Human Resource Forum

[Resume Writer]

Hi Everyone,

On the 28th of February I will be moderating a Human Resource Forum, where the resume writers in my area bring together about 20 HR Managers to ask questions about the hiring process, resumes, interviewing, etc.

If anyone has any questions they would like to have me ask, please post them here. I ask that you post them here so that I do not get multiple requests for the same question and ideas that each person posts may prompt others to come up with questions they might not have thought about.

Please keep in mind that asking questions regarding whether they discriminate based upon age will not get answered. What I can ask is what their philosophy is on hiring more experienced workers.

There is an excellent cross section of HR Managers that are attending this meeting. I can certainly ask questions about the type of recruiting they are utilizing, including what happens to online resumes that are submitted, the selection criteria they use, etc.

While none of the HR Managers are specifically aviation related at this point, (I am trying to get an HR person from an airline), I believe that perhaps general information might be helpful to anyone searching for a job.

If anyone has questions, please let me know!

Kathy

 

[rettofly]

If anyone has any questions they would like to have me ask, please post them here. I ask that you post them here so that I do not get multiple requests for the same question and ideas that each person posts may prompt others to come up with questions they might not have thought about.

Whatever happened to business etiquette? It is annoying, frustrating and disheartening to stand before the wall of silence (credit 757drvr for that term). I would much rather get a short message that says "have a nice life, we can't use you" than wait for calls or e-mails that never come, or waste my time making calls to voice mail boxes or sending follow-up messages.
Have we forgotten about closure?

 

[Resume Writer]

I definately plan on asking that question. It has happened to all of my clients in the past - not just my pilot clients.

I think the HR people need to know the general sentiment out there from job seekers. Communication should be a two way street.

Interestingly enough, I presented several seminars yesterday at a Career Expo for a job board here in Phoenix. There were about 5000 job seekers that came through the Expo that had about 100 employers seeking candidates.

Afterwards, at the employer gathering, I sat with about 8 Hiring Managers from various companies. They had some interesting things to say. One thing they said was that they had about 2 minutes per candidate to decide whether they would call them or not. Further, when candidates would inquire about positions, the Hiring Manager would review their resume and let them know right away if they did not have the requirements. They told me that they had several candidates that argued with them! This is not the first time that this has happened. Last year at our HR Forum, the employers said the same thing.

The second thing that I heard last year at the HR Forum was that when they received resumes (about 200-500 for every position), they simply did not have the manpower to follow up with everyone. They were then selecting their top 10-15 candidates for a phone screening, after which they decided upon the top 5 people to bring in for a face to face interview. They said they did not send anything to the other candidates, as they figured the person would know they were not selected if it was more than two-three weeks.

Please understand that I am not defending the hiring managers - just passing on what has been communicated to me.

I will most certainly ask the same questions again and as I said before on another thread, I will report back any pertinent findings.

 

[enigma]

Thanks for the offer. I am going to think about it before I offer a question, but I don't want the thread to go to page two, so, bump.

regards,
enigma

 

[SDF2BUF2MCO]

"Personality" or Skillset?

Don't know if this is a tangible question, but what is more important personality/fit or skillset? My radar says personality is more important than skillset. Your skills get your foot in the door but it is personality/fit that get the job. In today's lawyer society employers probably don't want to admit it. The type of personality varies as does the person interviewing and their company culture.

 

[CorpFlyBoy67]

Good questions. I'll be anxious to hear what Kathy brings back from this meeting.

 

[bobbysamd]

H.R. Seminar

I, too, would be interested in hearing about, as you so skillfully put it, their philosophy behind hiring "more experienced" workers, and especially those who decide, later in life, to combine their "experience" with a new set of skills for a new career. Also, how, and why, they decide between "more experienced" workers and the less experienced.

Feedback on business etiquette would also be appreciated, to-wit:

They said they did not send anything to the other candidates, as they figured the person would know they were not selected if it was more than two-three weeks.

In my $0.02 opinion, Kathy, that's a bunch of malarkey. It is not etiquette at all to let a person hang, especially if that person has been out of work for a while.

One other point to bring up. Why do employers continue to advertise for applicants, even though one who matches or exceeds every requirement applied for the job and has applied for that job several times? I'm not talking strictly about aviation.

