Did we ever tell you that “Talent Managers”, or “Recruiters” or whatever they want to call themselves, or whoever they think they are, prove time and time again that they’re just not qualified to assess talent?

I had a phone interview yesterday, and in the 30-minute general screening where you summarize your resume, the recruiter, despite answering her questions, asked them over and over again as if she wasn’t listening. They say its better to have a job when you’re looking for a job so you don’t come off sounding pushy and desperate, but when you have a job, you’re taking 30 minutes away from your schedule to help someone assess your candidacy, yet, this screening was a total waste of time.  It’s as if this company hired someone unqualified to conduct a simple interview. It’s shocking to know that an organization would rely on half-wits in HR to attract and retain talent for their organization.

Note to HR and CEOs who mandate that HR be a part of their business operations – stop relying on software to retain talent, and even though you’ll continue to rely on a machine to spot meaningless adjectives and phrases, etc., at least do the due diligence and take notes to determine if the person is qualified for the job prior to contacting them, and make sure they know how to interpret answers to simple questions.

So as I mentioned before, yesterday, this all-star in some company’s HR department called me inquiring about an opportunity as a Salesforce Project Manager.  My resume shows that I have 7 years experience in this area, along with years of project management experience. And honestly, life, in general, is a project so we’re all project managers. Secondly, despite that my resume lists my experience and I was qualified for a screening, how do you then deem I don’t have the experience you’re looking for when you clearly can’t connect the dots and realize that no-one will have the EXACT set of skills and experiences you’re looking for!!!!!

Furthermore, if someone possesses a Bachelors and Masters degree, and has over 10 years of work experience, why are we relegated to answering such childish and irrelevant questions?  I believe recruiters who do not have experience in certain areas shouldn’t assess skills and experiences that they won’t be able to understand.  That’s like saying I need to interview a NASA Scientist without understanding exactly what they need to do, and keep in mind, that I don’t even have a background in applied sciences, discrete mathematics or any other scientific discipline that a NASA Scientist should have.  Does it then make sense for me to interview this candidate? How am I supposed to know if they’re a good fit for the role?  Clearly, things like aptitude, previous experience, etc., doesn’t mean anything.  How did we get experience and knowledge in the first place, then?  Makes no sense…

It’s beginning to become very obvious now that HR simply doesn’t have the brains to assess and recruit talent, and therefore, become a bottleneck in career development.

CEOs – why are you letting HR dictate the course of our career paths and futures?

I learned one important lesson from this experience – corporate career paths are BS.   No matter what, you’ll send over 1,000 resumes and you’ll answer the same BS questions asked by some unqualified talent manager or whatever, and this frustrating process of not being able to move on past the stupid HR screening will happen over and over again.

The corporate world is for one type of person – the one dimensional robotic yes-man who belongs to the good ole boy club in some shape or form. And to the rest of us seemingly over-educated, under-appreciated and under-utilized individuals, I suggest you share your thoughts because chances are, you agree with us at www.unhrable.com and we want to make sure we stick it to the corporate world.  And then when I become Chief HR Officer of some large BS organization, we’ll show you how to seek, assess and retain talent the right way.

And to further strengthen my argument and point of view, check this out:

https://www.glassdoor.com/employers/blog/5-dumb-things-recruiters/