Page 94 - John Kador - 201 Best Questions to Ask on Your Interview-McGraw-Hill (2002)
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CHAPTER 7
QUESTIONS FOR
HUMAN RESOURCES
ENABLING HR PEOPLE
TO WORK FOR YOU
Human resources people can be professional, genuinely warm, and en-
couraging, but, at their best, HR people are gatekeepers. Their main
function is to screen candidates out so that the ultimate hiring authority
can select from a manageable number of candidates. HR people have no
hiring authority themselves.
THE CARE AND FEEDING OF HR PEOPLE
Your job search will likely include working with HR screeners, so you
should know a few things about their care and feeding. If you keep
their agenda in mind, play it straight, and make it easy for them to do
their jobs, you will be able to advance your application to the hiring
authority. The questions in this chapter are designed to give the HR
screener maximum confidence that he or she will not regret endors-
ing your application.
The central truism about HR people is that, as a profession, they are
highly risk-averse. A nightmare for HR people is that the candidate they
endorsed will melt down in the next interview or, worse, be hired and
then turn out to be a lemon. When that happens, guess who gets clob-
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