Every single HR Business Partner has a dilemma. What is the main role of the HR Business Partner? To be a Key Account Manager of HR at the client? Or to be a Key Account Manager of the client at Human Resources?

HR Business Partner is just a human being. As the HR Business Partner is in a daily contact with the internal client of HR, the relationship with the internal client gets closer and closer. And the internal client wants solutions, which makes his/her life easier in the organization. When the internal client has a chance to get some advantage, he/she would be crazy not to try to get the advantage with the small help from the HR Business Partner.

On the other hand HRM has a lot of its goals and tasks. And the managers have not to be comfortable with all the tasks, which are ordered by the HRM. In that case, Human Resources Management need strong HR Business Partners with a good relationship with the internal client to push the tasks and to get their buy-in. But after some time the HR Business Partners tend to fight for the internal client more as it can increase their popularity.

There is just one cure for this issue. The HR Business Partners must have to change their internal clients to serve from time to time. It is not to break all the relationships, but it helps to build new ones and the new HR Business Partner has a different opinion and can bring better solutions. The HR Business Partner should not serve the same internal clients for a long period.

Today, we live in a bit strange world. The economists are not able to say, whether the world economy will run at the full speed or the economic slowdown will appear to return some balance into the economies of many countries in the world. To make things even worse - the real economic slowdown did not appear for more than 20 years and the companies did get fat a bit over the period.

All the HR Processes in successful organizations are set to support the growth of sales, volumes and net income, but they are not ready to support the moments of cost cuts, lay offs and many other action needed during the economic slowdown. The real HR Professional who remember the times of the economic slowdown are very rare on the market. People working in Human Resources are not aware of the real need to control and manage personnel expenses and the line management has no experience as well.

The Performance Management and Career Development Processes are set to identify top talents, their potential to identify the opposite side of the performance curve is really limited and they usually fail when trying to make it working. The Compensation and Benefits are usually calculating how to increase the overall personnel expenses budget. The HRM did not play a cost cutter role for quite a long time and they have no precedence.

Are you sure, your HRM is able quickly:

• provide the business leaders with a detail personnel expenses budget breakdown identifying the biggest potentials to cut
• provide the business with the detailed analysis of benefit portfolio with the potential cuts
• provide with a quick list of low performers
• provide the business with processes and procedures to decrease the number of employees
• demonstrate a courage to send important and difficult messages to employees
• the internal power to make difficult decisions about employees

Honestly, HRM is not fully ready to make difficult decisions as HRM was more oriented to fight talents on the market. But this can change quickly. The HR Professional should quickly get the knowledge to help keep the talents inside the organization, but they should be still able to decrease the costs of the company. It will be a real challenge, when the economic slowdown will come.

Clearly defined role of Human Resources in Recruitment process is very important for measuring the success of the whole Recruitment Process. The overall setting of the HR Role in Recruitment is directly linked to Recruitment Strategy and HR Strategy.

The Recruitment Strategy has clearly define the role of Human Resources and of Hiring Managers as it is a very important for setting the correct measures and to identify potential gaps in the whole recruitment process.

A traditional role of HR in Recruitment was an administrative part of the whole process. The HRM was responsible for maintaining the vacancies advertised and monitored, but the real impact of HRM to the performance of the whole recruitment process was minimal.
But as the role of Human Resources in the business was increasing, the HR Strategy was changed. From making the process working to the real management of HR Processes and the Recruitment Process was the first to manage. The Recruitment Strategy changed - the efficiency and costs to the company were more important.

The HR Role in Recruitment changed and HRM:

• decides about the design of the recruitment processes and to decide about the split of roles and responsibilities between Human Resources and Hiring Manager
• decides about the right profile of the candidate
• decides about the sources of candidates
• decides about the measures to be monitored to measure the success of the process

The role of HR in Recruitment is very important as HRM is the function to work on the development of the recruitment process and to make the process very competitive on the market. As the job market gets more and more competitive, the clearly defined HR Role in Recruitment will be growing quickly. HRM is not a function to conduct all the interviews today, the main role of Human Resources is to make the recruitment process more attractive and competitive on the job market.

Every big organization runs Performance Management. But are you able to explain to employees a simple thing - “What is Performance Management?” Try to think about it, because the answer is not simple in many companies.

