Where’s the “Human” in Human Resources?
The Corporate Curmudgeon column in The Boston Globe on September 30th references an HR professional, Wendy, who has been looking for a new job and is surprised that prospective employers do not follow up on her job applications or interviews. They call her, are very excited about her wonderful work experience, must schedule time ASAP(!) to interview her in person, give her lots of praise, and then leave her hanging. Unfortunately, Wendy, this treatment is the norm and not the exception.
I’m a management professional with an MBA and 17 years of experience. As the result of a corporate acquisition 11 months ago, I found myself unemployed for the first time in my life. I’m not a job hopper: I’ve had three employers in the last 17 years. I have not had to look for a job since I left graduate school. When I left my former employers I had not been looking for a new job, but had been actively recruited into the next company by someone I knew who was already there.
My current, seemingly interminable job search includes scanning hundreds of corporate web sites that glow about the company and how much they care about their people. However, being a job applicant these days is like being a robot in an impersonal, electronic process. Ironically, my former employer made software to control the online recruiting process. Knowing how such software applications work, I thought I knew all the tricks about creating a resume and using the right key words to get my resume seen by hiring managers. However, I think those things only work if you have a boilerplate type of resume, not one that includes 10 years in software start-up companies where the CEOs ask you to jump functional areas every year to solve another problem.
Because I have an MBA, I have a spreadsheet with all of my job search activity. In 11 months I have:
- applied for over 200 positions
- had 42 phone interviews
- had 23 in-person interviews
- received 3 rejection letters
- received no follow-up phone calls
I have been the Girl Scout of job seekers, spending hours to research each company before I apply, tailoring each cover letter, and doing more research if I am fortunate enough to be called for an interview. I have also used the outplacement counseling services supplied by my former employer, paid for another career counselor about six months into my job search, attended countless networking events, and made as many networking contacts as possible.
I am exactly the management professional you want to hire, but none of you know that yet.
I only apply to jobs that are appropriate for me. In the beginning of my job search, like Wendy, I thought that HR people might actually contact me when I matched exactly the experience and education a company said it sought. I kept my cell phone on all the time, just in case. Now I often forget to turn it on. If I am lucky, the electronic application has an automated response that at least thanks me for submitting an application and sometimes even gives me my own “confirmation number,” although I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that. Most online job postings and online applications state they don’t want you to contact the company, so the traditional rules of candidates following up on applications are now seemingly void.
I thought that the 42 people who interviewed me over the phone and 23 who interviewed me in person might call or email to follow up. Every one of them got an official thank-you letter from me—mailed on real stationery to people who interviewed me in person and emailed to those who screened me over the phone. Only a handful ever sent a thanks-but-no-thanks email.
For anyHR people or recruiters who are still reading this, here are some tips from the candidate perspective:
- Try to go through the online application process at your own company—really. It’s usually fairly cumbersome for the candidate, time-consuming, and reflects badly on your company.
- Take another look at your job descriptions. Most list combinations of skills and experience that don’t make sense. My personal favorite so far is the Marketing Director position that said, “Minimum Education: high school; MBA preferred.” So, is it an entry-level job or an MBA job?
- If you want to interview candidates who live or work near your corporate location, take a chance and bring them in for a 30-minute, in-person interview. Phone interviews are stifling for the candidate.
- Train your hiring managers in interviewing skills. One VP-level hiring manager (who interviewed me on the phone when I live 15 minutes away—see #3) talked about himself for 35 minutes and asked me only if I thought the company was a good fit for me. I tried to ask questions to steer him to more information about me, but he kept going on about how great his division was. Ironically, he was one of the few who followed up with me in an email.
- When you bring candidates in for interviews, send a follow-up thank-you by email. There’s nothing worse for a candidate than spending hours of time researching and preparing for an interview, spending hours in the actual interviews, and then never hearing from you again. “Thank you” is one of the first things we learn in human language, and it goes a long way.
~Guest Blogger Mary
If you would like to hire/interview Mary (and you should), send me an email and I'll put the two of you in touch!
~Jay
For readers outside of the Boston area, our local transit agency is called the MBTA--Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority--or just simply The T. However this story impacts all transportation workers because it comes from the US Department of Transportation Guidelines . The new guideline states that it will now require "directly observed collection" of urine from employees who previously tested positive for drugs or from those whose prior urine sample appeared to have been tampered with. The guidelines goes on to say that "The observer must personally and directly watch the urine go from the employee's body into the collection container". In addition, observers will also demand that those employees raise their shirt and drop their pants to ensure that the employee is not using a device to sabotage the test.
evasive way to screen for drug abuse? I have to believe that a blood or hair sample would accomplish the same result with a lot less humiliation. I remember back in college, when drug testing was relatively new, we had to do an in class exercise where we had to empty a cup of water into either the "yes we would take a drug test to get a job" or "no, we would not take a drug test to get a job". At that time, the "yes" category won, hand's down. And, I suspect that it would win today if we did the same exercise.
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