Job Interview for IT Pro: Guide for HR Managers

I have a question - do HR actually have any input into hiring these days? My experience mostly startups for many years is that HR people are concerned with paper work, health care, 401K, payroll etc. My experience has been that the "recruiter" is now the gatekeeper. They decide who's resume is seen by a team looking to hire.

And I think this is rather unfortunate as recruiters seem to be short term employees. I also find that the level of professionalism by recruiters to be extremely lacking - they often take weeks to get back to people, many seem unable to compose business emails. They send emails that begin with "Hey" and don't bother spellchecking. Many don't seem to have any technical knowledge or actually understand what's on a candidates CV. I have had them fail to call at a scheduled time, many don't send out calendar invites. Dealing with recruiters overall is a pretty miserable experience.

HR on the other hand is something that you can get a degree in. HR people seem to be longer term employees at companies, they seem to do things in a consistent and predictable manner, and seem to be quite professional in their communication.

I realize this is anecdotal and there are of course wonderful recruiters who have a good technical grasp and are very professional but the majority of my dealings with recruiters over many years now has informed me that these are the exceptions.

It seems there is no minimal set of qualifications to become a recruiter and shouldn't this one of the most important roles at a company that needs to grow to succeed? They are also kind of ambassador for the company in the sense that they are the first point of contact for a candidate.

Am I minority in this opinion? Or is there not actually a recruiter problem?

This story is clearly intended to make HR people happy. HR should not be in any role of judging a candidate or employee. They are there to facilitate things and smooth'en things out. If you assume that they have any authority or hierarchy over other departments/staff you are doing HR wrong. Most of the software companies do it right. Smarter engineers do not work for companies that value superficial skills like the one's mentioned in the story.

If you ask me why manhole covers are round, how many Wawas are in SE PA, or if an airplane would take off on a runway, I'm through with your interview. I'd rather spit innocuous horseshit about how great all the previous places in which I've worked have been. At the end of the day, I feel like these people aren't actually listening to what I'm saying.

Why is HR at the front end of the process, and not the back? If all goes well on the technical side and the team approves, shouldn't I then be moved on to meet the Human Resources department so they can ask the usual? I get that they should be involved, but in what capacity really?

That is such a weird expectation to have.

I play the Beethoven Sonata's I play well. I'd have to answer with dunno to all those questions. My piano teacher did have a professional jazz pianist as a student, because he wanted to learn some more traditional techniques.

Yesterday I went to a class of a famous Brazilian percussionist. When I asked him about whether there is a dictionary of the rhythms, so I can at least look them up, he said, dunno, if you want to learn get close to people that know, learn and practice.

But as the GP said, if I knew that was the expectation I would prepare for it and try to control the interview.

All the people I interviewed with I was still in the university did have top grades, but were otherwise terrible engineers. You're basically looking for those people.

Most places believe they are selective, or present that image. They can claim they only interview X% of people who submit resumes, and then only hire X% from that batch, and present their process as more selective than a top university.

The problem is that it is difficult to know if a company is constructively selective, or if other variables dominate. You present the variable of self-selection, which definitely exists for some companies and positions.

Back to the original point, many people can be turned off when companies try to talk up their selectivity and maybe rightly so. Candidates don't have infinite time so there needs to be a higher $ reward for time invested applying to extra-selective organization (higher expected value), and they might have experience that shows this self-assertion is more arrogance than reality.

Swinging too far in the other direction to claim "we hire anyone!" can also turn away good candidates or attract people without the necessary skills.