on the job and no technical knowledge scanning resumes before anyone who knows what they're doing gets to them. At least if you know your resume will be scanned by a computer before-hand you can optimize for that. It's hard to optimize for a person with no skill-set. The place I've worked with the best HR department realized that they didn't have any legitimate role in determining whether someone was fit for a job, only whether or not they were fit for the company. So they'd handle the background checks, the reference checks, etc, usually after the phone screen and before the on-site interview. But they didn't have any say in who got the job other than vetoing candidates with company-wide disqualifying features.
- wil421 8y ago
  I recently changed jobs and the company I work for now does exactly what you say in your last paragraph. It was the best hiring experience I’ve been through. A couple other companies I applied to followed the HR screen first and I’m sure I failed. What’s weird is the same company that denied me has recruiters contacting me on LinkedIn monthly, as recent as last week.
- bluGill 8y ago
  HR has one other job that you might not realize: make sure that your hiring/interview process is legally fair. You better not interview in such a way to make it impossible for some types of otherwise qualified people to pass (female, black...) while others find it easy (males, white...).
  - mszcz 8y ago
    Ha! Often times they do that poorly as well. My boss at a company I worked for recently wanted to hire a guy that is living in Poland but is self-employed in the UK. The HR said to him, literally, "we can't hire him because we don't know the implications of working with someone incorporated out-of-country". Yeah, not like it was their job to find out. That would be hard, could cut into their water cooler gossip time, no way!
    - bluGill 8y ago
      I don't know the legal system in the UK, but my guess is that what you describe is not illegal. I would agree HR is lazy for not to find out, but they have still done their job with respect to my post since nothing illegal happened.
_pmf_ 8y ago
That's actually better, since in this case there's reason to the madness, which cannot be said for the typical second order ignorant HR person.
- moate 8y ago
  I mean, someone still had to decide what inputs to use for the algo. Ultimately somewhere a dumb human thought may have been involved.
- huehehue 8y ago
  Maybe. How intelligent are the resume scanners? Just a few years ago, I shotgunned my resume to a bunch of big companies and experienced something like: Resume: "Ported XYZ from Angular to React, built a Rails app" Response: "Sorry, we need someone with JavaScript and Ruby experience" I think it's best to have two resumes, one that's more or less a big list of keywords, and another that you can show actual humans.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 8y ago
    I have a resume that contains a block on the left 33% of the page with the following: \subsection{Technology Fluencies} Java \textbullet{} Python \textbullet{} PHP \textbullet{} Ruby on Rails \\ Javascript \textbullet{} NodeJS \textbullet{} ReactJS / Native \\ SQL \textbullet{} SQLite \textbullet{} MySQL \textbullet{} DB2 \textbullet{} Redis \\ Postgres \textbullet{} Bitcoin / Blockchain \textbullet{} REST \\ ActionCable / WebSocket \textbullet{} JSON \textbullet{} XML \\ ElasticSearch \textbullet{} JWT \textbullet{} JUnit \textbullet{} Jest \\ TestNG \textbullet{} Selenium \textbullet{} Robot \textbullet{} Maven \textbullet{} Ant \\ ESXi \textbullet{} Docker \textbullet{} Flynn \textbullet{} Dokku \textbullet{} Heroku \\ Analytics 360 \textbullet{} Google Tag Manager \\ Salesforce DMP \textbullet{} Github \textbullet{} Git \textbullet{} SVN \\ JIRA \textbullet{} Vagrant \textbullet{} Ansible \textbullet{} Perforce \\ \subsection{Additional Fluencies} Amazon Web Services \textbullet{} Agile Dev. \\ TDD \textbullet{ }SDLC \textbullet{} SaaS \textbullet{} IaaS \textbullet{} PaaS \\
  - _pmf_ 8y ago
    > I think it's best to have two resumes, one that's more or less a big list of keywords, and another that you can show actual humans. You can probably integrate both by having a keyword-only layer in white on white below the real text.
fatnoah 8y ago
One of my favorite job search stories occurred many years ago. I'd posted my resume on Monster, etc. and also reached directly out to companies. For one company, I filled out their online application. It was the kind that asked you everything that was on your resume and then also had you upload your resume. About a month later I got a call from a recruiter at the company, passed the phone screen, and went in for an interview. During the pre-interview chat with the recruiter, I mentioned how annoying the resume submission process was. She replied that she found me while searching Monster for candidates and seemed surprised that their automated tools didn't flag my resume.
jbob2000 8y ago
Here's a life hack: put every keyword possible in white text on the last page of your resume. A human will think it's a blank page, a computer will think you've hit every keyword possible.
- monocasa 8y ago
  I do the same thing, but with the public job description verbatim.

rv-de 8y ago

I just applied via a recruiter for a position as a director for software development. He told me the HR lady would like to see my abitur certification (sth like a high school diploma) ... I am 34 years old for christ's sake. I seriously considered not applying. Ah - and according to the recruiter an asset of mine is not being older than 40 - what? In short - a lot of HR people are causing serious damage to companies and the industry in my opinion.