I don’t expect to make any friends with this post, but I’m responding to the April 2011 Readers’ Digest What HR professionals Won’t Tell you About Job Interviews article.

Although I was at first excited to see the article, my enthusiasm was quickly replaced by embarrassment as I read how HR people lie to applicants, do what’s easy rather than what’s right,  and look away rather than confronting unethical management practices.

In this post, I wanted to set the record straight, from my end at least. I can’t speak for other human resources professionals and hiring managers, but here is my own personal response to the Readers Digest “What Your HR Person Won’t Tell You About the Interview.”

Points I Agree With

“Make sure you’re nice to everyone, especially the admin person at the front desk.”

True, true, true. If you as a candidate use honeyed tones with the HR department and hiring manager, then turn around and harangue the front desk folks,  you’ve just shot yourself in the foot. Believe me, we’ll hear about it.

See ya!

Thank you note.

Should you send one? Absolutely?

When? In my book, 2-4 days after the interview.

The article suggests waiting a week. I think that’s too long. But any thank you note is vastly better than none considering that most candidates don’t send one at all.

Follow-up. The article suggest following up several times, then letting it go.

My take? That’s right on the money. Follow-up a couple times at intervals. Then let it go. Anything more becomes stalker behavior.

Points I Disagree With

Some hiring managers and HR folks use tricks to find out if candidates have young children, such as by walking the applicant out to their car to surreptitiously look for car-seats. Another person planted pictures of fictitious children to trap candidates into talking about their own kids.

I don’t do this or anything close.  I don’t condone this behavior and it’s embarrassing to me as a professional.

Is it harder to find a job if you’re overweight?

Unfortunately, studies show it is harder to find a job if you’re heavy.  Although I am always happy to hire  candidates who are who are poster-children for my wellness program, the truth is that a heavy candidate may be just as qualified–or more–and may do a better job than the skinny applicant.

And as far as health goes, just because someone is heavy doesn’t mean they aren’t doing a lot of the right things to take care of themselves.  More to the point, it doesn’t mean that they won’t be amazing at work.

As HR professionals, I think we have a duty to look beyond stereotypes and generalizations. Don’t be so quick to judge.  Stop discriminating.

Hiring manager didn’t hire someone for a position requiring occasional weekend ‘On Call’ duty because the candidate mentioned that going to church was a priority.

What we should be doing is spell out the work schedule and see how the candidate responds. It’s very likely the person could fulfill ‘On Call’ duties responsibly and still attend church.

Weak handshake.  “If you’ve got a weak handshake, I make a note of it.”

In 15 years, I  have never made note of candidates’ handshakes or used that information to make a hiring decision. It’s irrelevant in my book unless directly related to job duties. If the candidate is applying for a sales job or is in consideration for the the Secretary of State position, maybe it’s important. Otherwise, let it go. You might as well use handwriting analysis to pick your next hire.

“Never tell us you were fired from a job.”

This particular HR person advises that HR folks will probably never know the truth anyway, so you should cross your fingers and lie.

I’ll tell you what, I *DO* uncover lots of terminations and other lies in my background checks and discovery process.

If I find out you lied to me, that you were involuntarily terminated and failed to disclose it when asked, there is a 100% chance that you’re not getting the job.  On the other hand, if you admit that you were fired and explain the circumstances, there is a very good chance that I’ll consider you and ultimately make you an offer.

So don’t lie to me.

And HR folks: please don’t coach candidates to lie.

“Sometimes we’ll tell you we ended up hiring someone internally—even if we didn’t—just to get you off our back.”

I will either send you a generic “thanks but no thanks”, or I’ll give you actual feedback.

In defense of HR, giving candidates feedback on their non-selection often feels like a thankless,  lose-lose proposition. Earlier this week, I explained to a candidate that she wasn’t selected because she didn’t have as much X-Y-Z experience as we were looking for. She tried to argue with me, rationalizing why she didn’t stress  X-Y-Z in her interview even though we specifically asked her to elaborate on it more than once.

