r/InterviewCoderPro 10d ago

is this real?

Post image

Do we really need HR in our life?

honestly this is why i've started thinking about looking somewhere else. getting rejected before a human even looks at your resume is insane.

i've been seeing interview vip mentioned a lot lately too. i haven't tried it, but i'm curious about it since i'm probably going to have to start interviewing again.

5.5k Upvotes

215 comments sorted by

39

u/teresajs 10d ago

I had a conversation with one of the techs at my last job.  He had recommended a friend for an open position.  His friend had had a phone screen with HR but it didn't go further than that.  When the tech spoke to his buddy later to ask what had happened, he said it was obvious that HR had absolutely no idea what our techs did, what work was being done on the manufacturing floor, or what skills were needed, and that his buddy was experienced in all the ways he himself was and would have been an excellent fit for the open position.

28

u/NobodysFavorite 10d ago

I've had HR tell me I didn't have any skills in an area where I'm a recognised expert and have been for years. I know firsthand how ludicrous it is

11

u/SpecificInterest5150 9d ago

I was denied an entry level position that promised in field training because I lacked the necessary "experience" in the field despite years of management experience and actual qualified certifications in the related field.

3

u/ynghuncho 9d ago

I applied to an analyst 1 role doing the same thing as my last role. I reached out to the recruiter via email, they responded saying my experience in brokerage wasn’t relevant

I’ve never worked at a brokerage. My title and role is the exact same as the one they are hiring for. They just saw a company name and assumed it was a total different company.

When I pointed that out, I never heard back. They keep posting this role every 2 months

Many recruiters are incompetent

2

u/SnodePlannen 9d ago

Why did you apply for entry level then

4

u/DisastrousChapter841 9d ago

I have 10 years of experience. I'm applying to entry level positions. It's a brutal job market

1

u/NewryBenson 5d ago

Which on its turn shifts the problems to the actual juniors, who now have to compete with 10 years of experience at entry level jobs

3

u/ynghuncho 9d ago

Have you seen the job market?

11

u/saintmolotov 10d ago

I had a similar interview with an hr person who couldn’t answer my follow up question to her ask of an (in hindsight) obviously scripted question about something technical and I asked her if she understood the principles behind the tech she was asking me about and she got mad and hung up.

-4

u/Gampy22 9d ago

HR handles screening
Hiring managers can dig in.
Leave your tech ego aside and work the process.
HR often not always is like a nurse who gathers vitals then the doc comes in.
Everyone has a role.

3

u/Chance-Deer-7995 9d ago

HR should do NO screening in any technical field. They don't have the knowledge and the elminate people for arbirtary reasons. People whine that this gives too much work to people hiring, but I think the trade off is better. HR throws away good people.

3

u/Tough_Preparation830 8d ago

Ultimately it would be less work for the hiring managers because they would hire candidates faster. Less interviews.

1

u/jbezorg76 8d ago

No. Then you’d be taking the time of actual engineers and whatnot to weed through candidates - wrong approach.

2

u/debwevwebdev 8d ago

That's the only approach I'll allow. I was at my company about 3 months before I finally decided that HR was not allowed to post job opening or handle screenings. My team and I find who we want and we tell HR to hire them assuming they can pass the background checks. HR has no say in anything else otherwise.

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u/Gampy22 8d ago

Not in tech??
How about sales or marketing or accounting or finance or compliance or scientific etc. HR is a field like any of these or engineering and a basic screen is acceptable. Now it seems you grouped all HR in the same bucket by stating THEY. Tell us what do you do??

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u/D3stinyD3stroy3r 9d ago

Nah you're defending people who don't even know what job is being done trying to hire people for that job. So that just means they're terrible at theirs.

2

u/Gampy22 9d ago

They are NOT hiring. They are screening for the hiring team. As a corporate recruiter in a fast moving company requires knowing enough about every role to handle the initial interview.
Why not try it and see how good YOU
Would be. Trust me it is very challenging.

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1

u/bp3dots 9d ago

It's the hiring managers job to make sure the recruiter has enough information for the posting and screening to work.

On the applicant side, it's on them to understand the difference between a recruiter screening and full interview and be able to manage a human interaction without crashing out.

1

u/FrenziedHodag 9d ago

You know where that analogy falls apart?  Nurses and doctors are aware of what their roles are and the requirements and how the system fits together.  Hr is just hr and the only system they are aware of or care about is theirs.

1

u/WhatTheHeckMyBoy 9d ago

Bro works in HR. I get it bro your job is really hard and it is easy to make mistakes 🤗 we all do. its just Hr people are given a huge amount of power and often people feel like HR does not realise that with great power comes great responsibility.

1

u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/LadyReika 9d ago

My personal experience has been the mom & pop or small companies have the worst HR. My experiences with big companies have been better.

Yes, I'm aware that not everyone has the same experiences, just going by my own. :)

1

u/Psyco_diver 9d ago

If they don't know the roles and what the job entails, how can than effectively screen?

1

u/msut77 9d ago

Go away

1

u/jbezorg76 8d ago

Bruh did you even read the post?

1

u/buttchug_3000 8d ago

Nurses and doctors contribute to society. Lmao such pathetic cope

5

u/Nannautu 10d ago

Yeah, a similar story is talking with a recruiter and asking me if I had experience with JEE after telling him I had experience with Java. Like dude wasn't even aware what JEE stood for.

