Recruitment and Selection: Funny Recruitment

Here are a few items that I considered funny from my experience as a recruiter. Please enjoy.

They include funny abilities that people consider they have, email addresses, funny job titles, and funny interview replies. All these have been extracted from real resumes:

Funny abilities:

“I unstress people”

“Observatory spirit”

« PC Knowledge: …Facebook… »

"Fisherman - advanced"

Funny emails (be careful what you put in your resume, the recruiter is attentive to details):

cupidon_boy35@....

angels_wish77@...

laryssa_happy@...

albisor1966@...

alexxia_etc@...

workmar2005@...

seghyc@...

rhadoo_coco@...

yo3gxc@...

zuzu@...

kempes64@...

irreplaceable_anna@...

bravo.ma@...

catanutz20@...

spyraly@...

alin_aka_zoner@...

pisi_just4you@...

vip_azzuro@...

bbanderas83@...

don_corleone477@...

ghitza_ghitzuka@...

crissy_motanel@...

adriana_gargarita@...

dexterboygenius2003@...

andreeaelena_blonda@...

rapid_25lyk@...

oannna_bruneta17@...

corasonXXL@...

ondskandixie@...

al.scarface06@...

b1g_snak3@...

hidden.whispers@...

mihi_pic@...

deadlybrunet@...

verutza_mea@...

follie20@...

dalila_scumpy@...

money_saby@...

buffy5…@...

lovleymetalgirl@...

luygy2007@...

tatajean2003@...

babe_ank@...

yo_4_cs@...

papy_1404@...

oanadanielamohamedsalem@...

glumetz1988@...

Funny online interview replies:

Q:Which was your biggest professional achievement?

A: My degree at informatique

Q:What's your biggest dream? Describe your ideal career

A: to know more and product money

Your biggest dream: general manager or DONALD TRUMP

Your biggest dream: to become priest (this was from someone applying for a management position)

Your ideal company: Orthodox Church

Your expectations in terms of salary, work environment: None

How would your last manager characterize you: Grade 8

Your biggest achievement: I graduated on time.

How do you see yourself in 5 years? Employed.

Your expectations in terms of salary, work environment: 100 EUR. Do you want?

Are you available to work in shifts?  (same candidate as above): sure for this amount I can even sell my mother.

What is your level of Linux knowledge and where did you use Linux: I have no idea about Linux.

What is your biggest dream? To work in an office surrounded by lots of papers.

What is your biggest dream? To be a police officer. (This from a person applying in a company where customer service is provided, no police work whatsoever).

What is the department you would like to work in (if you had only one choice) and why? I have MORE than one choice.

Funny work experience:

Work experience:

Position: jkggh2005-01 <> 2009-01 (4 years)
Company name: ethyrthjt, (Employees: Over 3000), HR

I don't have any yet.

Funny letters attached to the resumes:

Good day.

I would like to get hired in your company. I have all the requirements. I am not 90-60-90. I am waiting for an urgent response.

Insight on Labor Law

For all foreign managers willing to work for multinationals based in Romania, this presentation of labor law will be useful. It includes all important changes that occurred in July 2011 in the Romanian labor code:

www.comialarm-resurseumane.go.ro/HR/Romanian_Labour_Law_Regulations_July_2011.ppt 

Human Resources Mysteries: Should You Outsource Your Payroll?

First of all, one short description of outsourcing. It's a relatively new term and from my experience most candidates that I see for an interview have heard of it but don't know what it means or don't know how to explain it clearly.

Outsourcing means giving one of your internal services to an external provider. What can you give? Accounting, HR, IT and many more. What do I mean by "giving"? Signing a contract with an external provider who with his internal means will provide a service that we as a company no longer do internally.

What advantages does outsourcing have? Well, the service is provided by an already-trained team, the provider has all the software needed internally and they are responsible for licenses and legal requirements. Moreover, outsourcing can be a huge cost saver if the provider team is located in a low cost country like India, Romania, Bulgaria and so on.

So, should you outsource your payroll?

No, if you are a small company with 5 employees. Payroll for you can be easily done in an Excel file or even in Open Office Calc (free spreadsheet software) by someone handling HR or accounting. There's no point in paying additional money to an external provider.

Yes, if you are a larger company - 50, 100 employees or even more. There's not a clear line to be drawn between numbers. You don't outsource when you have exactly 50 employees. It's just your decision. Outsourcing the payroll can be beneficial for a larger company because it saves you the headache. The provider has a proper software, a proper team and the proper relationship with the authorities, all of this making payroll simple for you.

