Recruiters are the vermin of the 21^st century, they are parasites that suck blood from hard working individuals, they are hyenas that scavenge on the dynamics of every corporation out there, they are horrible, horrible creatures and they, like real hyenas, work in tandem. They create nothing, benefit nobody, and hurt the world’s economy. They are a complete abomination and everyone knows that. But, they are still there and they are flourishing. What’s going on?

Well, the reason why recruiters are flourishing can be traced to only one reason, HR! Yes, unfortunately, that very, very important department in any company is the sole cause for recruiters to exist. Let me give you an idea on how the recruitment process works in large companies:

• An IT manager informs HR (through email) that he’s in need of a programmer.

• HR informs its growing list of recruiters that they are in need of a programmer with a specified skillset.

• The recruiters scan their databases and post the job on their LinkedIn account.

• The recruiters then get contacted by candidates, and then forward all eligible candidates to HR.

• HR interviews the candidates sent by the recruiters (by the way, some recruiters conflict with each other, where they both send the same candidate for interview with the same company for the same job), and, after screening, send the candidates that they think are right for the company to the IT Manager.

• The IT Manager is stuck with a few candidates that may or may not be what he wants, and so the recruitment process is repeated.

Now, what happens is that the HR staff often purposely dismiss the right candidate because they just don’t like him, or because he’s slightly over the budget, or because he’s left handed. I mean, HR cannot interview the candidate technically, only the IT Manager can. Additionally, it is the IT Manager that has to live with that programmer, and not HR. If the IT Manager likes a candidate, then he’s free to give that extra $10,000 that he wanted (and that the recruiter was taking), he’ll be willing to tolerate his introversion, he’ll be able to tolerate his weird eating habits, he’ll be able to tolerate his smell, his insane behavior, etc… Unfortunately, with HR in the middle of the process, all these bright candidates that are usually not perfect are filtered out, and all that is left is the mediocre ones who cost more when taking into consideration their output, and who won’t take the IT department of the company to next level.

In the past decade or two, HR has morphed from office management into a controlling authority over virtually every aspect of the day-to-day activity of the company concerning employees. Also, since HR are not competent technically, they rely on vampires recruiters to hire new staff, which means that all the resources hired through HR cost more, a lot more! Too bad!

I think the solution would be to get HR out of the hiring process, and go back to the good old method of when the IT Manager posts a job on a website, and then waits for those resumes to flow in. Companies following strategy will experience a significant reduction in costs and a huge increase in productivity. By the way, this strategy is the secret why small companies excel when it comes to choosing the right resources.

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