The Truth About The Way Many HR Depts Select Candidates
I was recently told a fascinating story about a manager that has been trying to hire a new employee in a medium sized organisation.
After advertising several times with few applicants, and a couple of rounds of interviews, they hired a new employee that was less than great. Then she discovered there were other applicants. Among them was someone she knows personally, who has a spot-on CV, loads of experience, lives locally and would be the perfect person for the job.
So she went to HR to ask why that application was never sent through to her department. The answer – she didn’t score well…..
Score well on what?
It turns out the HR dept adopted screening software that asks random questions that applicants must answer quickly, the results of which determine a suitability score. Only those deemed suitable are sent through to the department for interview. The test supposedly shows with a high degree of scientific accuracy whether an applicant is suitable, giving scores for self-confidence, caring nature, respect for authority etc.
So regardless of someone’s qualifications and experience, if they don’t pass the personality test, their application doesn’t even make it past their HR. So the manager sat down with the dept head and took the test. She scored 1 star. She has worked there for more than 10 years and is quite senior in the department. She has been recognized with internal and external awards for her work. But she wouldn’t even get an interview for a junior casual spot in her dept because she failed a personality test.
Their HR dept insists their system is highly accurate and they will not pass on any applications from people who don’t pass the test. So now the entire department, along with a few senior members of other departments are all taking the test, and coming up with some very poor scores.
People’s careers are all too often being derailed by HR “astrology”. It’s clearly not ideal for the organisations that need good people either.
Likewise, if you’re wondering why you can’t find the right people for that crucial position, it might be because Maggie in HR is excluding people using re-purposed quizzes from 1980s magazines.
So if you’re wondering why you never got an interview for that job you know you would be perfect for – it might be because some recruiters and HR depts (not us, we always check every CV we receive and assess candidate suitability via other methods) are all too often becoming slaves to poor software.
Our upcoming course will show you how to overcome this and many other interview challenges.
It’s all this type of information in much more depth, finding your purpose, writing resumes, cover letters, interviewing, all the way to career acceleration. Everything careers related.
I’d also love to hear from you, so if you have anything you would specifically like learn that’s jobs related or any questions, let me know by replying to this email.
Until next week, happy job hunting,
Nathan.