Striking back at HR lamers

[Pirate]

After many months of job searching it has come to my attention that HR people are mostly fuckwits. The amount of ridiculous things you have to submit yourself for these bastards borders on jumping through hoops, on fire while wearing a tutu and a fez hat.

Things like group interviews where you have to talk about yourself and half of the people say they all like snowboarding. Team building exercises before you've even gotten the job and worst of all, utterly stupid job applications.

It's stressing, demoralising and it really fucken sucks. So I dedicate this threat to getting back at these bastards. If you have a story or anything that gives them one back, then post it here.

Just remember, remove company names as its not good to burn bridges.

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So to start it off, here's mine. I sent in a job application and was asked to fill out a "compatiblity Matrix"... wtf. I could have coped with the title of it, but when I saw the question to describe my "Alignment with guiding principles" I just gave up as I had just come back from a horrible job interview, my spirits where low and I'd had it with the whole fucking job search thing.

[BtrFly]

all that stuff is to see whether you are going to be a good team fit. if you arent, then whats the point in hiring you, because ultimately you arent going to be happy, and the office probably wouldnt be particularly friendly with you.

same as how you choose your friends. you effectively "employ" people around you to be your friends who have the same goals and ambitions, and sense of humour as you. sure you have the odd one who doesnt quite fit - and they are generally left out in the cold.

but it is all kinda sucky.... guess its all just in the mood of your day...

[Directed]

all that stuff is to see whether you are going to be a good team fit. if you arent, then whats the point in hiring you, because ultimately you arent going to be happy, and the office probably wouldnt be particularly friendly with you.

same as how you choose your friends. you effectively "employ" people around you to be your friends who have the same goals and ambitions, and sense of humour as you. sure you have the odd one who doesnt quite fit - and they are generally left out in the cold.

This is better accomplished with an interview, don't you think? THis is just added useless paperwork that makes people annoyed at the company in my opinion. Job Compatibility Matrix? Where's Neo when you need him?

[BtrFly]

never said anything about the compatibility matrix- its all bollox to me. and i work in recruitment.

i was more meaning the face to face stuff. and perhaps the group interviews. though i agree group interviews are sucky - especially for IT

[gunsella]

This is better accomplished with an interview, don't you think? THis is just added useless paperwork that makes people annoyed at the company in my opinion. Job Compatibility Matrix? Where's Neo when you need him?

i don't remember much from 3 years of psych at uni, but i do remember learning that of all the available methods for predicting job suitability, the interview was by far the least effective.... or the correlations were crap... or however the scientists say it.... anyway, i learnt it at university so it must be true.

[dwarfthrower]

i work in recruitment.

It's OK... we don't hold that against you.... much.

[Directed]

i don't remember much from 3 years of psych at uni, but i do remember learning that of all the available methods for predicting job suitability, the interview was by far the least effective.... or the correlations were crap... or however the scientists say it.... anyway, i learnt it at university so it must be true.

A well-done interview will tell you more than anything else. (Think of interrogations getting people to confess crimes, etc.). The reasons interviews sometimes do not reveal what they should is because people do not do them well. I have a friend who is an ex-detective. His interviews can be brutal, but he consistently finds great people for the company he works with. (The bastard says he refuses to let me work at his company. That shows you he knows his stuff lol) Then the ones that get past the interview, but are bad, you just fire.

[BtrFly]

unfortunately there are laws against firing people willy nilly.... i do believe that it is rather difficult (or it was for smaller companies), due to unfair dismissal laws.

also dwarfie- i want out. i hate it. but at least now i can appreciate the shit on this side of the fence....

[gooey]

all that stuff is to see whether you are going to be a good team fit. if you arent, then whats the point in hiring you, because ultimately you arent going to be happy, and the office probably wouldnt be particularly friendly with you.

same as how you choose your friends. you effectively "employ" people around you to be your friends who have the same goals and ambitions, and sense of humour as you. sure you have the odd one who doesnt quite fit - and they are generally left out in the cold.

but it is all kinda sucky.... guess its all just in the mood of your day...

i dont go to work to make friends or fit in with the team.

if there are people at work that i hate, or vice a versa they hate me, then so be it.

chances are if you've got enough time to worry about peoples personaliaties then you either dont have enough work to do, or are just not doing it.

especially in IT (where i assume most people on this site work) where 95% of the time you dont need to speak to anyone else.

all this crap that pirate is going through is just there to make people in HR feel like they are partially useful. if they were actually concerned about whether he was the right guy for the job or not - wouldnt technical questions be more appropiate - even simple stuff like - how do you centre a paragraph? - would be more appropiate than "aligning your guiding principles".

HR is good when you've actually got a job, but they just get in the way before hand

[Directed]

No laws against firing people willy nilly in the US. You are considered a probationary employee for the first 6 months of your work in most offices here.