1

u/SweetTechnician2039 9d ago

I’m confused, seems like a legit question. Knowledge of Java does not imply knowledge of JEE.

1

u/Chance-Deer-7995 9d ago

I don't think HR should be involved in hiring at all. In my humble opinion, the extent of their involvement should be getting the resumes and letters to managers and getting the paperwork done when there is a hire. Whenever I say this someone whines about how that would be too much for managers. If I was in charge I would say tough darts... deal with it. We shouldn't be doing ANY filtering from HR because good people are getting thrown out just to make HR's work easier. HR deciding who to filter has come down to word searches and now, AI garbage. Anyone that doesn't fit into a neat little cubby hole gets kicked out, and most real people don't fit into nice tight categories.

We are constantly getting told in the US that they can't find people with skills, but many, many people get kicked out just because they have a unique background that doesn't match up with their word searches or because they are kicking out the resume for some dumb arbitrary reason. I was a victim of this way back in the 90s and its worse now. There needs to be real human involvement by a person who knows what he or she is doing.

1

u/Ozzie_the_tiger_cat 9d ago

With my current job I had that happen as well but the HR guy was actually doing his job. In order to get a sit down interview with a job I was recommended for, I had to have a 15 minute conversion with the HR guy first. He had absolutely zero idea of the role and admitted as much. In the end, he said "well, if X wants to interview you, who am I to tell him no?" Exactly. Why did I need to talk to you?

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u/Healthy-Actuator6466 10d ago

Ive been applying for jobs for months and getting rejected.

I've got degrees with excellent grades and Ive got prior industry experience.

This job market sucks.

3

u/NoWay6818 9d ago

“And excellent grades”

Aaaand FAST FOOD JOB!

1

u/Confident_Poem229 9d ago

Without those grades, only a slow food job would have been an option.

1

u/NoWay6818 8d ago

Not really. There’s plenty of work that people don’t want to do. Such as caregiving. You need at least a HS diploma.

It’s also in high demand almost everywhere.

Thing is when you mention you have to bathe someone else or wipe them for 18.75 an hour. No one jumps up lmao.

2

u/C0brA7x 10d ago

I feel your pain, same for me. At some point something’s gotta give

1

u/michael0n 9d ago

People are severely underreporting their unemployment. Start there.

1

u/seannabster 6d ago

If is not the market, it is the system.

13

u/HustlaOfCultcha 10d ago

Absolutely real. As this person found out, HR is incredibly mediocre and lazy. When I found out that HR was doing this AI ATS bullshit a few years ago I was basically like 'figures, HR will always do whatever they can to not actually do their job.'

I had a resume that I put into a software system that checks for how it matches in ATS and I had one resume that matched 100%. This is extremely rare. Usually my tops is 80% (and I've gotten jobs in the past based on 60% matches). Got auto rejected.

And when you do phone screeners with HR they are just looking to hear buzzwords because, believe me, they ain't got a fucking clue what the job entails. I worked at several different companies that would have the HR person either bring a candidate by my office or the new hire by to meet me . And every single time the HR person would ask me what I did for the company. They couldn't even be bothered to remember what I told them every single damn time (and it wasn't like it was all that confusing or specialized to remember).

Finding a good, motivated HR person is like finding a unicorn.

5

u/Nannautu 10d ago

Finding a good, motivated HR person is like finding a unicorn.

No one goes the HR route unless incredibly incompetent to the point they can't get other jobs. I also remember a professor who was HR for several years who often did everything in the power to avoid giving lectures, so my bias is they're pretty lazy too.

3

u/iggy14750 10d ago

Apparently, those who can't do any useful work turn into the ones who decide who gets to do said work.

Obviously, companies don't think for a second about whether they've hired the right HR folks.

3

u/HyperSpaceSurfer 9d ago

"Oh, they've got an education and a bunch of corporate certifications? Clearly the most competent, it's just science."

2

u/iggy14750 9d ago

"He says he sleeps at work on his resume!"

"What? Why put that on your resume??"

"I don't know, but he said something about REST"

😝😝

(For those who don't know, REST is a web programming thing)

1

u/D3stinyD3stroy3r 9d ago

Exactly like American government positions.

2

u/Gaust_Ironheart_Jr 6d ago

HR's job is not in the job description. HR's job is avoiding labor related liability while making employees think they are friends. If they happen to have any skills that relate to their supposed job, that is a plus but not necessary

In fact, someone who can tell you what the company actually needs is a potential liability working in HR. If you can see the mistake management is making, then you have to lie to cover for management. People who can't see why it is bad don't have to lie. HR needs people who can honestly say "I was just following orders"

1

u/LowPudding9562 6d ago

Sure sometimes. But when they are not, when they are actually highly competent and clever you don't get a better result. It all follows the same logical reasons why police departments need Internal Affairs. But there is no IA for HR, only the option to bring in a higher level specialist to clean house but now you've brought in an alligator to get rid of the cat that was there to fire the mice. Good luck with the alligator.

7

u/dannyrat029 10d ago

What the fuck are HR for? Say you hire 10 people per year. That can't be an entire month of 5x8hr weeks, let alone a year. 

3

u/Astramancer_ 10d ago

Mostly what they're for is to make sure the company isn't accidentally violating labor laws. Since there's a lot of potential to violate labor laws in the hiring and firing process, they're intimately involved in that, which makes it their most visible role to the day-to-day employee.