Check your PMs.

Thanks again for your contributions to the board.

 

[Resume Writer]

Re: H.R. Seminar

Feedback on business etiquette would also be appreciated, to-wit: In my $0.02 opinion, Kathy, that's a bunch of malarkey. It is not etiquette at all to let a person hang, especially if that person has been out of work for a while.

One other point to bring up. Why do employers continue to advertise for applicants, even though one who matches or exceeds every requirement applied for the job and has applied for that job several times? I'm not talking strictly about aviation.

On your first question Bobby, what I was talking about was the original applicants (the 200-500 people that applied) did not get a letter. Not the people that had been selected for interviews. It really does get cost prohibitive for them to send out info to 200-500 people.

On your second point, through our PM's you have told me the story and I replied to you!

I did want to bring something up though that I have seen a lot of lately. It seems sometimes there are individuals who apply for a position, get called for an interview and then are not selected, even though they have all of the qualifications. When this happens, the first thing I ask my client is whether the company they applied for performs any type of government contracting.

The reason I ask this is because the company may have already had someone hand selected for the position inside the company, however, since they perform government contracts, they are required to post the position to fulfill the EEOC or Dept. of Labor regulations. (could be another agency, I am pretty tired right now!)

I find this very disturbing, but as long as companies can get away with it, they will do it. They will not tell you this is the reason, they will just say the other person was more qualified. They are required by law to advertise the position and conduct interviews.

When I did hiring, I was so ethical about it. I am curious to hear what kind of information these individuals will tell us. Most of them are pretty good about giving us information, as long as we ask it in the right way!

Keep the questions coming. We are about 1.5 weeks away from the forum.

Thanks everyone for participating in this thread. I appreciate the feedback!

Kathy

 

[Publishers]

Personality question

I want to take a second and deal with the question on personality.

As far as who gets the job, it is the determining factor. Why?

Because inevitably you get down to a few qualified candidates all who meet the requirements, all who could do the job. At that point, you are looking for who fits into the companies culture or the group where this person will be assigned. This is also where those factors that are not, I suppose, to be considered, age, looks, personality, goals, etc, come into the equation.

By the way Bobby, that age thing can work more than one way. Perhaps we are not going to take the young kid and place him where he is going to lead a bunch of veteran performers.

The concept that "Hey, I meet the requirements you posted" should get you the job is just not the facts and to my knowledge never has been.

As I aid on the other thread, I am empathetic to the people who feel they need the rejection letter but the fact is more times than not I have responded to those who sent such a poor resume that I told them to go find a Kathy because they did not know what they were doing.

The bottom line is you should not expect any rejection letters or correspondence unless you are one of the last two or three candidates.

 

[mar]

Here's a question:

Why not bother to inform someone *why* they weren't selected.

A rejection letter would be nice enough and I can understand that if a company is sorting through a hundred applicants a month maybe they don't want to bother....

...but if someone calls and requests to know the reason why, in order to better themself then why not do them the courtesy of explaining why he wasn't selected...????

 

[Resume Writer]

Re: Here's a question:

Why not bother to inform someone *why* they weren't selected.

A rejection letter would be nice enough and I can understand that if a company is sorting through a hundred applicants a month maybe they don't want to bother....

...but if someone calls and requests to know the reason why, in order to better themself then why not do them the courtesy of explaining why he wasn't selected...????

Mar,

The reason they will not let you know what you could do better is because they could open themselves up to a legal action. Sometimes it is not even that a candidate did anything wrong, it could just be that there was someone better qualified.

Years ago I was asked to apply for a position as a Small Business Development Center Director that is funded by the Small Business Administration. I got all the way to the final 3 people, came in second and was fortunate enough to be told that the person they selected had more experience than I did at the time. It was nice to know that I had not done anything wrong.

I have also been on the other end, where I have not gotten a response after the final interview. I agree that in that case, it is simply rude to not hear back.

I do not however expect to hear from anyone if I was not selected for an initial interview. As I said before, with them getting between 200-500 applicants for every position they post, it would take a huge amount of time to contact those people.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a reason for the things they do, but in order to find that out, we have to ask questions. Much more likely they will tell someone who does not have a vested interest rather than the candidate.

So, I will be sure to ask these questions and report back!

