One simple mistake... I thought HR mattered.

[DaveJ]

This revelation probably is common sense to most people, but maybe someone else made this mistake.

In my experience, HR departments have nothing to do with hiring. Unfortunately, I found this out the hard way, for years attempting to obtain employment by corresponding with them, expecting them to channel my resume to the appropriate people. What a joke!

Not only does HR not make hiring decisions, they may have no clue what goes on outside their own department. In my experience, they are more of a barrier than anything else. If you are looking for a technical job, keep in mind they typically have no technical skills and therefore have no ability to judge your skill set.

I suspect this applies to most businesses of all sizes. The only way to get the job is to go straight to your prospective boss/manager. But avoid HR until after you're hired and it's time to sign up for benefits. That's really all they do.

[Nikia]

1. Sometimes they are responsible for screening the resumes

Every company is different, but at some companies unless you personally know the hiring manager, contacting them directly will be more of a hinderance than help in getting a job because the company has a protocol.
I agree that HR often does not know much about technical skills. If I were to have a decent size company, I would hire my HR people from people who had worked for my company for 2-5 years and were willing to take a couple of pertainent classes. It is frustrating to have a screening interview with HR and them not know what you are talking about when you go into details.

[lukasahero]

2. Hope you're not looking to have any HR folks here

pass your resume along. Hee. Of course HR doesn't make hiring decisions. If they did, everyone would bitch about them for that too. Read some books about the hiring process and you'll find your job (in your job search) is to legitimately, and respectfully, get past or around HR.

HR are the gatekeepers and hiring managers use them specifically as such. Hiring managers do more than hire and have no interest in having every Tom, Dick and Harry who *thinks* he'd be perfect for the job bothering them. That's why they use HR to screen the resumes and phone calls.

They give HR a list of the qualifications they are looking for - they don't tell HR that this is a dream candidate and they seldom rank the qualifications in priority so the HR recruiter is left looking for someone who likely doesn't exist. Of course they aren't technical - if they were, they'd be in IT and not HR. Their job is to know HR. To be honest, half the IT hiring managers don't know shit about what they want anyway. (Had one hire a guy who supposedly knew Java (i.e. - he took a class in it). Too bad our sites were in ASP. Thought Java and Javascript were the same thing. Oops.)

If you can find a way around HR without risking your reputation with the hiring manager (i.e. - networking), by all means do. If you can find your way into a company by a relationship with an HR person (i.e. - networking), that works, too. If, however, you bad mouth someone in a company to the hiring manager, you can pretty much kiss any chance you had goodbye.

[DaveJ]

4. I was a little pissed off when I wrote that...

But the idea still stands and I hope that it might prevent someone else from mistakenly depending on HR. The reason I was (and still am) pissed off is because of a repeating trend. I am at work and receive a voicemail on my cell from someone in HR saying they have a job opportunity and to call them back. I call them back, but of course, they are never available. Regardless of whether I call back several times or leave voice mails they customarily never return my return call.

Okay I can understand that if I were making a cold call, that they can politely and justifiably refuse to take my call. But I think I'm justifiably frustrated when they leave me a message and then they make it impossible to get back with them.

Of course I know that being a hothead or insubordinate is bad. I am the most subordinate guy around. I hope you don't think I go around badmouthing people. I'm not insane. In fact that's why I've had my job for as long as I've had it. I'm just looking for a chance to advance in my career since there currently appears to be no opportunity to do so... which is something I will surely be bitching about in another subject soon.

[lukasahero]

6. Sorry

I didn't mean to come down on you. I should have made that more clear.

Reading what you've written here, though, I'm wondering if you're getting calls from headhunters/recruiters and not HR folks.

HR folks will almost never call you unless you specifically sent a resume and then they'd be more likely to say "we received your resume and would like to set up an appt..." But the "they have a job opportunity for you" line sounds ALOT like headhunters (I get alot of them) - some of which will lead you to believe they work in HR but 99.9% of the time do not work at the company at all.

Unless you are specifically applying to the company that the HR person says they're calling you from, I'd be careful of these phone calls anyway. Every HR type I've known has made a point to call the applicant back (at least before they rule them out - then they tend to be cowards and ditch the "sorry no thanks" phone call - which definitely sucks).

[DaveJ]

7. I assumed they were HR but probably not

Sorry I tend to group HR and headhunters into the same category. They probably are headhunters.

There was also a time that after an interview I tried to contact the HR person (this time I know it was HR) and could never get ahold of her (she worked there like 2 days a week). Hindsight tells me I should have tried to talk to the other guy I interviewed with, but at the time I was just too timid and mistakenly assumed it was the HR person's job to give me a status update. I guess that the HR person assumed that I would have no desire to talk to her after having talked to an actual worker in the company. And she would have been right, I shouldn't have tried to contact her when I had someone else's contact info.

It's funny how I kick myself over mistakes I made like 3 or 4 years ago.

Anyway, I wish companies established a freer flow of information between applicants but obviously I can't make any demands the way they run their business.

[nickshepDEM]

3. How do you obtain the contact information of the manager who does

the hiring?

Im trying to land a summer internship at an investment banking firm, but Im finding it very hard to make contacts within the firm.

[DaveJ]

5. In my experience, it is just luck

Go about seeking a job using the traditional documented methods. I'm just saying that if you end up talking to your prospective boss/manager you are in luck. That's the guy you have to impress. Trying to impress HR is a waste of time since they typically do not have the technical skills necessary to judge you.

I found a nice internship that led to a full time job going through a community college job site. I have not been able to find anything solid using high traffic sources like major newspaper and major websites. As you might expect, when I received the call about my internship, the person who called me was the person who I ended up working with. We are 'almost like' friends now and share many interests.

Keep in mind I have my own personal view of things. As you might have guessed I am not a fan of the HR field, at least when it comes to the hiring process. I do not share the extroverted people-person happy go lucky attitude that HR people do, but unlike them I have the social skills to return calls to people with whom I leave messages.

[Capn Sunshine]

8. Ever notice the HR person is usually a joke?

Most companies have an HR Department to keep up on labor law and proscribe the proper way to terminate someone. Most have no idea of the company's culture beyond their HR world.

So, yeah, HR is not where you go to get a job; networking is.

[YOY]

9. Headhunters, Networking, and the Occasional Lucky Shot

Yep, sounds about right to me. That and the fact that most HR folks I have met spend most of their time organizing stupid little things that are supposed to raise morale when they just in essence waste everyone's time. Rather reminds me of the "Case of the Mondays" lady from the file Office Space that you just wanted to clock. They call it 'job enrichment.' It's supposed to make you feel more like one of the team.

Job enrichment my ass. I work for a paycheck and because (hopefully) I like what I do. Spare me the 'Let's learn about each other's feeling' waste of an afternoon.

[liberalhistorian]

10. Don't ever make the mistake of going to HR for

a problem and/or concern with a boss or co-worker, I don't care how many nitwit career advice "experts" tell you to do so. HR exists to serve and benefit the company and their prime, and usually only, concern is the company itself and not you, as an employee. Going to HR with such a problem is a great way to being put on the fast track out of the company.

[raccoon]

12. I second that emotion.

Tim Fields, a Brit who has done a lot to educate people on the subject of workplace bullying, says that HR's real reason for existence is to keep the employer out of court.

[calico1]

13. This is very true. The job of HR

is to protect the company...not the employee.

[Deja Q]

11. They matter; for all the wrong reasons. After all,

they are called Human Resources. As in "commodities", "disposable goods", et al.