The HR Professionals tend to provide answers like these:

1. The Performance Management helps to improve the performance of the company by monitoring and evaluating the performance of individual employees.
2. The Performance Management helps the employees and the company to reach better performance.
3. The Performance Management helps employees to develop their competencies and skills.

But in reality? There are companies, where the Performance Management is used as a tool for the distribution of bonuses. It is sad, but the managers and employees agree to the rules of the game and the bonuses get distributed. This is a picture of the Performance Management in eyes of many employees. Because their main feeling is a bonus payment after the performance evaluation.

The correct answers for the question “What is Performance Management?” should be:

1. The Performance Management /mainly Goal Setting/ sets a frame for the year and it shows to the employee the main milestones during the year.
2. The Performance Management helps to identify development needs and to increase the value of the individual employee for the company.
3. The Performance Management helps the organization to identify gaps in the overall company performance and to prepare development plans to improve.
4. The Performance Management provides the employee with a strictly structured feedback at least once a year.

But honestly - can you provide honestly with these answers to the question “What is Performance Management?” in your own organization? The Performance Management is a very powerful HR Tool for managers, but they are usually very inexperienced in the usage of the whole concept.

Performance Management needs one crucial thing - Performance Management Training. The training is an essential part of the success of the whole concept of Performance Management.

The Performance Management System is not a system to work on its own. The PM needs a lot of support from Human Resources and business leaders to work correctly. When Performance Management System is not managed properly - then every single employee reaches the best performance rating.

The Performance Management Training is a key to success in many companies. The system does not have to be brilliant, but the Performance Management Training can help to set the correct expectations.

The expectations of managers and employees are the critical for the success of the whole Performance Management. The Performance Management Training helps to explain the processes behind the whole system and expected outcomes of the whole Performance Management.

The Performance Management Training helps to get a buy-in of employees involved in the whole process. You should try to develop a training about Performance Management to make sure, the company runs at 100% performance.

The job interview with the HR Recruiter is more important than the job candidates believe. The HR Recruiter is the person who makes the first impression of the hiring manager. The HR Recruiter asks those “stupid HR questions”, but he/she builds the personality oriented picture of you and the hiring manager is usually strongly influenced by the HR Recruiter’s advices and notices.

It is important to have several things in mind when being interviewed by the HR Recruiter. You can believe you are the best person in the world when you come to the job interview. But you had a chance to go through several job interviews. But the HR Recruiter conducted from several hundreds to several thousands job interviews. You did not meet all the situations the HR Recruiter did. The HR Recruiter can quickly compare your answers with the answers of other candidates. Even in the history – he/she has a memory.

The job candidates usually make the same mistakes when being interviewed by the HR Recruiter:

1. I just need you to send me to the hiring manager
2. You do not understand my skills
3. You know nothing about the company
4. I am smarter than you
5. I do not have to listen to you

“I just need you to send to the hiring manager” is the most common mistake of job candidates facing HR Recruiter. The HR Recruiter is the gate keeper for the hiring manager and he/she decided about the candidates to be allowed to meet with the hiring managers. Showing to the HR Recruiter the only need is to see the hiring manager is not a good technique. You can be rejected really quickly.

“You do not understand my skills” is a very dangerous mistake. The HR Recruiter exactly knows what skills and competencies are needed for the job position. And many times – the HR Recruiter can compare you against a winning candidate from the past. Be very careful about this.

“You know nothing about the company” is a mistake, when you have no questions about the company and you just show to the HR Recruiter your opinion about his/her knowledge of the organization. It can happen from time to time that you have no questions for the HR Recruiter.

“I am smarter than you” is again a dangerous mistake during the interview with the HR Recruiter. You can be an expert in your area, but the HR Recruiter is the expert in the area of selection processes including job interviews. You cannot tell to the HR Recruiter your area of expertise is so complicated to explain and it is very hard to others to understand to it. HR Recruiters are very smart and they generally understand to the whole organization.

“I do not have to listen to you” is more common than you expect. When the HR Recruiter likes you, he/she can provide you with some advices for the next round job interview. But you have to listen to the HR Recruiter. Sometimes, the job candidates want to finish the job interview as soon as possible.

Do not forget that your job interview with the HR Recruiter is a very important part of the whole selection process. Do not ignore them.

