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The Infuriating Truth About Getting Hired

by excid3 on 2/27/13, 2:18 PM with 117 comments

  • by steven777400 on 2/27/13, 3:18 PM

    I work for a government agency and I can confirm this. It's maddening. When ranking resumes, we are only allowed to consider whether or not they say they have the skill we want. We aren't allowed to consider how well written the resume, how compelling the described experience is, external source repositories, etc.

    So someone who puts "used C sharp on projects" gets the same "yes" as someone who describes, in detail, their extensive C# projects at various organizations, large and small.

    And, no, we don't even get "5%" for opinion.

    The reason is, according to the HR contact who so directed me, almost every hire ends in at least one lawsuit from a candidate not selected, claiming unfair hiring practice.

  • by tibbon on 2/27/13, 4:01 PM

    All of these points sound like great filters- not for the company, but for me in determining that I probably don't want to work there. A place with thin margins, HR bureaucracy and a cover-your-ass attitude? No thanks. I do say this however as someone both privileged and experienced enough to really not need to scrape for a job too hard at this point in my life. YMMV.

  • by moron4hire on 2/27/13, 4:16 PM

    The advent of HR departments as gate keepers rather than employee facilitators is probably a significant factor in the ever growing incompetency in corporate America. You have people who have no domain knowledge about the job trying to select resumes out of a hat, essentially. Both the systems they have created and the abysmal results are inevitable.

  • by PeterisP on 2/27/13, 3:27 PM

    Well, it's not about getting hired, it's about getting to an interview - which is a separate filter with very different criteria.

    However, it may be everything that matters for writing a CV - as when you're in the interview, everybody (hopefully) will be looking at you and your real skill description, not the CV.

  • by manishsharan on 2/27/13, 5:25 PM

    And this is precisely why one should be an independent contractor. Nobody expects or wants contractors to fit in -- they want to get their shit done in time or have a whipping boy in case things go south. And big cos ( your banks/funds etc.) are willing to pay well for that service. As a contractor in Canada, where healthcare costs are not a problem, there is really really no incentive for me to subsume myself to a bureaucracy not to mention that I am too accented and overly pigmented to ever look like the hiring manager's cousin.

  • by NateDad on 2/27/13, 3:14 PM

    Why would you want to get hired by a company that hires this way?

  • by excid3 on 2/27/13, 3:23 PM

  • by Eduardo3rd on 2/27/13, 7:58 PM

    As someone who has an Hispanic heritage, point number 3 is pretty frustrating. I'd like to think that the accomplishments I've made in my life are more impacted by the results of the work I've done, but there's always this nagging feeling that I'm just there to pad the diversity stats.

    I've talked to other minority students during my time in undergrad and grad school and it's pretty crazy how many of us are plagued by impostor syndrome. I'm talking about incredibly high performing individuals who are near the top of their field at a prestigious university that don't know if they are there because of their abilities or their skin color.

  • by austingunter on 2/27/13, 6:36 PM

    This is why the resume is broken, and why I drew a line in the sand for myself shortly after graduating college in 2009 that I would never get a job using a resume again. I would only find jobs via my reputation, connections, and by pitching the work that I thought needed to be done, and why I was the person to do it. Now, I was working the Austin, Texas startup community, and built a group of 120 startups at a local accelerator, so it's safe to say that I wasn't setting my career up for jobs that would have an HR manager.

    That said, I broke my rule the next year, sent in a resume and went through a grueling process to ultimately get hired at a small consulting firm. Breaking my rule was a terrible decision, but fortunately its affects were quick to take effect, and short-lasting.

    It was an awful job for me, but the company had a round of layoffs 90 days later that I was caught in.

    My foot hit the pavement that day, and I realized it was the best thing that had ever happened to me.

    I'm currently at a fast-growing, profitable startup. I got the job by pitching work and writing my own job description. I joined the company as employee #12. Not once did anyone ever ask me for a formal resume. All they cared about were results.

    I have a beautiful resume somewhere on my hard drive. But I have even better results that you can see in my actual work.

  • by 1wheel on 2/27/13, 4:14 PM

    > Therefore if you are a minority, or from an under represented gender it will work to your advantage to signal that to the HR Officer, be subtle though.

    http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html

  • by tseabrooks on 2/27/13, 3:58 PM

    This is a good place to put the reminder; Write a unique resume for each job. Resumes need to be written to match the culture of the company you're applying to.

    Try to understand the mindset of the people you expect to be looking at your resume and create something that will get you into the interview room. An example is that the "resume" for my current job was a casual email that didn't include any normal stuff that would be in a resume.

  • by mbesto on 2/27/13, 4:36 PM

    To the HR Officer, your resume matters only matters if it meets their needs.

    Furthermore - whatever reduces the risk of that HR officer losing their job, or that of the manager. You can't get fired for hiring a person with 10 years of experience as opposed to one with 2 years, even if the person with 2 years experience may be a much better employee.

  • by Tloewald on 2/27/13, 6:54 PM

    To the extent this article might be true about some companies or organizations -- you don't want to work there.

    I've never worked anywhere with priorities like this, not even in the Australian Public Service (which certainly has cretinous hiring practices, but not like this). To begin with, most HR departments only lightly filter resumes submitted against a position -- if you get tossed out of the mix by the person in recruiting it's probably for a dumb reason (e.g. your CV lacks a crucial buzzword) but again, not these reasons.

  • by fnordfnordfnord on 2/27/13, 5:24 PM

    Related content for job seekers.

    >Why your tech CV sucks. And here's how we can help. By Dominic Connor http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/10/your_cv/

    >Think your CV is crap? Your interview skills are worse. Really, why do you even bother... By Dominic Connor http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/17/connor_on_interviews...

  • by niggler on 2/27/13, 3:23 PM

    "Error establishing a database connection"

    I'm wondering if this is a meta statement (where database connection is interpreted as having a real life social connection to someone at the firm you wish to join)

  • by chrisbennet on 2/27/13, 6:32 PM

    I suddenly have a lot more sympathy for HR. At least the ones that are trying to hire good people.

  • by lsiebert on 2/27/13, 11:50 PM

    That's why I favor an HR Technocracy to an HR Bureaucracy.

  • by kami8845 on 2/27/13, 4:23 PM

    if they're seeing your CV and then based on that they either move forward or not you're applying to the wrong company.

  • by duiker101 on 2/27/13, 3:15 PM

    database error.