Spot ‘em young and watch ‘em grow!

Nowadays when I open my mailbox, I see many job offers, due to my other blog. Earlier it was small companies, nowadays it is big ones. A mail from the HR of a large American media house caught my eye the other day.

This company entered India around the time I finished college. When they advertised for 'Content Writers' I remember applying for the same even though 'Content Writing' would be too narrow a field for me. I did not get a reply. Of course I was in a good company then and I did not bother. I got another mail by the same person yesterday for the same job, describing his organization hoping to entice me. Finally, today I replied back. I told him about the fact that I had applied to his company earlier and asked him why the scanning process of his company did not spot me then. I went on to ask him how he could justify the fact that they had not even considered my resume! I got an incoherent reply that I didn’t understand and politely sent a letter of disinterest in working for his organization. I hope he does a thorough check of the recruiting procedures of his company, because another friend and classmate of mine who applied with me is now an established writer with a foreign magazine.

I am afraid I am very arrogant with HR folks when they call asking if I am interested in joining their organization and I have every reason to be. I have proved myself and I don’t need to take the nonsense that is the recruiting procedure of people in the communication and support services field.

The scanning process of candidates for interviews is ridiculous. Usually it is the HR team that does the initial scanning of resumes and it is here that the biggest mistakes happen. Spotting a good candidate for a particular job requires scanning of resumes by a person in the same field. But this rarely happens. The HR team does the first scanning of resumes and forward these to departmental heads. By this time many good candidates are rejected or ignored due to the inability of HR teams to evaluate the resume due to their lack of knowledge in this particular skill.

The interview procedure is even more ridiculous. Most of the time, the last incumbent would have quit and people with no knowledge of the field will interview the candidate. I had an HR executive calling asking me if I know how to draft a Press Release. It is like asking a Doctor if he knows medicine!! And this girl belonged to the HR department of one of the largest Semi Conductor companies in the world!! I wasn't looking for a change and declined the offer.

In my first and second job, the concerned Manager insisted on going through the resumes themselves and that is how I was spotted. In my last company, when I was short listed for the job, the then HR Manager protested vehemently because " she is too young"!!!! My boss put his foot down and I was given the job. Since then he made it a point to go through every resume that comes for a job in his department. His actions didn’t go down well with the HR powers-that-be, but it spoke volumes of his perception of the HR department’s abilities to get him the right talent.:p It was no wonder that his department had 0% attrition.

I am afraid that such practices by HR departments are robbing companies of talents and talented people of the right jobs. My classmate in college a really gifted and wonderful writer now works in software marketing.

How many such talents have been snuffed out no one knows.