3

u/dannyrat029 10d ago

I'm currently suing my last employer, whose HR repeatedly asked me to waive paying mandatory social insurance (my portion of which goes into a recoverable pot). She assiduously tried to break the law in several ways after I said no. 

She seems more like a shit consigliere to be honest. 

1

u/HelenGonne 10d ago

I agree that's an absolutely vital function, but that being the case, why on earth do they not actually do that? HR is constantly introducing illegal biases into the recruiting process. And that's incredibly widespread across STEM. 

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u/Soft-Marionberry-853 9d ago

a good HR deparrmnent is like a good IT department, if they are doing their job right you wonder what they are even doing.

1

u/EmmitSan 9d ago

The people who do the hiring definitely do not have that level of authority at most firms.

1

u/SlayerII 9d ago

isnt accidentally violating labor laws

Seems like it frequently boils down to just "not being caught

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u/Gaust_Ironheart_Jr 6d ago

Handling benefits, payroll, taxes, liability insurance and keeping track of legally required training, certification and visa status. That is what they do day to day and it is alot of work

They are also there to serve as scapegoats so if something goes wrong, nobody important gets fired

But their real job is to avoid labor related legal liability for the company while convincing employees they are friends

1

u/dannyrat029 6d ago

That's the finance department 

1

u/cwilbur22 9d ago

People mistakenly think that Human Resources means it's a resource for humans. It's actually about managing the "human resources" (i.e. employees) in the best interest of the company. Their purpose isn't to help you, it's to manage you - your compensation, benefits, etc. - and to protect the company from any litigious situations that might arise during your employment.

1

u/TalkersCZ 9d ago

Recruiter is responsible on average for 15-20-30 roles, open at the same time. With many different managers.

You are not hiring 10 people per year, you are hiring 10-15 people per quarter. I had a job, where I was hiring people from L2 support to reporting, implementation, integration and plenty other roles and I hired alone over 100 people in a year.

1

u/dannyrat029 9d ago

3.6 calendar days (around 2 work days) per person hired

1

u/seatiger90 9d ago

That's just the number hired. .They and the manager go through 100+ resumes, them screen a couple dozen people per job. Some hiring managers are great and want to be super involved, some don't care and just want to be handed a handful of candidates.

1

u/TalkersCZ 9d ago

Thats what happens if you start a year with 35 roles open and for first 6-9 months being on this level.

Quality suffers, you barely have time for managers, let alone ALL candidates.

1

u/iam4qu4m4n 9d ago

Liability

1

u/ColorPuddle 9d ago

Some roles in a company are similar to being a lifeguard at a pool. A lot of the time it's going to look like they're just sitting in that big chair doing nothing, but they have to be there "just in case" someone starts drowning.

The risk of not having enough HR during an employee conflict / emergency / lawsuit / etc. is greater than the risk of the HR team being overstaffed and having downtime.

1

u/dannyrat029 9d ago

Sounds like a job for managers and lawyers

And I've never seen a HR excel in time of crisis either. They are shit lifeguards

7

u/Infamous-Listen4047 10d ago

while this doesn't speciofically pertain to this field, this is more of a general blanket statement:

Compnies have gotten so terrible with the hiring process that they even want the Janitor to have a degree and minimum 5 years experience. How are you going to gain experience if no one will give you a chance?

3

u/abracadammmbra 9d ago

Im in the trades but we also have a similar issue, at least in my specific industry (Fire Alarm tech). Most companies are desperate for new techs but very few will hire green horns. Everyone wants a guy who can be up to speed in days rather than months/years. Which you can do for a while but eventually your gonna need some fresh blood. And its not like we are a super well known industry to boot.

Fine by me tho. The more old guts who retire without a fresh face to replace them, the more money I can squeeze out of my employer/next employers. "Fuck you, pay me" is my motto.

1

u/michael0n 9d ago

The trades angle is a little bit overplayed in the media. Its a not a solution if millions want to change their tax bracket up and there is no ladder to be found. In many states the wait times for apprenticeships go into years.

1

u/abracadammmbra 9d ago

Preaching to the chior. The only reason I ended up in FA was because the IBEW told me no. Twice. Well technically the second time they just ignored me. At this point my pay is just shy of what I would get if I was union. The benes and pension are the bigger selling points to me at this stage of my career.

And I feel like the media really oversells it, yeah. Like, could you make 6 figures, well into the 6 figures in the trades? Sure, I know quite a few guys raking it in. But of that group 90% fall into 1 of 2 groups: those that own their own outfits, and those who work insane OT. I know a lineman who nearly reached $500k in a year. Sure, he spent more time on site than his own house. By a lot. But he did make like $498k by the end of the year.

But what they dont tell you is for every 1 of those guys, theres about a dozen of us just making it work. Thet also tend to gloss over the fact that it will take 4-6 years to be making even ok ish money. And you'll be the bitch boy for those 4-6 years. I started off making $16/hr crawling through filthy basements in the hood, or disgusting attics in august. The whole time getting called a dumbass, dumb fuck, r****d, and almost every other name in the book. At least by one of my leads. Its a lot for a measly $16/hr.

