While there are several reasons HR shouldn’t handle recruiting and hiring, three stand out.
First, departmental managers will always be in the best position to know the specific needs and what it takes to succeed in their department. Frankly, finding and hiring the best people should be one of their most essential roles.
Second, HR departments are not experts in really anything other than HR. While HR managers and personnel may be perfect for their given role, they simply don’t have the background to decipher what makes a great sales person, support staff candidate or any of the other important jobs specific to your company.
Third, and perhaps most daunting, is the realization that at the end of the day, HR has nothing to lose. The success or failure of an employee rarely comes back to haunt HR because they get paid regardless of the outcome. Further, while the struggling economy has put a tremendous volume of talented people out of work, the average HR department’s idea of recruiting is to search Internet databases and job-finder Web sites. This highly ineffective and impersonal methodology will not attract the biggest and best talent.
Now, before I offend every HR department on the planet, certainly there are exceptions and a select few companies actually staff their HR departments with qualified and experienced recruiters. But those are far and few between. Very far and few between. When business managers and department heads take full responsibility for recruiting and hiring – because the process directly affects their paycheck – potential candidates are given an immediate first impression upgrade of the company and the door is opened for more meaningful exchanges and fact finding.
Let HR do your background checks and hiring compliance. Let your top people find and hire more top people. And as always, we are here to help them.
