Some people are hell-bent to kill a deal in order to demonstrate their worth. This happens sometimes with lawyers, and these 'ambitious' deal-killing lawyers are toxic to work with. I hadn't considered it before, but this may be common elsewhere too, such as HRA departments.
He got 1%, we can't hire him
151–160 of 594 posts
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think there is a need to "respectfully disagree" to a disrespectful comment. Just like there are terrible dev teams there are terrible HR departments, and this sounds like one of them. But as you mention, if developers were to handle everything related to hiring, firing, sick reports, vacation, benefits, contracts, compliance etc. that HR does, I doubt there would be any profit.
The problem with HR is that they do tasks they are not qualified to as a mission . It's the role that's broken, note the teams.
I think it depends on the organization. I have never worked anywhere where the HR team had such a large role in hiring - that was not part of their mission. They freely acknowledge they were not qualified to do that. In all of my experience - at mid - large- size companies, the HR people did very high-level phone and resume screenings, if that. After that, it was up to the hiring manager and team. I've also heard of those "personality" tests being used as tie-breakers. But never to reject an otherwise highly qualifed - and preferred - candidate.
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#153Improving a company 101: * Get rid of HR people. * Profit.
Profit. . .until you consider the money paid out in lawsuits (discrimination, illegal firings, etc.) that could have been avoided by HR. . .or the money wasted paying for expensive benefits vendors that could have been saved by HR. . .or the turnover that could've been saved by HR though intervention with some particularly bad managers/management teams (who HR had no hand in hiring). Granted, this is only true of decent - or better - HR departments, but I've seen them.
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree about MBTI - until I understood that I was allowed to have a personality preference for perceiving over judging (preferring to live in the moment than plan ahead in detail) I was stressing myself worrying about why I was so rubbish at planning, rather than trying to find a career where it was less important! (the only careers I've come up with so far are stock exchange trading and politics - if anyone has any…
IQ numbers vary based on tests, to some degree, so "130" doesn't necessarily mean a whole lot. What I'd found is that I was in the same percentile on all tests (took 3 a few years ago) compared to tests from 30 and 20 years ago. The raw score numbers might have changed up or down slightly, but same percentile in my case.
... IQ is supposed to be a normal distribution, ">= 130" === "3 sigma above the mean," i.e. top 0.1%.
(bearing in mind that the test is inescapably biased towards people with our background - US/UK/etc, certainly English speaking, probably university educated.)
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are there good HR departments? I haven't had the honor of seeing any so by my book they're classified in the same section as unicorns and fairies.
> Are there good HR departments? That depends. Are they staffed by psychologists? If yes, then no. Psychology and psychological testing are losing credibility very rapidly right now: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/side-effects/201305/the-...
The article you linked to talks about psychiatry (the DSM is tightly bound to psychiatry, not psychology).
I don't know if you meant by including that link that psychologists criticising psychiatrists undermines their credibility, but if that's the case I disagree strongly.
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#156Yup, nothing worse than a HR monkey with a meaningless number. "Bow before my all-powerful metric, puny mortals!"
More generally, there's nothing worse than a social scientist who has illusions about being a scientist.
There's nothing scientific in this case - quite the opposite: pure cargo cult. Hence my choice of the word: monkey puts candidate in, a number comes out, monkey checks if number exceeds another number. No science - not even thought - nothing, just blind obedience to whatever process the monkey was trained to follow.
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#157Interesting article. RE: Nuremberg Defence. Do you really think it would have been smart for the Germans to hire people who wouldn't have followed their orders? But in a profession environment, yep I'd agree you don't want all people who just follow orders, quite different to work environments where you want people to act more like machines aka call centres, sweat shops, army etc.
> Do you really think it would have been smart for the Germans to hire people who wouldn't have followed their orders?
It's not so much an antiauthoritarian outlook, i.e. what a person won't do, as what such a person will do, as in creating ingenious solutions to problems.
In the modern military, creative types are highly regarded (and this is a recent change in military culture) -- self-directed and autonomous types like Navy Seals and other special forces are highly prized compared to obedient infantrymen.
Consider Wernher Von Braun, the designer of the V-1 and V-2, and later, the designer of the Saturn 5 Apollo booster. He was constantly in trouble with the authorities in Nazi Germany for his impolitic statements, but they tolerated him because of what he could build. After the war, we tolerated him even though he was a former enemy, because of what he could build.
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#158Improving a company 101: * Get rid of HR people. * Profit.
So, no bad programmers, drivers, receptionists, sales people, accountants........ just HR people.
Dunno what HR does in the US, but here in the UK I know a lot of cases where a decent HR person would have saved companies millions in payouts to now ex-employees who sued them. In several cases, the business was made bankrupt, jobs lost.
Keep HR people
Keep business
Edit: Format.
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#159Improving a company 101: * Get rid of HR people. * Profit.
Step 3: Grow, and attract some parasitic employees Step 4: Lose a trivial discrimination / disability / wrongful termination suit because you didn't keep the right paperwork.
Trivial? I've seen business go bust as a result of this sort of negligence.
BTW, suing for wrong doing is NOT parasitic. Its often the only recourse avaliable with bad employers
Re: He got 1%, we can't hire him
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think there is a need to "respectfully disagree" to a disrespectful comment. Just like there are terrible dev teams there are terrible HR departments, and this sounds like one of them. But as you mention, if developers were to handle everything related to hiring, firing, sick reports, vacation, benefits, contracts, compliance etc. that HR does, I doubt there would be any profit.
Are there good HR departments? I haven't had the honor of seeing any so by my book they're classified in the same section as unicorns and fairies.
I've worked in companies with both good and bad HR departments. Currently, our HR department, has intervened in our department hiring processes because they saw incredibly high - and quick - turnover in some groups. In those groups, they have improved the interview process significantly. Not by taking over, but by forcing the managers to be more honest when posting and discussing the positions, by forcing the managers to actually learn "better" interview skills and techniques, by forcing the managers to be more realistic about job requirements (do you really need someone with a Master's degree to staff your standard Tier 1 or 2 helpdesk????? OMG, NO!!!)