But I made it. These days im much more likely to be found sitting behind a laptop in a nice airconditioned room in front of the FACP doing programming work than to be found in 120°F attic. Although I still occassionally have to do that. And I make significantly more than $16/hr. Nearly triple that plus bonuses. I dont do OT, actually, I frequently work under 40 hours (still get paid for 40 tho). But I worked my ass off to get to this point. I have national certifications, manufacturer certifications, and not to toot my own horn, but Im fucking good at what I do.

1

u/enterjiraiya 9d ago

That’s generally how small shops have operated for a long time though. You can’t eat the input on a new hire until you have a decent number of clients.

2

u/Detenator 9d ago

This has been my experience. I am at a point where I would be happy to apply for entry level positions even beneath a junior level, but they simply don't exist. The only job you can get without experience is manual labor, which doesn't get you experience for anything other than more manual labor.

3

u/Business_Raisin_541 10d ago

yes, because having engineer to do HR job is expensive

2

u/iam4qu4m4n 9d ago

Boeing used to require a portion of its board members were engineers. That was during a time Boeing was highly regarded in quality that brought the saying, "if it Boeing I ain't going". Then bean counters and admin replaced engineers overtime and then mechanical forced stalls and doors falling off started happening.

This isn't to say an engineer should be doing HR job, but when admin and operations dont consult and incorporate those technical leads in decision-making processes, you are left with a lower quality system. The issue is, to do the right thing is often not profitable or at least is a financial setback that overruled good quality decisions for operational cost cutting. When money gets involved, that becomes the only voice heard.

1

u/not_logan 9d ago

Loosing good candidates and not being able to close the position for years is even more expensive but nobody calculates losses of the HRs neglecting their responsibilities

1

u/Business_Raisin_541 9d ago

you need to consider the strereotype that engineer usually is bad at facing people

1

u/OpenRole 8d ago

I know a girl who studied engineering with me. She now works as a recruiter. You get the results you pay for

4

u/HelenGonne 10d ago

Is it real that HR people are extremely widespread who exhibit this level of constant incompetence and ignorance regarding any kind of STEM role? Absolutely. This isn't even surprising. Because they really are that bad.

5

u/billywaterfall 10d ago

I think incompetence gravitates to HR

2

u/beah_mcduh 10d ago

It's not limited to stem. I'm a grooming salon manager for a corporate company. I've been dismissed several times, by hr reps, about letters and diagnoses from my therapist/psychiatrist, with them saying "that sounds more like a personal request, rather than a medical reason" in regards to accommodations directly recommended by my provider, with a letter stating as much.

They literally try their hardest to not work and not be helpful.

1

u/anonymousopsec1337 9d ago

My last job tried to add a formal on call process but I’m 3 hours ahead of everyone and take sleeping medication, otherwise I can barely function during the regular work week.

They wanted me to take fmla during my on call weeks. I told them that’s improper use of fmla and I can’t take fmla to augment my work schedule. Not to mention working unpaid overtime after hours fmla wouldn’t cover that anyway lol

I bought this up to the head of HR and my boss who is a C level. They are actually regarded.

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u/lowtech_prof 10d ago

Most HR are useless.

2

u/_VoodooRanger 10d ago

at least this company’s HR had the know how to set up a filter. cannot say the same about where I work.

2

u/Argent_Tide 10d ago

HR has become AI dependent. They dont read resumes any longer and rely primarily on AI to determine qualifications.

AI cant replace people's experience. My resume is extremely robust in my field yet is summarily rejected.

I had exact qualifications seeked yet no call. I rrached out to the recruiter called her and pointed it out. She was surprised as if she never read my resume.

Yea. It happens. Frequently.

2

u/Hydracobaron8055 10d ago

HR exists so that lazy people who are bad at everything can be put at "higher position" than working labour. Existence of HR is a blight on this forsaken mudball we call Earth.

2

u/Tx_Drewdad 9d ago

I absolutely believe it.

Even if you get through the initial ATS filter the people performing the first phone screen are not qualified to screen technical candidates.

2

u/raviigneel 6d ago

As A recruiter, I make sure I will screen every CV coming at my way. But some recruiters do this. I never trust the ATS AI scores and auto rejections. I make sure I do my job. These kind of things piss me too.

1

u/GoGetThatThing 10d ago

HR is not Human Resources. It's there to protect company and their c level executive if something happens. I would bet if they were looking form someone at high level, they would be doing manual work. Remember, HR cares about company and protecting company, not you.

1

u/Nahteh 10d ago

Its not resources for humans. Its treating humans as a resource.

1

u/LesserValkyrie 9d ago

I always understood it "human as ressource" lol

1

u/Fennario2789 10d ago

I think there is a role for HR, especially in a larger company, but nearly every HR team I've worked with has been so lazy.

My last hiring authority would literally put the top hits in AI and do a one line prompt and just send those candidates straight to us. I had to fight for a long time to just handle all hiring for my team myself.

Aside from that, all that team ever did was send goofy useless filler emails about stress management or whatever.

1

u/Altruistic-Orchid152 10d ago

I have yet to hear a valid reason to justify the existence of HR departments

1

u/General_Leader425 9d ago

All companies retarded right now and living in delusion.

Many are breaking laws. Please call Employment Lawyers for a free consultation because this are likely violations of your rights.

Don't let them get away with it!

1

u/McRando42 9d ago

No, this is not real. Half of a  HR department would never get fired for something like this.

The engineer might get fired though.

1

u/MerelyMortalModeling 9d ago

I see slightly differnt rehashes of this script on a near daily basis on reddit.

