16 May 2007

Attitude of HR staff of MNCs in India

Filed under: People and society by Hari
Posted at 17:41:09 IST (last updated: 16 Jul 2008 @ 21:13:37 IST)
My brother recently experienced the "attitude" of recruiters for MNCs in India. He has written about it in his blog and I wanted to highlight the unethical practices adopted by these companies to lure candidates (inconveniencing them and making them waste time, effort and money) merely for updating their resume database. Note this point: my brother was called by an employee of that MNC for the interview (through the referral program) assuring him that he qualified on the basis of experience, so it was not a fake e-mail by any means. But thanks to the dumb-ass HR people at that company, he was rejected because he was not "experienced" enough. What makes it really pathetic is that he has not even received an apology, let alone a clarification from this contact person who misled him.

You can read the full story here: Link to the article

The gist of what happened:
  1. My brother got referred by an employee of an MNC for an opening in that company.
  2. The employee clarified the requirements and assured my brother that he does qualify as his resume is suitable.
  3. My brother attended the first interview in Chennai, where he got rejected on the basis of experience required, but the HR staff told him that his CV will be "considered" by the business team as it looked impressive.
  4. My brother asked for clarification and the employee once again assured him that the experience required is 2 years+ and not 3 years as mentioned by the HR staff.
  5. My brother forgot all about it, but once again got an e-mail from the HR department of the same MNC calling him from an interview. My brother assumed that the business team had considered his resume as suitable and went to Bangalore on short notice to attend the interview in spite of a cold and fever.
  6. HR staff at Bangalore once again rejected him on the same basis.
  7. My brother wrote to the employee who had originally referred him but hasn't got any clarification or apology till date.

On neither occasion did he get a chance to prove his merit on the basis of skill and qualification because on both occasions the interview closed when they saw that he didn't have 3 years of experience. What truly annoys me is not that he got rejected, but the indifference and the arrogance of those HR staff who either have no idea how to scan a person's resume or are merely lazy to do so and then have the audacity to point out that my brother should have read the e-mail carefully when he was clearly misled by the assurance given on the earlier occasion.

I think it's a problem that needs to be highlighted because the practice is clearly unethical and yet a lot of HR "agencies" or middlemen do this by sending unsolicited e-mails to masses of unsuspecting people without any kind of screening process merely to collect a data bank of resumes/contact details. This is plain spamming and gives these people a bad name. But what is even worse is when a company directly indulges in this kind of practice. Thanks to their criminal carelessness in the "screening process", my brother spent a horrid weekend travelling up and down at his own cost at extremely short notice (with a running nose and fever) and returned empty-handed.

Too often companies get away with such kind of malpractices and the media doesn't really catch on to it because it's not a "sensational" story.

16 comment(s)

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  1. This is really unfair! I don't like the fact that more and more people are being treated as commodities and as 'resources' which need to sqeezed till you get the last drop. And it doesn't matter if the person dies in the process. I think what the HR did is a reflection of the larger problem. Humans are not seen as people but as things to be used... Sheesh. My blood boils!

    Comment by Bungi (visitor) on 16 May 2007 @ 23:14:20 IST #
  2. You're right Bungi. Part of the problem is also that HR people aren't really experienced themselves and hence go strictly by the "letter". I'd like to conduct an interview for these dumb HR folk myself and I'd embarrass them in a minute.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 17 May 2007 @ 08:22:36 IST #
  3. Thats thoroughly unprofessional of these people! This sort of attitude is really appalling. However, I suppose this also has something to do with the demand and supply, and of course simplistic yardsticks like exact number of years of experience, never mind what the 'experience' quality was. I wish your brother much better jobs that this lot --- they did not deserve him