Engagement Strategies: Motivating Your Employees – Good Communication

One non-financial manner of motivating your employees is to permanently keep them involved and informed. Please make sure that your employees get:

1.   An internal bulletin – monthly is the best, but you can select any time frame you find suitable; you can even send a survey to involve the employees in the decision concerning theme and timeline; an internal bulletin can include: manager’s message, new hired employees, promotions, HR and financial data, interviews with the team members, news and many more.

2.  Regular surveys consulting the employees on certain issues - presenting the results is very important – the employees feel involved if you do and they see it as a waste of their time if you don’t. Explaining the decision and basing it on the results is also important.

3.  Communication boards inside the company. These boards are also called “Visual management boards”. They must be placed in visible places and must include information of general interest.

4.   Periodic meetings between managers and teams – individual one on one meetings and group meetings – these meetings can be used to communicate feedback, ask for ideas, solutions, take decisions together. All are very important and advisable to implement.

Engagement Strategies: Motivating Your Employees – Proper Training and Development

One good motivating factor for your employees is training. Make sure you do the following for EACH of your employees:

1.  At least a week Induction training in order to introduce the employee in the company; for managers, consider even more – up to a month; by Induction training I mean introduction to company history, company activity, company financial, HR or any other useful details, company mission, vision, values, team, HR policies and procedures, team policies and procedures, client specifications. Al these make sure the employee becomes part of the team.

2.  Assigning a mentor – selecting an older employee to guide the new one through a determined period of time.

3.  Assess employee skills when hired; prepare a training plan for short and long term to make sure skills are improved allowing the employee to perform better and even to get promoted. Offering trainings and development opportunities shows the employees you care. Some of these trainings may be internal – so with lower costs.

4.  Helping the employee pursue higher education. If company budgets allow it, paying for employees certifications and studies, even partially helps with the motivation.

5.  Talk to the employees and the managers about their training and development needs and try to fulfill them.

Engagement Strategies: Motivating Your Employees - Proper Recruitment and Selection

Please don't consider this title as confusing - recruitment and selection can be considered a motivation factor.
How exactly you may say? Well...here's what you can do in terms of recruitment to motivate employees:


1. Selecting the best candidates according to job requirements - this creates a good image and confidence about the HR department - people have the courage to come to you later on for advice, this makes sure that the candidates selected fit the team and work well with their team members, this helps create a strong team; the team manager has the possibility to choose his/her team members making sure the team is fit to work together. All these characteristics of a team motivate the team members.


2. Discussing with the candidates the strengths, weaknesses and career path for the job they apply for - this helps the candidates select the proper job by knowing all the pluses and minuses. They know what they are getting into and they don't get false expectations.


3.Telling selected candidates about salary and complete benefits package so they are aware of the full offer before accepting - this helps candidates with not having "surprises" later on after accepting the job. "Surprises" can cause people to resign sooner than expected. This will create more work for you (maybe you will select someone without thorough testing just to fill the jobs - be careful about this vicious circle), a negative atmosphere in the team and a bad image of the company.

Engagement Strategies: Employee Motivation Idea - Employee of the Year Selection

Here's a proposal for you to think about - how can you select the employee of the year for a team as fair as possible. Prepare an Excel file, include the names of the people in the teams, insert the criteria and give weights to each of them.

Here's a file you can use:
http://www.comialarm-resurseumane.go.ro/HR/Employee_of_the_Year_Criteria_Excel97-2003.xls

Take into consideration the following criteria:
- mid-year rating grade - rates from 1 to 5 were considered, 1 being the best, 5 the worst;
- annual rating grade - given in October so you can have the final Employee of the year selected by December.

Additional criteria:

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Team Work

Employee consistently demonstrates the spirit of teamwork by offering support to fellow employees whenever a need arises for a collective effort in accomplishing a task or goal.  Employee takes a positive approach in interacting with fellow employees.

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Reliability

Employee is always on time for work, doesn't waste time on too long breaks, his colleagues and his manager can always trust that he/she will perform the activity he/she was entrusted with, will respect deadlines and will promote quality of work

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Innovation

Employee has developed an original idea or suggestion that has a positive effect on the operations, policy and/or procedure.  The end result of the idea or suggestion is a reduction in cost(s) to the operation or increased efficiency or accountability.

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Personal development interest - Learning & Development

This criteria defines the person's interest in developing themselves, his/her interest in being part of trainings and in improving the knowledge

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Professionalism

Employee conducts himself or herself in a manner consistent with the values and goals of the company.  Employee demonstrates an above average knowledge of their job responsibilities and delivers a high quality job performance and services.

