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dtalent
02-12-2008, 12:33 AM
A stinging attack on the HR department http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8229&page=1

Malcolm King wrote “If the Australian HR industry was a soccer team, it would be struggling to win a game in the 4th division”.

Destination Talent
www.destinationtalent.com.au/blog

Moz
02-12-2008, 09:01 AM
This parasitic bureaucratic force leeches capital and innovation out of companies, while camouflaging itself in audits and mission statements. It is run by airport bookshop intellects spouting psychobabble.

Wow, that's a really stinging attack. I wonder if he used to write speeches for Paul Keating?

Despite the fact that this guy clearly has a big chip on his shoulder, I do think he has a few points. While I think it's rather unfair to tar the whole HR profession with the same brush based upon a few bad experiences, there are undoubtedly HR people out there who behave the way he describes.


Over a six-month period I wrote 20 job applications and got three interviews. Many of my applications were screened out by Optical Character Recognition scanning technology that HR uses to hunt for key words.

This defeats the purpose of having humans working in recruitment departments. It takes the Human out of HR.
I don't know how true accusation is about using OCR, but I agree that many HR departments try to over automate the recruitment process and are guilty of trying to remove the Human element from HR. Either that or the don't view recruitment as an HR function.


About half of my calls were not returned. More than half the letters I sent were not acknowledged. I had to fight against incorrect information supplied about the terms of employment and salary.

I have no doubt this is true. It's also a disgrace.

I have this belief that only about 20% of people in any profession are really very good at what they do, then there's probably about 50% who are mediocre and 30% who are truly crap. Is HR any better?

PatriciaS
04-05-2009, 10:31 PM
I have to agree with this article for many reasons. I have seen it one too many times.

sporstcorpelite
10-07-2009, 02:47 PM
I totally agree with this article. People in a lot of industries today lack skills enhancement training that's why for some reasons the average and below average dominate the competent ones.

Mark D
14-07-2009, 09:07 AM
And I've met (and managed out) hundreds of incompetent salesmen, engineers, accountants, receptionists, fitters, electricians, managers, production operators, drivers, storepersons, clerks, personal assistants, chemists, blah blah blah. There are bad apples on every tree, not just in the HR orchard.

Moz's last sentence sums it up perfectly.