Lately a friend of mine asked me about the winning job resume. What does the resume make a winning one when I have to decide about “GO/NO GO”. It is really interesting question and I tried to formulate pretty general answer for him.

I formulated my own answer about the winning job resume, which must consist of just 4 simple components:

1. Simplicity – I do not like complicated stuff. In moment, when I need to read job resumes selecting the right candidate, the simple resumes are given a priority. Not because of just their simplicity, but the author of a simple job resume knows to express himself/herself quickly and simply.
2. Clean resume is the winning one – the resume with a clean layout, which shows non-complicated person behind it. To make a really clean resume takes time and I know it. I appreciate clean design and it helps to read the job resume quickly. And no HR employee has time to make a deep research.
3. Structured resume is the winning resume. No one likes to search for information. The people tend to search for information at places they know. And each resume should follow the same structure. Or – the structure must be visible immediately. When composing your own winning job resume you have to prepare its structure first.
4. Potential to future growth – the winning job resume shows a potential of a candidate for a future growth. The winning resume shows the skills and it shows, which skills are still missing and the HR Recruiter must have something to offer. This is simple to say, but it is very hard to write into the job resume. Without a potential to growth – the HR Recruiter can easily reject the candidate as “overqualified”.

These are mine four main components in the winning job resume. Which are yours?

HR Recruiter is a very important employee in Human Resources. Following the Recruitment Strategy the HR Recruiter is the employee to decide about the appropriate recruitment and selection procedure to hire a new employee.

This role is very important as the HR Recruiter has a direct impact on the most important aspect of the whole recruitment process:

• Quality of Candidates;
• Time to fill the Vacancy;
• Cost of a New Hire.

The HR Recruiter must be a very clever person to decide about the correct mix of recruitment techniques to satisfy the internal client and to find the right candidate on the job market. The hiring manager always believes to find the best candidate by tomorrow for a zero costs. But in reality it never works this way.

The HR Recruiter must clearly recognize the priorities of the hiring manager and compare them with the recruitment strategy of Human Resources and he/she must decide about the final approach of the selection process. The HR Recruiter must recognize all the skills and competencies required by the hiring manager and to make a final conclusion on using the best working channel for the selected position to get the best fitting candidates at affordable price to the company.

Many times the HR Recruiter can be pressed to change the approach of the selection process, but the employee must use KPIs set for recruitment to argue about the right time to change the selection procedure as the hiring managers will always press to change the process and make it quicker.

The HR Recruiter is not a person conducting just the job interviews, it is the person to really drive the recruitment process in the organization.

Many times the same story. The people get disappointed with every rejection letter they receive in their mailbox. Or no response from the company.

But you have to be realistic. When you read your own resume, would you hire yourself. That is the basic question. Many people do not read their resume, when they finish it.

HR Recruiters are very busy people. But they have really well trained eyes and they see any mistake at the first sight. You do not have to mention any grammar mistake or misspelling, but they definitely will notice it.

In case, when they receive a lot of resume for a job vacancy, they will tend to select resumes, which are correct as no one wants to send documents with the mistake to the selection process. As the hiring manager can notice the mistake as well.

The advice is really simple. Make proofreading before sending your resume to the company. It does not take much time from you, but it can help you a lot. You can jump over other candidates with mistakes in their resumes.

Hiring and selection of employees is one of the most visible HR processes within the organization. Recruitment is a very sensitive area to succeed and it always generates a lot of complaints from the managers.

For the successful recruitment process, the clear position of the organization on the job market has to be defined. It provides recruitment processes with the right focus on areas to search employees from.

The organization must have a clear decision about its position on the job market. When the statement is not clearly defined, the company will probably miss a lot of opportunities. The recruitment strategy.

The recruitment strategy is very sensitive to other HR Strategies as it has a huge impact on coming candidates to the organization. It is very connected with compensation strategy as it follows the remuneration principles of individual employees. In case, there is not a direct link between compensation and recruitment strategy - a lot of qualifying candidates is lost.

A good recruitment strategy should define the ideal candidate. An ideal candidate is not the best one available on the job market. The ideal candidate is the suiting the needs of the vacancy and with affordable salary requests.

The recruitment strategy also defines the best sources of candidates and it sets the overall limits for recruitment processes. But, in the next blog spots - more on recruitment strategy.