Customer focus

Employee consistently recognizes and meets the needs and requirements of internal/external (where applicable) customers.  Employee demonstrates compassion in dealing with the customer, being mindful of how his or her attitude and actions are perceived.  Employees use problem-solving techniques, when necessary, to satisfy the customer’s needs and reflects a positive image of the institution.

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Quality

Employee consistently uses a systematic approach to accomplishing his/her responsibilities, taking care to minimize errors.  Employee acknowledges and takes pride in ownership of the day-to-day processes for which he/she is responsible and utilizes initiative where necessary to meet overall goals.

Engagement Strategies: Criteria to Check Motivation of Employees

Here are some criteria that you can use use to check motivation of your employees. You can create surveys to see where you need to work on improvement. They have been placed into groups according to Maslow's pyramid of needs.
Lower needs must be fulfilled first:

Criteria	Category
Conditions for physical recreation	Physichological
Conditions of periodical recreation (trips, parties, etc.)	Physichological
Conditions of serving lunch	Physichological
Average time spent at work	Safety
Bonus and rewards system for holidays (Christmas, Easter, etc.)	Safety
Bonus system for results recognition	Safety
Budget for travelling	Safety
Company headquarters	Safety
IT support	Safety
Meeting efficiency	Safety
Other material benefits (car, bonuses, etc.)	Safety
Overtime compensation system	Safety
Recreation spaces	Safety
Safety of position	Safety
Salary increase system	Safety
Salary level	Safety
The Office	Safety
Transportation facilities	Safety
Work atmosphere	Safety
Degree of information upon company results	Belonging
Initial training	Belonging
Quality of collaborating with HR	Belonging
Quality of collaborating with IT	Belonging
Quality of collaborating with other departments	Belonging
Quality of collaborating with top management	Belonging
The way knowledge is transmitted within the company	Belonging
Degree of responsibility on the job	Self-esteem
Feedback from direct manager	Self-esteem
Recognition of my results	Self-esteem
Respect the employee is treated with	Self-esteem
Work itself	Self-esteem
Internal opportunities to develop your career	Self-actualization
Opportunities to develop technical/specialist skills	Self-actualization
Promotions system within the company	Self-actualization
Support offered during the activity	Self-actualization
Training system offered periodically	Self-actualization

Human Resources Mysteries: What Does a Recruitment and Selection Specialist Do?

As a recruitment and selection specialist you will be performing the following activities:

·           monitor open positions;

·          get involved in designing the recruitment plan for the following period together with the managers of each department in the company or the clients sometimes, plan which will include the number and type of positions to recruit;

·           help managers prepare job descriptions for the positions they have in their departments;

·           use the job descriptions to create and post ads on various recruitment channels;

·       select appropriate recruitment channel depending on positions open (skills needed, number of positions);

·           read the resumes received and compare to job requirements;

·           select candidates to be invited to interview;

·           invite and conduct a first interview with selected candidates;

·           prepare together with specialists and managers and set of practical tests to be given to candidates;

·           be part of the team assessing the candidates during these tests;

·           write down as much information as you can concerning candidate’s performance;

·           offer managers and initial list of best candidates for them to interview;

·         give feedback to selected and rejected candidates – type of feedback is chosen according to source of candidates – internal candidates will always receive face to face feedback, the external ones will receive phone or email feedback;

·         keep an updated database of all positions and feed-backs to use later during recruitment; this will help use previously rejected candidates on other positions or the same position after a while after skills have improved or most important of all, avoid embarrassing situations where the same candidate gets invited to a second interview, after being rejected after the first one the week before;

·         participate in public presentations at the University, conferences, student gatherings to introduce your company and recruit people;

·            participate in job fairs for students, fresh graduates or other skills workers;

·        get involved in the creation of promotional materials to be used for students and during official presentations, either alone or with the help of the marketing department;

·      manage relationships with recruiting partners like recruiting agencies, student organizations, University representatives, job portals contacts;

·         organize internal assessments either for an open position or for selecting candidates to be involved later on in development for a certain position – i.e. select internal candidates who have team leader potential, candidates who will be enrolled in leadership trainings;

·          prepare various recruiting reports;

·          prepare various recruiting estimations requested by managers – i.e. the total cost of recruitment for a team of 30 FTEs (FTE = full time employee), French speakers with Linux skills and the deadline for such a project;

·        prepare newsletters for candidates in database to keep them informed about new positions or changes in the organization that might interest them;

·             prepare recruitment policies and work instructions;

·             in some organizations contact the selected candidates for employment offers;

·           in some organizations conduct trainings of recruitment and selection with managers, internship students, other employees interested or required to participate (i.e. a technical agent who will be part of the final selection process for members of the IT team);

Recruitment and Selection Strategy: What Should a Resume/CV Include Mandatorily?