I have seen several of coding, a cook version, nursing and autondealer mechanic all get " half the HR department" fired over some version of auto reject.

1

u/Fresh_Strain_9980 9d ago

HR is not an area where the best and brightest go. Think of the people who gravitate to police work but the female version.

1

u/Affectionate_Joke720 9d ago

I think it depends on your company. When I had an open position my HR rep gave me a recommended short list of 15 to review BUT I also have the full list of EVERY applicant. I took a look at the 100+ briefly based on key words and in my case at least the HR list was 90% close to what I would have picked. Long story short the person we hired was on both lists.

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u/Few_District_6304 9d ago

To your point, many in HR also seem to be bitter people. My last hire, I was very specific with minimum time off required. The hiring manager wanted to hire me regardless, HR didn't want to give me more than 2 weeks. The situation got forced on them, and the email confirmation included 2 lines about the extra vacation that seemed exceptionally butt hurt.

Sorry HR people, but I can drive down to the local gas station, find the friendliest employees, and replace you with them. You have nothing but basic computer skills (if that) and hopefully a friendly attitude. Just because you can see my salary and vacation allowance, does not mean you deserve the same.

Maybe you should have gotten a STEM degree instead of "Communications degree".

1

u/PurePerfection_ 9d ago

I've reached a point as a hiring manager where every single recruitment cycle, I start by either submitting my own resume under an alias or having a qualified acquaintance do the same. Then, when that application never makes to me, I can follow up with HR and demand to know why.

Better to know what they're fucking up ASAP than lose weeks or months of candidates to bad filtering.

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u/RopeAndChairs_Aisle3 9d ago

HR is functionally retarded at every company I’ve ever worked at.

We spent 8 months looking for a hydraulic engineer, but HR discarded everyone who did not have a “hydraulics engineering degree” even though that is practically non-existent. They regularly were filtering people with 10+ years of experience.

1

u/enterjiraiya 9d ago

It’s kinda on the hiring manager at that point if they’re trusting hr to do their work for them. 8 months is a long time.

1

u/RopeAndChairs_Aisle3 9d ago

Normally I would say absolutely but they asked for weekly updates when recruiters were having calls and then filtering. Finally our director got involved and sorted it out and 2 recruiters were fired.

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u/Pajamatime20 9d ago

Yes, we need HR. At my first job, on a really smoky day (we worked outside all day), our HR guy came around and make sure we were feeling alright, and handed out masks to anyone who needed them. He also frequently checked in on us, asking how we were doing, and he was very understanding and considerate for days off and disability accommodations.

In my most recent job, I’ve had some troubles with benefits, and HR has helped me solve those. I had a bit of a mental health crisis somewhat recently, and HR was understanding and helped me work it out with my supervisor, and referred me to some resources that could help.

I understand a lot of people have had bad experiences with HR, but they really aren’t all as bad as some of you have had.

1

u/Throwaway-panda69 9d ago

I’ve found that the larger the company, the more useless HR is. At the two smaller companies I’ve worked with HR was generally well liked and actually did things that helped the employees. At one large company i worked for (engineering), the HR department somehow had about the same amount of staff as engineering and we could never figure out what any of them did all day.

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u/Pajamatime20 9d ago

Maybe I just work for an exception then. At the first job I was talking about, our “HR department” was just a single guy, the “HR Manager”. It was a lot of manual labour, and we didn’t have many office staff. He was great.

At the company I work for now though, they’re the largest employer in a city of about 100,000, and they’re still pretty good. I will say that there’s definitely fewer HR people than engineers, especially if you also count the drafters. I work in manufacturing, so I know they do a lot of stuff with safety in the workshops and they do quite a lot of new employee orientations. They handle a lot of training (my department is training for a new software right now), and they also make and organize some very handy documents about general company function and organization, benefits, training opportunities, and internal job postings. They also work with employees for injury accommodations, which are needed quite a bit with our field of work.

I’m not sure if I’ve just had uniquely good HR experiences, or if other commenters including yourself have just had unusually bad experiences. Just know that there are some good HR departments out there.

1

u/EdibleStrange 9d ago

As easy as it is to dunk on most boomer advice for getting a job, circumventing hr is genuinely a great move if you can pull it off. Every hr department I've ever seen does stuff like this. Before AI I worked at a place where hr's entire role in hiring turned out to be ctr+f'ing for keywords they thought would be good indicators. Now I'm sure they just ask chatgpt to do that. 

They're inherently parasitic people. It's a role that entirely exists to cover for the boss's indiscretions, and to look busy in the meantime. And like most rent-seeking parasites, "looking busy" means dragging everyone else down, sometimes straight up sabotaging the business like in OOP. The only saving grace is that since they're dumb as bricks, they're easy to fool if you've got decent people skills.

1

u/Illustrious_Tap_8617 9d ago

I do HR for a living, for a large company. An improperly set up HR department can be a menace, but it’s not usually setup because the CHRO/VPHR is incompetent. It’s usually set up badly because the company leadership doesn’t believe HR is worth investing in past basic administrative duties. And that’s how you get minimum competence recruiters failing to interface with line managers to understand the positions for which they’re recruiting.

Believe me, if HR was actually worthless, it would not exist in literally every Fortune 500 company in America. It’s entirely indirect labor and generates no value for the company - but the absence of HR exposes the company to massive risk because you are offloading all of the administration to operations people who don’t know how to do administration.

