I was recently hired by a fairly large company that is cautiously restaffing following a year long hiring freeze. Even though we have a (two person) in-house HR department, a lot of job seekers (those sneaky devils) are sending resumes directly to departmental managers. And some managers have actually made the mistake of thinking that, because they have the authority to make the final hiring decisions for open positions in their departments, they also have the right to screen resumes without first consulting the HR Department. Apparently not. It seems that, without being first filtered through the discerning eyes of these women, we will waste our time (and the company’s money) by interviewing candidates who “are not a good fit for our company. “

We now know the errors of our ways because nine of us sat through a mandatory two hour HR training session this morning. I prevented myself from falling asleep by trying to count how many times the phrase “not a good fit for the company” was solemnly, almost religiously intoned. There were even ominous charts showing how much money the company loses when someone who is “not a good fit” is not only interviewed - but God forbid hired - by the HR unsavvy manager.

I suppose I am grateful that I now see the light. Without the guidance of these HR mavens I might have actually hired someone just because he or she was the most experienced, had the best developed skill set, a proven track record and demonstrated a willingness to actually do the job. I mistakenly thought those qualities equaled being a good fit for the company. I was wrong.

Fortunately we did a little exercise which was designed to show us how HR successfully separated the wheat from the chaff and prevented us from interviewing applicants that were ‘not a good fit for the company”. We were given a stack of resumes with the task of discussing which ones we would chose to interview. This is where the clueless managers were shown to be - well clueless. Here’s just a little of what I now understand:

Someone with a previous salary higher than what the current position offers. Not a good fit.

Someone with a gap of more than six months in employment history. Not a good fit.

Someone with a previous salary in line with the current position BUT with a significantly higher salary in the position immediately before that. Not a good fit.

Someone with a history of only full-time employment applying for a part-time position. Not a good fit.

Someone with an employment history in a different field, even if the basic skill set was translatable to the open position. Not a good fit.

Someone with a graduate degree when the position required an undergraduate degree. Not a good fit.

I admit that there are many things about HR that I do not know - or want to know. I would rather be slathered in honey and staked to an anthill than do what these women do all day. Maybe some, or even all, of these guidelines make sense. Maybe, having recently been unemployed myself, I’m just too sensitive on the whole issue. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the rigid and antiquated attitudes of HR professionals like these two that are helping to ensure that the long term unemployed remain unemployed