First of all, if you have no idea how a resume should look like, you can try this link:
http://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/en/documents/curriculum-vitae

It's the link to the European Euro pass resume that most employers in Europe prefer. It's a clear, easy to use file that I personally recommend.

The main information to start a resume is:
- your name (full name, no nicknames);
- your address and contact information (be careful about emails - use a professional one, not foxylady21foryou@....com unless you are applying for video chat or something); recruiters check this;
- your nationality;
- your marital status;

The last two are not mandatory, but employers may ask about nationality to see if you need a work permit.
Marital status, children, religion, sexual orientation are not mandatory to offer and the employer is forbidden by law to reject you because of any of these. It's your choice to give them this information or not. Also, they are not allowed if you are female to ask if you are pregnant or if you plan to have any children in the near future. Pregnancy tests are also forbidden.

The next section of your resume should be the Professional experience. Some resumes have the section Professional objective before that and sometimes area in which you are interested to work in, but all those are not mandatory.

Coming back to the professional experience, you should specify the name of the employer, your position, the hiring date and ending of contract date. If you still work there, you should mention only hiring date. Besides all the above you should mention your responsibilities and achievements on the job. Try to be specific and adapt them to the specifications of the position you are applying for.

All your positions should be entered in reverse chronological order - meaning your current one first, not last.

If you don't have any experience, try to find something to put there - an internship, a volunteer campaign, a project you did in a team at the University. Try not to leave this section empty. Try to show that you tried to do something.

The next section is the studies section. Please enter all your studies in reverse chronological order mentioning the name of the studies provider, the time frames and the specialty/major you graduated or you are still following.

After long term studies, enter short term courses you had - all relevant courses in reverse chronological order. Don't offer too much detail and don't insert here courses that are not relevant to the position. An employer looking for a sales agent for example can't care less that you did a landscaping course unless you are selling landscaping products. Always think about how relevant the detail you are giving is for the position you are applying for.

A large CV is not ok. No recruiter will have the time to read. Keep it under 4 pages if you have a lot of experience and under 2 if you are fresh graduate or student. The largest CV I have ever received had 14 pages, it was for an Operations Manager position, it was relevant, but huge and I read below a quarter of it. I was desperately looking for CVs for such a position. Otherwise, I wouldn't have wasted my time. So be careful.

Additional skills: write here your technical skills - software you use, foreign languages that you speak (include only Advanced and Medium level not all languages that you know how to say "Hello" in), social skills, artistic skills only if relevant. Be careful that all you write here can be tested. If you say you speak advanced French and you don't, your CV will be rejected and you may never get another chance. Be honest and evaluate yourself correctly.

Other sections in the CV:
- prizes - keep it simple if you have to add it and write ONLY relevant information. Nobody cares that you had a first price in acting in kindergarten or in pottery class;
- Driver's license or other licenses - add only if relevant to the job;
- Hobbies - include in the CV. Some recruiters consider it relevant. However, keep it simple.

Please write to me if you have any questions. I am open for discussion.
Geo

HR Skills: If I work in HR, How Advanced Need My IT Skills to Be?

You need medium level IT - word processors, spreadsheets processors, presentations software, email software. Also, you may participate sometimes in conference calls and may need to set up your own equipment or you may do presentations and may need to set up your laptop and video equipment by yourself. Anything additional is useful. If you know some database software for example you can create your databases and reports easier. So IT advanced level is not required, but may prove useful.

Human Resources Mysteries: Why is HR Seen as a Useless and Inefficient Department?

This depends on how dedicated HR employees really are. If they are motivated and love their job, they will find a way to show people they are not useless and inefficient. If they are not motivated and don't really love their job, they normally avoid interacting too much with people and that's why their work is not understood. 

As I told you before, HR is not the best paid career ever, budgets are low, volume of work is huge; sometimes HR is seen as a parasite by management and that's why HR people are last when salaries, trainings and benefits are discussed. All this can get an HR employee really demotivated.

Human Resources Mysteries: What Does an HR Manager Do on a Daily Basis?

Strategic planning and control. 
Prepares the recruitment plan, budgets for training and salaries. An HR manager sometimes gets involved in specialist work if the company is small and doesn't have enough specialists. An HR manager should be a former specialist able to support the specialists when they don't know how to act in a certain situation. Sometimes the HR manager needs to prepare presentations to be delivered to the client, prepare recruitment costs estimations, prepare employee satisfaction surveys and action plans to improve employee satisfaction, coordinates the performance reviews. Also, an HR manager's role is to offer support to the other managers concerning HR matters. So he/she more or less needs to be aware of all things that go on in HR and in the company HR-wise.