Title photo: Director of HR Jessep
Special thanks to an awesome LinkedIn writer for letting us ‘borrow’ this Banana level of quality writing (no worries, we paid him in bananas). All Rights are Reserved
SCENE: IN A CORPORATE BOARDROOM
Hiring Manager: Did you disqualify my candidate even before I got to talk to him?
CEO: You don’t have to answer the question
HR Director Jessep: I’ll answer the question, you want answers?
Hiring Manager: I want the truth!
HR Director Jessep: You can’t handle the truth. Hiring Manager, I live in an HR ivory tower with other HR peeps, and those cushy HR jobs have to be guarded by HR careerists with rejections notices ready to hand out. Whose gonna do it? You CEO? You, Mr. Hiring Manager? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for Mr. Job Seeker, and you curse the Application Tracking System. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Mr. Job Seeker’s totally subjective disqualification, while tragic, probably saved my job. And that my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves more HR careers. You don’t want the truth because deep down in places you don’t talk about at conferences, and on LinkedIn, you want me on that applicant screening wall, you need me on that rejection wall. We use words like qualified, unqualified, and even over-qualified. We use these words as the backbone of an HR career spent defending something totally biased and broken. You use them as heresy. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a non-HR person who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very career that I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way to another company. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a ATS, and start reading resumes. Either way, I don’t give a damn what good workers you think you are entitled to on your team.
Hiring Manager: Did you order a Rejection Notice?
HR Director Jessep: You’re damn right I did…I didn’t like something he wrote on Facebook ten years ago.