Time to Fire These Recruiters and Hiring Managers

Your recruiting staff is the gate keeper to your company. If you can’t get past the recruiters you can’t get a job with the company. Many small business don’t have dedicated recruiters, but you still have recruiting staff. Who screens resumes? Who does phone interviews? Who advises managers on candidates? Those people are your recruiting staff, regardless of their job titles and other responsibilities.

Some of them are fabulous and some of them are not. Some need to be fired. And, some of the ones that need to be fired are proudly proclaiming their horrible ideas on the internet. In this Yahoo article, “The 10 Things You Do That Turn the Interviewer Off,” there are a number of things mentioned that turn interviewers off. Fair enough. We all have our pet peeves. But we do not make hiring decisions over minor things.

If your recruiters (which often means hiring managers) are rejecting candidates because of these things, go ahead and reject your recruiters.

To keep reading, click here: Time to Fire These Recruiters and Hiring Managers

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11 thoughts on “Time to Fire These Recruiters and Hiring Managers

  1. “No fair demanding politeness from candidates when your company is unspeakably rude to them.” Amen, EHRL! When I took the HR Manager position at my organization, this was the first rule I put in place: treat all candidates with respect. I get that we’re all busy, but our hiring supervisors know without a doubt that I expect them to display good manners at all times…they are a reflection of our organization, for goodness sake!

    The sad but great thing about this? Candidates actually thank us for taking time to inform them of their final status. They THANK US! They tell us how refreshing it is that we take the time to inform them, and that they were treated so well during the interview process. Several have indicated that this simple act makes them want to work for us because it is indicative of our culture…and they’re right. You reap what you sow.

    1. Treating your candidates with respect is good practice. I’m glad you do this.

      Some of my job search experiences have been ones where I know the manager or the department, or maybe just have a contact in common with the hiring manager. What spoils a good interview/relationship in these situations is when there is no hire, but the HR intermediary treats me poorly, or simply never gets back to me.

      I’m not sure if the manager has his/her hands tied/ is legally bound from contacting me and letting me know either way, but, trust me, this generates some serious ill will towards the organization.

      The thing is, I have no problem with not getting a particular job. In the past year, barely 20% of the jobs I’ve applied for have actually hired someone. Employers have been window shopping/running us through the wringers, etc. That generates more ill will.

      In about half of the cases of the rare hire, I know the person who got the job, and this person has been in touch with me.discussing things/talking shop. Those are a good chunk of my current leads. That’s the only way to get a job.

      HR rudeness just makes me cross that particular company off my desirable employers list.

      The market is getting better, though- and some HR departments are treating me well. I have received a few consulting gig offers in the past couple weeks, and have been getting nearly apologetic status updates on some opportunities (giving me reasons behind the delays, promising further updates, etc)

      Karma will bite the rude companies, even if the untouchable HR staff themselves never lose their jobs.

      1. I hate that people post jobs and interview people when they aren’t serious about hiring. It’s just downright rude.

        I understand that things change, but that should be the exception rather than the rule.

        1. Yes. You’d get a kick out of one place that interviewed me, didn’t hire, and then proceeded to re-post the job at least 6 times over the next 8 months in 6 different permutations (one job got split into 2 jobs plus an internship, then back to two jobs, then 1 and 1, then, one job again.,and requirements changing up and up along the way)
          What’s funny is that, after giving me some post interview testing, writing samples, etc, and then not responding to me in the 2 week timeline, they contacted me about a consulting gig 2 months later. After a lukewarm response from me (OK.’Let me hear the details’), they ignored me for a month until emailing me saying that they aren’t going after that bid/project after all. I’m not sure if they’ve hired anyone.

          Others have strung me along on consulting assignments for months on end.

          Even the current offers I have gotten have been weak and tentative. They’ll make an offer without details on scope of work, pay range.. and with a very vague sense of amount of work/level of effort, project timeline, etc.

          I understand economic uncertainty, but, seriously, get your stuff together,people- one way or another!

  2. And, respectfully, there are a ton of clients who need to be fired…..I am not shocked by how bad most companies “full” process is, I am shocked that most every hire anyone decent at all….said the recruiter (who believes that 85% of recruiters should be picking up trash by the side of the road so I can stop paying for their lack or skill, talent and professionalism)

  3. The handshake issue…. being a petite gal ( under 5′), I have very small hands, literally child size.

    Men especially do not squeeze my hand hard in a handshake because I am sure they are afraid of hurting my hand. I can grasp a little harder and know I will barely make a dent on his hand. Heck, in most cases my hand is almost covered by theirs !

    It is riduculous to make a decision based on a handshake.

  4. I love you to death, Evil HR lady, but this is ‘pie in the sky’ wishful thinking.

    Are HR staff fired- ever??!

    The junior HR person who (at a place where I had worked a few years before) refused to shake my hand and said “you know your way out, right?” and walked away from me in the hallway right after the interview with her and the hiring manager… and then gives me a huffy “I’ve been in a lot of meetings” line when I had the temerity to follow up regarding the job status two weeks after the interview- she still has a job.

    The HR person who sat silent in an interview where I was harassed by the hiring manager about being a white male–he gets to keep his job.

    The recruiters who lie about jobs in order to get you to take a day off from your life, only to make you fill out forms when there is no job on offer after all.- those people are still employed.

    All of the gazillion HR people to say “we will contact you by the end of next week” and then don’t– those people are still collecting solid HR department paychecks.

    Recruiters may have quotas, but in-house HR must be the best field in which to work. They get to sit back, shuffle paper, be shallow and judgmental, and then treat people like garbage as they “process” them.

    I’ve learned my lesson. I avoid HR like the plague. I talk to my network and reach out to hiring managers.

    1. I, personally, have fired HR people, so it happens.

      Remember, HR is never the boss. You can always complain.

      As for the interviewer that harrassed you about being a white male, if that was recent, type up a nice email titled, ‘Official complaint of racial and gender discrimination” and send it to their CEO.

      On second thought, don’t do that, since it won’t help you at all.

  5. After graduation and a few months into the Great Recession, I was contacted for a position at Acumen, a healthcare consulting firm in Burlingame, CA. I was assured I would be contacted by an HR woman named Shannon Trinh. Despite follow-up emails and voicemails, she never responded. This had gotten to be the most repellant display of unprofessinalism I’d seen.

    1. John, I too went through similar experience with this Shannon Trinh ten years ago at Acumen. She showed no respect for candidates. She’s now a low-level HR Generalist at UCSF (probably fired from her old job). Dumb as a rock and lazy as hell for sure.

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