Kathy

 

[Resume Writer]

Re: Personality question

I want to take a second and deal with the question on personality.

As far as who gets the job, it is the determining factor. Why?

Because inevitably you get down to a few qualified candidates all who meet the requirements, all who could do the job. At that point, you are looking for who fits into the companies culture or the group where this person will be assigned. This is also where those factors that are not, I suppose, to be considered, age, looks, personality, goals, etc, come into the equation.

I always tell my candidates that when they are interviewing, they need to make a great impression when shaking hands and introducing themselves to the interviewer. In the first 30 seconds of meeting a candidate they make a judgment and then spend the next 20 minutes to an hour, justifying why they want to hire the person or not hire the person. Usually if you make it past 20 minutes, there is a good chance you will get called for another interview.

In addition, I tell them that they need to match the enthusiasm of the person(s) interviewing them. Last week in my interviewing seminar, I gave an example of an interviewer who was shy and somewhat reserved being rolled over by someone who was very outgoing. The person I went up to in the seminar was just that (shy and reserved) and I came on very strong. If you could have seen him physically back away and the look on his face was priceless! It truly drove home the point for the entire audience.

The bottom line is people hire people they like and that match the culture of the company. Do your homework, find out the corporate culture and try to emulate that. A person applying at American (prior of course to 9/11) as a Pilot is vastly different than the person applying to Southwest. Each has a specific type of person they are looking for to fit the position.

Know the type of person you are and then try to find a company that will be a good fit. One of the top reasons for job dissatisfaction in not generally the job; it is not working in an environment to which you are suited.

Kathy

 

[bobbysamd]

Rejection non-answers

Why not bother to inform someone *why* they weren't selected.

A rejection letter would be nice enough and I can understand that if a company is sorting through a hundred applicants a month maybe they don't want to bother....

...but if someone calls and requests to know the reason why, in order to better themself then why not do them the courtesy of explaining why he wasn't selected...????

Further to Kathy's comments, I actually tried it one time. I attended a Comair interview and was rejected. It was my fourth rejection, so I decided to take a shot at finding out what happened. I was put through to the Chief Pilot in Orlando, who had interviewed me. I told him up front that I knew I would not be hired, but could he simply tell me what I could have done better at the interview. I did not ask why I was rejected. He said it was Comair's policy not to provides reasons for rejection. Which gives them, and others, license to reject you for any reason.

If they were to put it in writing by way of rejection letters, major cans of worms could be opened!

I had a friend whose birthday is within days of my birthday (and I am 52) interview with Trans States Airlines a few years ago. He found out from someone that he was rejected because of age. I have no doubt as to his veracity. Too bad that proving it would be impossible.

 

[Publishers]

better

better qualified means;

There was nothing wrong with you, I just liked him better.

We had a number of applicants and one is a neighbor of the boss and he gets the job.

We were going to hire you but that drool thing was disconcerning.

You were the wrong sex, race, degree, age, sexual orientation, geographic, religion, serial number, applicant number, astrological sign, species, in short, anything you can think of.

The important thing is to never slow your looking process because you think you have one in the bag. There is no need for them to tell you, if they do they will not be giving you the straight scoop. Keep moving forward.

 

[MW44]

I was wondering what kind of information a company can request about you from your current employer. Is there a difference between what is "allowed" and what actually happens. One in particular, can an hr department ask your employer how many sick days you have used?

 

[rettofly]

Re: Re: Here's a question:

Mar,

The reason they will not let you know what you could do better is because they could open themselves up to a legal action. Sometimes it is not even that a candidate did anything wrong, it could just be that there was someone better qualified.

I guess Shakespeare was right: "First, kill all the lawyers".

 

[bobbysamd]

Reference requests

I was wondering what kind of information a company can request about you from your current employer. Is there a difference between what is "allowed" and what actually happens. One in particular, can an hr department ask your employer how many sick days you have used?

Anything about you can be asked. What will be answered may be another thing.

Bad company references have given rise to defamation lawsuits. Companies these days generally confine their comments to your start and end dates, and pay. They might confirm the reason you gave for leaving. They won't say much more.

Once more, a plug for an excellent book on employment law, Every Employee's Guide to the Law by Lewin G. Joel III, available at www.amazon.com and elsewhere. It is a very well-written and well-documented book.