[BtrFly]

i dont go to work to make friends or fit in with the team.

if there are people at work that i hate, or vice a versa they hate me, then so be it.

chances are if you've got enough time to worry about peoples personaliaties then you either dont have enough work to do, or are just not doing it.

especially in IT (where i assume most people on this site work) where 95% of the time you dont need to speak to anyone else.

all this crap that pirate is going through is just there to make people in HR feel like they are partially useful. if they were actually concerned about whether he was the right guy for the job or not - wouldnt technical questions be more appropiate - even simple stuff like - how do you centre a paragraph? - would be more appropiate than "aligning your guiding principles".

HR is good when you've actually got a job, but they just get in the way before hand
unfortunately if you dont fit in with the team (no matter whether you are there to make friends or not), the working environment is going to be awkward.

and as gunsella mentioned (and i studied that as well at uni), the interview is the least reliable method of whether someone is going to be suitable. testing someone is quite reliable, but whether they crumble under pressure, and do poorly on the test may show through. it is mostly to see what you can tell someone, what your personality is like, and whether you are going to be a good fit.

[Chocoholic]

Isn’t that why there is a 3 month trial period where either party can say gahn get fucked?

[BtrFly]

yeh, but generally people behave well for those first 3 mths, then they start to let their true natures show. there are a lot of cases like that... unfortunately :(

whilst people have had bad experiences with HR, you still have to remember that these people - are still people. they have a job to do, just as you and i do. whilst yours may be more technical, theirs is more people oriented. there is no point being an asshat to them, because frankly, its not nice, and its not going to get you anywhere.

[Pirate]

I think the whole team group think is a was of air. In the jobs that I've had, the ones that try to force the team things usually turn out to be horrible places to work. But the ones that don't think of the team group think are often much more relaxed and better places to work.

I think the whole "team" thing is something that doesn't sit right in Australia. We have work mates, not team mates.

I also think a lot of HR people have bad attitudes. Maybe its a god complex.. (not you btrfly, you didn't strike me as one) But with most of the interviews I went too only one out of these asked me technical questions. The rest were mostly "Tell me about a time you helped your team out" or "What do you think you could bring to this role"... I mean don't people read CV's?

But then again, maybe I'm being harsh. Maybe I'm just sick of people fart arsing around . I work and live in a tech world. Geeks know how to talk to geeks and thats how IT jobs should be recruited in my opinion. If the person doing the interview doesn't know IT then what the hell are they doing interviewing me? One such interview one young HR chick said to me "I don't know much about this web stuff.... so can you tell me about your coding skills?" I would understand if she was taking notes, but she wasn't even doing that.

Its just frustrating as its very common place now.

[jeffxor]

The rest were mostly "Tell me about a time you helped your team out" or "What do you think you could bring to this role"... I mean don't people read CV's?

I absoluletly hate those questions the moment I hear that question, I know I will not get the job. I'm a team playing I help out everyday, but I don't go round thinking how good I am at helping the team out I just do it.

I basically know as soon as I hear that question I haven't got the job.

One such interview one young HR chick said to me "I don't know much about this web stuff.... so can you tell me about your coding skills?" I would understand if she was taking notes, but she wasn't even doing that.

I have had this happen to me a number of times. You start telling them and you can see them switch off as they have absoluetly no idea what you are talking about. All they wait for is keywords that resemble what is in the job description. In one interview I told the interviewer that i had just got my CCNA, and her statement was "so you don't have Network+ certification", I left the interview thinking how the hell this person was in IT recruitment if she didn't even understand the Industry.


The worst experince I had was during graduate recruitment. I went through 3 levels of interviews/test etc to finally come to the big day to find out I had been shortlisted from 8000 to 200 for 4 positions. Why fucking even bother just pick 4 cv out of the pile there is no way you can possibly tell how good someone will be withe those odds.

Another graduate recruitment story was when I spent 2 hours filling out on online application where the asked you all the typical HR question (When did you take lead of your team and what was the outcome? ect). To get a response via SMS 15 minutes after submitting the form to tell me that I was rejected. I know refuse to fill out any of this BS for a job.

[Pirate]

My worse experience this time around was a cock head HR person saying that I wasn't being honest with them because "why would you want to leave the dream job with the magazine?". I was told that you should never say it was for the money, so I said it was because "I needed a new challenge"... fuck that term. Never got a call back so after then I was straight up saying I'm leaving because the money is shithouse (not in those words) but I never got a call back from those interviews too. So I couldn't win.

[t101]

I've been on a couple of selection panels for jobs at my work, and we always have to have a HR person on the panel as well (we're connected to a university, so we have to follow their rules).

Utterly useless. They asked stupid questions about team interaction that had no real use (for fuck's sake - the people applying had no idea what the internal structure of the company is - how would they know how they'd fit in?!) and seemed to be biased by the most ridiculous things.

Case in point - first round interviews had revealed someone that we had taken a chance on interviewing (ie, high probability of not being suitable, but if he was he'd bring knowledge that we sorely needed). He turned out to be fuck-off amazing in his field - rattling off answers to highly technical and uncommon questions that we'd had to research, and often getting it more right than we did. But the HR person was dead set against him because he had a tattoo.

A fucking tattoo.