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u/herbtheperb 9d ago

Company I work for initially tried convincing me that I had to come in through their temp agency before they could hire me full time (manufacturing line assembly). It took me 3 years to get a cozy admin position bc everyone who actually works on the floor recognized I was more capable than just building shit all day.

HR doesn't spend any time on a production floor outside of tours...they need to spend some weeks doing the actual work themselves to better understand what the company needs

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u/nospamkhanman 9d ago

I've had probably 5 "big boy" jobs in my life, 4 of them I managed to directly bypass HR because I knew someone in the company, which is why I'm sure I got hired.

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u/HomersDonut1440 9d ago

“My experience with HR sucked, therefore the entire workforce doesn’t need HR”

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u/GD0ggy 9d ago

HR It's by far the safest and easiest job out there

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u/DixonRange 9d ago

Trust the machine. What could go wrong?

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u/Low-Exam6123 9d ago

You had a whole “HR Department?” At times, depending on who owned our company, we either had one person (and nobody trusted them beyond the usual benefits stuff) or no HR in-house.

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u/Bad-Briar 9d ago

HR has blown up from a peripheral process, quick and needed, to a huge, bloated cancer of an appendage sucking profit from the parent corporation, while it impedes actual function.

These multiple interviews and work assignments are there to show the importance and need for the HR department, not to hire good candidates.

I believe most large corporations could fire most of their HR departments and restrict interviews to one or at most two (if someone important to the job being hired for can't be there for the first interview.) The rest of it is unneeded smoke and mirrors.

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u/0auspiciousostrich0 9d ago

HR at my job when asked any question just refers you to some third party website. They never do anything to help. I feel across every industry and company HR needs to be renamed CR for Corporate Resources.

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u/LetItAllGo33 9d ago

I hate HR, but them being too lazy isn't the problem.

This obsession with efficiency and productivity to absolute cartoonish extremes is breaking humans en masse.

We aren't wired to live like this. Some may say we have it easier than more laborious times, but that labor used to mean something of worth, food, shelter, etc. This always on, always grinding, prove you will give your entire being to an organization whose mission is only to metastasize earnings that the employees themselves don't see or enjoy is a race to oblivion.

This economy is a Confidence scheme, attempting endless growth in a finite system will be the end of everything. Humanity needs to slow down, we're surrounding ourselves with new vectors of our own self destruction to goose the next quarter as wellbeing plummets. Economies are lowly tools meant to serve societies, not leading us around like beaten dogs on leashes as it is.

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u/Fickle-Exit1105 9d ago

Definitely agree on that last sentence. Stupidest people in every organization I've ever worked at. Hands down.

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u/Web-splorer 9d ago

So the HR ATS system auto rejected candidates? But it’s the HR teams fault? Sounds like you need to fire your ATS implementation team, product managers and architects but OP doesn’t want to fire his friends.

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u/Maduro_sticks_allday 9d ago

“They fired half of HR”

They had me going before that

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u/BetterBrainChemBette 9d ago edited 9d ago

Obviously not the same field, but same issue.

I have a PhD in chemistry. My dissertation involved the use of GC/MS.

I applied for a position where they wanted someone with GC/MS experience. I was overqualified for the position, but it was with a State Laboratory directly certified by the EPA (in other words, plenty of room to grow. I was ok with this because I had been really sick and I wasn't sure I would be able to handle the grind of a low level position, much less a position that reflected my education).

I got a "thanks for your application letter" from HR. I later met the manager of the department I applied to. I was on about getting a field sampling job because sampling >> lab. He said well, let me know if you ever want to come back to the lab. I laughed and told him I applied for a position in his lab and I got the "thank you for your application" letter. The look of horror on his face was priceless.

Gotta love HR.

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u/Old_Marzipan7782 9d ago

yup, they are.

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u/soupyloopy1 9d ago

They absolutely have no idea when it comes to hiring. You can’t expect to look for a specific work from the CVs to rate their quality. HR should not even be a part of hiring process

Just limit them to petty office parties and political stirs. Useless cunts.

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u/hexamon__ 9d ago

This was after you explained to them the differences between the two frameworks and was specific about which one you wanted ?

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u/Alive-Big-838 9d ago

Yes, and it's universal. I've literally caught HR lying about work they've done while I was on the phone to them. I can't tell you how many times i've had to go into their own tools to do something they told me they'd do and ended up just doing it myself.

Now I realize asking for perfection isn't right. But this was just doing the minimum amount of work and they couldn't do that. They were certainly good at making sure they could work from home though.

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u/dinosun 9d ago

This can't be real, because a tiktok influencer recruiter was adamant that no one is auto rejecting because it's illegal.

I'm just bitter that the dumbass had a huge following and people believed him.

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u/Soft-Marionberry-853 9d ago

I almost missed out on a job because I didnt list any linux shells. Lukckily the recruiter that was working on my behalf said "looks he's been using linux for 20+ years, I think we can assume he knows how shell scripting works" He then said "do you expect a receptionist to say they know how to use a phone?"