It was very fatiguing; it reminded my why some HR folks just lie. But we still shouldn’t do it.

(Candidates, if you are so  fortunate as to receive real, actual, genuine feedback, I’d suggest you listen rather than argue.  Accept it graciously. Consider the advice in your jobsearch moving forward. Who knows? It might result in your next job.)

“If your former supervisor hated you… give me the number to HR,” not your supervisor.

In my line of work, regulations mandate checking actual references. You can write down HR contacts all you want, but my associate and I are like bulldogs and we will not rest until we secure actual references….and if we can’t get real references, you won’t be offered a job.

You might be better served to list another manager or other colleague as a reference instead of listing HR. At best, HR can’t speak to your performance in the way that someone else could.

Background checks: “Sometimes we bluff, get you to fill out the form, and don’t even run it.”

Well, yes and no. I might ask a candidate to complete a background form, then not submit it if they don’t advance to the next phase of the selection process. But short of some colossal error, I will never hire someone without a background check. At my organization, the request for a background check is not a bluff; it’s a real requirement.

In addition, have you stopped to consider that candidates will call that bluff, should you choose to gamble? I’ve heard so many candidates assure me that they don’t have a problem completing the form because they have led boring, uneventful, law-abiding lives. When I bring a four page rap sheet to their attention (after following FCRA guidelines, of course), it’s amazing how many people staunchly defend their honor, asserting,  “I don’t know what the mix-up is” and proclaiming, “I am going to go down to the court house and straighten this out first thing tomorrow!”  They say this, and then I never hear from them again. Their bluffing totally eclipses HR’s. Besides the questionable ethics of lying, why try?  Just run the background check.

In summary, I did agree with some of the Readers Digest “What HR Won’t Tell You” article, but there were also a few paragraphs that were very hard to read. HR friends, we have a code of ethics which includes advocating on behalf of ourselves “to build respect, credibility and strategic importance for the HR profession.”  When we discriminate against parents of young children, lie to candidates or encourage them to lie to us, condone wrongdoing or otherwise fail to live up to high moral or professional standards *and* on top of that we share those shortcomings with the world, we’re hardly doing the profession of human resources a service. It hardly seems like a way to secure a seat at that mythical table.

photo by השביעית • the7eye.org.il

People often ask me for the definition of a Small Employer under the recently enacted health care reform bill.  Well, actually, to be honest, no-one has; but if they did, I am happy to report I could clear any murkiness right up!

As I understand it, under the health care bill, a Small Employer is one that has employed an average of 1-100 employees over the previous plan year and employs at least one person on the first day of the plan year* while a Large Employer would be 101+ employees.  The Small Employer classification should not be confused with a Qualified Small Employer, an entity that  may apply for tax credit if employing less than 25 full-time equivalents and meeting some other requirements I won’t bore you with. And to further allay any confusion, starting in 2016, states can choose to define Small Employer as 1-50 employees, and a Large Employer as 51+.  Also, I should mention that some people are making the silly mistake of failing to distinguish between large employer and Large Employer. Certain provisions, such as auto-enrollment, will only affect (lower case) large employers with 200+ employees while not touching Large Employers in the 101-199 category.

All clear now? I am glad I was able to shed light on this issue.

Tomorrow: Calculating FTE (full-time equivalents) for your tax credit. Warning: requires advanced math.

P.s. Please remember, while I have attempted to convey this information in a factual way, I am not an attorney and there are good reasons why I don’t play one on TV. Please consult SHRM, your broker, or counsel about any real, actual questions about health care reform implications.

*Why it is necessary to spell out that you employ at least one person, I don’t know.

Google Analytics tells me many readers came to AliveHR hoping to figure out how much paid time off is the norm in the US. I have a string of queries along the lines of “How much vacation time should employers give in America?”

I ran into a lot of dead-ends while researching, so I can see why so many people have questions. When I did find data,  ranges were often so broad as to be unhelpful. What good would it do, for example, to find out that most companies give between 4 and 29 days? What does that mean to me Read the rest of this entry »