Thankfully we pissed her off entirely for the second round interviews (which oddly have no rules attached to them so we could skip HR) and he was hired. Had she had her way we would have missed out on a highly talented worker because she thinks tattoos are distasteful....

[MC SoD]

My favourite bit in the compatability matrix was:

"I speak and write in English. I can make suggestive hand gestures if needed."

[The Cunt]

you effectively "employ" people around you to be your friends who have the same goals and ambitions, and sense of humour as you. sure you have the odd one who doesnt quite fit - and they are generally left out in the cold.

I like the odd ones.

Fuck life would be boring if you hung around with people as funny, talented and good looking as I am.

You need a few friends without goals and ambitions. At least one to make fun at and use as a datum to showing how exceptional you are or as a case in point when giving advice to others. But so long as a couple of the loser buddies with no job, no goals and no ambitions have an xbox or PS2 so you can hang out when you're "chucking a sickie" then it's a great symbiotic relationship.

They provide the company, you provide the pizzas.

In life you need some friends that challenge you, and some that... dare you.

[jeffxor]

In life you need some friends that challenge you, and some that... dare you.

i kile that I think I might use it as a life Motto

[BtrFly]

I like the odd ones...

But so long as a couple of the loser buddies with no job, no goals and no ambitions have an xbox or PS2 so you can hang out when you're "chucking a sickie" then it's a great symbiotic relationship.

They provide the company, you provide the pizzas.


I like the odd ones too... then again, i am odd myself so... :D

but that second bit just reminds me of Shaun of the Dead. hehe the friend with no job, and they end up just sticking him in the shed to play video games with :D

[Pirate]

Another favorite, is where do I see myself in five years or what are my career plans. How can you say nicely "I'm just going to follow the money". I've tried job satifaction.. meh, its all about the money now :)

[dwarfthrower]

I've tried job satifaction.. meh, its all about the money now :)

Money won't buy happiness. However it will buy helicopters, and helicopters can be used to take you to where happiness is.

[Pirate]

Money won't buy happiness. However it will buy helicopters, and helicopters can be used to take you to where happiness is.Damn straight.

The dude who said money can't buy happiness was full of shit. For the last 3 years I haven't had money and I've never been happy. Now I am going to be earning more, I'm much happier.

[Merudo]

Another spin on that "money can't buy happiness"


Well if money can't buy happiness, lack of money certainly gifts you with unhappiness


Best of luck in your future job-hunting Pirate


POITERSHAM!

[Pirate]

Thanks dude, I've got one now :).. so I can rant :)

[jae_hyung]

i wish applyin for a job was easier, so mnay online tests and questions, it takes around 30mins to apply....
meh, hopefully i can get a summer internship at the end of the year, i really want to get one but im not too hopeful :(

[Truephoenix]

I want a real job, but like pirate i don't want to go through the BS process of getting one.

Does that make sense?

They should come to me :p

[Deimos]

I applied for the graduate recruitment program for an unnamed company that is nation wide. I applied in March/April and then last Wednesday I got an email from them to ask me to come in and do a grad recruitment test (which was yesterday). Then, last friday I get a call from a different person in Canberra to ask me to come in and do an interview on Wednesday (that's today). Fortunately the interview is in my city. Anyway, I was a bit bemused by this, and when I rocked up for the test yesterday the guy says to me "Yeah, sorry about that double up, we're in a different department to the Canberra mob, one of our guys should be sitting in on your interview tomorrow so hopefully we won't have to interview you twice, but we might". Perfect example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand's doing.

[beerbaron]

i hate when the employer never gets back to you on a job youve applied for
i mean, how long do you wait for feedback? 1 -2 weeks or a month etc?
i applied for a job recently, and i thought to myself, everything they are asking for ive got experience and certifications to match.. never heard back from them after a month.
Do i contact them and say, by the way is that position still available ? or have you done the unethical thing and filled the posi and not informing the rest of the applicants?

[Kez]

all that stuff is to see whether you are going to be a good team fit. if you arent, then whats the point in hiring you, because ultimately you arent going to be happy, and the office probably wouldnt be particularly friendly with you.

same as how you choose your friends. you effectively "employ" people around you to be your friends who have the same goals and ambitions, and sense of humour as you. sure you have the odd one who doesnt quite fit - and they are generally left out in the cold.

O_O

Job Interviews are good to see if you're fit for a job, but will not determine if you fit in with the current team. What they need to do is put them in a Russian Goulag torture chair, and hook some juice into them. If they dont crack after 15 minutes, they're fine for the job.

I know you select friends based on their interests, and their personalities, but I dont think you can *morally* compare a job interview to acknowledging who is a friend in life. But I do however see your point...

I went for a job interview with a supermarket corporation, and they tried to say to make me feel that I was doing nothing with my life, and that a retail manager traineeship will make my life complete. Using phrases like "Going to TAFE and Uni is just wasting what little time you have in your life", and "[Company name here]'s traineeship programs let you accomplish something in life". It was utterly pathetic.

Edit: I was incorrect about the job interview's.