    Comment by Sudipta Chatterjee (visitor) on 17 May 2007 @ 10:13:22 IST #
  4. Sudipta, actually I think it has nothing to do with demand and supply. It has everything to do with n00b, unqualified HR people who have no idea what their actual job is...My particular post my brother applied for hardly had any other applicants.The fact is, HR is not taken seriously enough. Corporates pay lip service to it, but don't spend any effort in training HR people because it's not a "business process" that yields immediate results. Instead they resort to unethical short-cuts to recruit people. A cynical scenario. I doubt whether this Indian mentality and approach towards the "softer skills" will change any time soon for a nation that is obsessed with Engineering and Medicine as the high road to success and fortune.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 17 May 2007 @ 10:16:53 IST #
  5. One possibility is as below:They need people with say 3 Yrs + exp, but they suspect they may not get candidates with that much exp hence keep experience one year less (2yrs). But if they get someone with 3 yrs + exp they may not be interested in considering others.But it is really bad that some elementary courtesy was denied.

    Comment by Shrinidhi (visitor) on 17 May 2007 @ 10:49:15 IST #
  6. And if employees get referral benefits for each people they refer (irrespective of elegibility or selection) an employee would choose to refer some resume, just to collect his referral commission, not worrying about the inconvenience the candidate undergos...

    Comment by Shrinidhi (visitor) on 17 May 2007 @ 10:51:27 IST #
  7. You're right. The employee who referred probably didn't know. But still, he was the one who gave an assurance that his resume did qualify.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 17 May 2007 @ 16:55:33 IST #
  8. Test comment after upgrade to WP 2.2.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 17 May 2007 @ 18:11:47 IST #
  9. But "experience" is usually a tie breaker. If you have two equally qualified, equally suitable people for one role, you can use experience as a way to decide. To say "not enough experience", if someone has any experience, right at the start is just very very silly.

    Comment by ray (visitor) on 18 May 2007 @ 15:04:20 IST #
  10. Ray. The HR people who conducted the interview probably have even less experience. The problem in our country (and I suspect in many parts of the world) is that HR is treated as a "non-specialist" job, when in fact, it requires specialization in itself.It gets sillier in my brother's case because he was the only candidate who turned up for that particular post.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 18 May 2007 @ 15:06:42 IST #
  11. "No two persons are unique"
    I strongly disagree all your comments.
    "Put yourselves in other shoes when you are talking about others"

    Hr people are not dumb and they are specialised in thier own way, not like other professionals.

    Comment by Unknown (visitor) on 14 Nov 2007 @ 14:56:04 IST #
  12. Hey anonymous coward,

    Read the article fully... I don't make generalizations. I am talking about the HR staff of certain companies.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 14 Nov 2007 @ 15:56:23 IST #
  13. Thanks for your compliments,

    Before asking me to read the full article, i would really appreciate if you could read all comments posted.

    Its ridiculous.

    Comment by Unknown (visitor) on 15 Nov 2007 @ 11:12:59 IST #
  14. Unknown, I read all comments on my blog. You've quoted something that doesn't exist. I cannot make out what you're cribbing about.

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 15 Nov 2007 @ 12:19:51 IST #
  15. what was ur brother asked in the interview? was it not a technical interview? was he reject outright on seeing that he had less than 3 yrs exp? if he did face some technical questions, then he has been rejected on technical grounds and not on exp.
    this is just one side of the story.. so its not right to blame the poor HR person. but you are entitled to write anything here coz its your owm blog! take it easy friend.. ur bro will get a better job :-)

    Comment by HR (visitor) on 12 Sep 2008 @ 12:55:13 IST #
  16. HR, please read the article again.

    This article (written quite a long time ago, BTW) talks about a blatant mistake made by third party HR consultants as well as the HR people of an MNC company in misinforming my brother of the experience requirements for a job and costing him a journey/money/time for nothing. And not even having the decency to apologize for their fault.

    It's that attitude of HR staff taking candidates for granted which annoys me. Not their rejection itself.

    Don't worry. My brother has a far better job now. ;)

    Comment by hari (blog owner) on 12 Sep 2008 @ 14:42:38 IST #

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