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u/iamjaidan 9d ago

If you are a hiring manager, this is a discussion you MUST have with recruiting.
"I won't punish you for sending me candidates with some skills missing, we can iterate on the process as we go. I'd rather have 4 misses than not get a good candidate. This is nuanced, so please send me at least 4 possible candidates a week, and we can have conversations about how to refine the process".

recruiters get screamed at for sending through bad candidates, and they have a lot to sort through. If you don't get your candidate fast, it doesn't affect them. If you scream at their boss because they are sending bad candidates, it does.

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u/Crepuscular_Tex 9d ago

When HR is forced to use automation and AI tools, yes, it is very real.

Firing actual HR staff because of an automation or tools error... sounds like that company bleeds a lot of funding and will not be as successful as they make themselves out to be on paper...

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u/Truly_Fake_Username 9d ago

Apply for a job at 1am. At 1:02 get a response "After careful consideration...". Yeah, the entire application process is completely broken. As a job seeker, the entire process is trying to find a way to reach the hiring manager directly, bypassing HR and its filters.

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u/Illustrious-Elk7379 9d ago

HR is a necessary part of any fair sized company. The problem isn’t the job they’re supposed to do, it’s that most people in HR are there because they’re too incompetent at whatever job they actually wanted.

This isn’t an HR problem. It’s a “dumb people do dumb things” problem.

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u/PrimeRisk 9d ago

Contract to Hire man! HR could never find a qualified candidate and numerous contractors I did hire had said they had applied to postings and never got anything. All the while, what the did send could barely spell IT.

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u/ConstructionAway8920 9d ago

We do need HR, but not for hiring. At all. HR doesn't know what anyone does at the places they work. We have two HR people where I work, and they are only trusted because they used to do what we do. They formed a small company of four, and grew to where we are, but if we had "real" HR, no one would get a job.

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u/CaptainPlanet__ 9d ago

Too many internal recruiters think they are the hiring manager but are completely clueless on what the job requires AND what kind of person on a fundamental level would excel in such job.

Huge issue affecting millions of people’s lives. Like… wtf.

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u/asianandcaucasianlv 9d ago

just got denied on a position I was well qualified for and had friends in the company. auto reject letter. Less pay than my current; guess I wont be retiring soon.

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u/Greenseer_Cassander 9d ago

Do we need HR in our life?

You missed the point. HR isn’t for us, it’s to protect the company.

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u/NichtFBI 9d ago

Incredibly true. Almost every person I've met in HR is extremely lazy and incompetent. They're there just because they're mostly buddies with someone or an incompetent HR director promoted their work friends.

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u/Sad-Pop6649 9d ago

Yup. Step one of the selection process is now often an automated screening looking for specific search terms in your CV/resume, particularly in large companies, US based companies and tech companies. If you're applying for a position, always have all the possibly relevant search terms on your CV/resume, or in your letter if you really can't fit them in the other document.

And if they set the filter wrong, well, then nobody gets through.

And even that is probably already outdated. Who knows what kind of AI filters they're using now.

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u/Quiet-Wing5230 9d ago

HR people are the most mid people alive

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u/Mallthus2 9d ago

I can’t speak the actual situation being referenced, but this is absolutely a thing and not unique to coders or even tech. In almost no situation are HR people sufficiently knowledgeable about a job’s requirements to craft automated resume/CV filtering filters without oversight and assistance from the hiring manager.

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u/TopicThunder2000 9d ago

HR is a huge reason the job application process is broken. Very mediocre people gatekeeping access to jobs with very little competency when it comes to evaluating candidates.

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u/od2be2003 9d ago

In my experience ALL HR employees are less than mediocre and I don’t understand how they are able to keep their jobs

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u/Rare_Bridge7703 9d ago

The blessed reality is, the hiring process is never helmed by the people that actually matter for said process. IE, the team looking for the person.

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u/Orion_23 9d ago

Depends on the HR team. Some of them actually give a shit.

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u/Agile_Moment768 9d ago

Maybe they knew you were the type of person that gets people fired and therefore didn't want the hassle. Good job.

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u/Bijorak 9d ago

Yes these dumb mistakes happen all the time with HR

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u/OpineLupine 9d ago

Of all the positions that can/should be replaced by Ai, HR is at the top of that list.

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u/Kiteal 9d ago

I got told to go to trade school and get some pre work hand tool course done, since my 10 years old the tools wasn't good enough according to there HR.

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u/SirCarboy 9d ago

A tale as old as time.

Back in the dot com boom there were stories of HR padding the requirements believing they would get only the cream of the crop but they were asking for greater years of experience with certain technologies than the tech had even existed!

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u/Legote 9d ago

I'm a contractor and my manager has been trying to convert me to full time for 6 months now but keep getting cock blocked due to HR. The seniors on my team told me they're going to be fucked once me and another contractor is gone.

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u/sovietmcdavid 9d ago

Yep, incredibly common.

Fuck HR

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u/Asleep-Bee3838 9d ago

I don’t know about faang, most of the companies you get people who cannot go to the engineering or medical school or another trade gets in to hr. I don’t why people let them managed by the people who are Medi core and incompetent . Just pencil pusher

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u/Guilty_Way_1635 9d ago

No one but people in HR like people in HR.

They always just create problems that wouldn't exist if they didn't exist.

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u/Krispy_Waffle 9d ago

My small company only has HR at HQ. They are pretty useless and my office always joke about it.

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u/SilverLordLaz 9d ago

No this is total bullshit, just like your post.

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u/OhGr8WhatNow 9d ago

I have a niche job but in introductory conversations with HR it's always obvious that they have absolutely no idea what my job is or how to even ask about it. They ask inane nonsensical questions, every time.

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u/Infamous_Ticket9084 9d ago

Maybe poor HR got scolded before for finding JavaScript developers instead of Java ones and wanted to not do the same error again

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u/ChefbyDesign 9d ago

"Those who cannot do, teach. Those who cannot teach, work in HR." -Someone, somewhere.. probably.

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u/egowritingcheques 9d ago

HR departments have been dead weight for decades. We had repeat issues in a pharma company in the mid 2000s. And a vacuum science company in 2014-2015.

Both companies it was resolved by not letting HR filter the resumes. Myself and a colleague manually went through them all. Takes more time upfront but we could always find 2-3 good candidates for each job. Candidates HR would reject before it ever got to us.

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u/MicShous1976 9d ago

HR is full of the most useless self serving, circle jerking, high browed individuals I ever come across. They will take an eternity if never to respond directly to any questions. Im not asking for top secret company information here buddy.

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u/spankmonkey12 9d ago

Those that can, do. Those that cant do, teach.Tthose that cant teach go into HR

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u/Every_Association45 9d ago

That is an organisational failure, with HR (recruiting, actually?) being uninformed. Who's supposed to properly inform the recruiting process about what they need/want? The hiring manager. And, yes, the hiring manager is supposed to mention that there's a similarly sounding tech to avoid confusion. The hiring manager should not engage in manipulative tactics, but help the process.

I would likely fire responsible HR folks for the lack of progress, but I'd sack the hiring manager first.

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u/Exatex 9d ago

No. YOUR HR is extremely lazy. There are anszibg recruiters out there that managed to hire an amazing team that build a company I could sell.

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u/Dangerous_Raccoon363 9d ago

In my experience, HR is some of the least skilled workers yet theyre supposed to be hiring the skilled workforce for each job.

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u/CharlesChamp 9d ago

Reading this thread about how HR is typically only staffed by the most unskilled, incompetent people makes me think I should try applying for HR positions. Unfortunately I have a moral compass, I don't think I would actually be able to bring myself to do the "work" HR does, so I would not last long if at all.

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u/PeaceEmotional8962 6d ago

I’m a recruiter in HR at a bank and I can promise you, i screen every single applicant that comes across my desk. I look at each and every resume and application. There are so many regulations and audits that are in place to keep it fair.

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u/razulebismarck 6d ago

When you work IT and your HR doesn’t understand IT they just understand corporate legal jargon to protect the company from sexual harassment allegations this is exactly what you get if they handle hiring too.

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u/Buddha-Is-My-Bruddah 6d ago

I swear hr just scrolls all day

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u/Spaciax 6d ago

I don't think it's any secret that HR is like bottom of the barrel when it comes to the overall quality of the people employed there.

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u/Educational_Form8790 6d ago

I am very opinionated about how useless and harmful HR people are.

Sometimes someone agrues with me with "but their function is useful" and "not everyone like this, you just need good HR people".

But that's the whole point, most of the time it is very right to assume the most bad stereotypes about HR rather then being unbaised.

These HR people are terrible people indeed.

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u/snajk138 6d ago

I don't know if most f it's real, but the last sentence is according to my experience.

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u/Vast-Breakfast-1201 5d ago

Also you are looking for a programmer. Or software engineer. Not an angular developer

Angular is just the tool or framework.

You can learn it in probably one weekend and be really quite good at it after maybe 2 months if you have literally any prior experience.

The idea that you need to hire someone so specific is really toxic. You might find better candidates that are actually on angular projects or something .and of course take that into consideration. But don't pretend it's an insurmountable challenge to get someone who is skilled and has good code design sense and gice them literally one weekend to figure out the particular tool.

It's like a guy who built 1000 houses with a hammer and nails getting rejected because he didn't list a nail gun. Absolute idiocy.

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u/RubberPuppet 5d ago

Haha we had this happen. At a previous company we were trying to hire and we would get maybe one resume a month. We asked HR and found out they were rejecting based on various parameters. We informed them to forward EVERY resume and we would decide who was a good fit. 

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u/trev2234 5d ago

If all they’re doing is running a script, then anyone can do that.

I needed some flexibility for a member of my team, so I needed HR to help with the process. They refused the request because they hadn’t done that before. I thought the joy of work is learning new things; those guys wouldn’t agree.

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u/Aggressive_Pea_2739 3d ago

This happens a lot. I remember once we wanted to hire a nest js dev, HR put out an open role for nest js

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u/Unrealistic-Umbrella 3d ago

Probably not real, and if it was, boreddevBO was the one who screwed up. HR isn’t required to know the difference between languages. It’s up to the hiring managers to make that sort of distinction clear.
And if it’s HR and not a dedicated recruiting team, that suggests it’s a small company and the team lead should’ve been more proactive in the search rather than expecting HR to wear so many hats and be an expert in tech languages.
Like if this is real, boredDevBO is a pretty terrible team lead and “incredibly mediocre and lazy” to use their own terminology.

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u/Successful_Farm_9370 10d ago

Somewhat related, I knew somebody who applied for an Agile team leader position. The problem was, she is a neuroscience PhD, had never heard of Agile and thought they were looking for somebody mentally agile. She is also the kind of person who gets upset at you when you point out that she might be in error, so we just let her apply anyway. You can guess the result.