Having been pretty unimpressed with Human Resource professionals that I have met in the university sector, the fact that (apparently) the UK now has more people working in HR than are doctors or lawyers may be one more factor in the UK's rubbish management problem - too many HR people with their fingers in the recruitment & retention processes of large organisations?
h/t Sheila Hayman/FT letters
As a career contractor/consultant, yes, all my interactions without exception with HR departments have been utterly dismal to say the least.
After having worked for the EU for 12 months as a senior Oracle consultant, my boss asked me if I would consider going permanent. I said yes, I would and he said he would send my CV down to HR to see what they could put together as an offer.
When their offer came back, HR made it clear that I was absolutely expected to accept their overwhelmingly generous proposal as they had taken the trouble to send it to me. I responded by asking them why they were quoting a weekly wage when monthly is the usual format in that country. Needless to say I did NOT accept!
The offer was at the level of the statutory minimum salary for the country I was working in and not even a living wage in that country. It was substantially less than half what I was already earning and didn't include a company car which the company I was working for, did!
Another amusing happening was when I was offered a contract by a US bank with branches in Europe. They insisted on the most MASSIVE vetting even of contract employees. I received a panicky phone call from my brother whose wife was the personal assistant to the officer responsible for security in the British military, so the moment some US detective agency started making enquiries into my family, alarm bells started going off all over Whitehall. It reached the stage that Whitehall officials were talking to the FBI and CIA about it!
@Paulos_the_fog
Yup, all sounds pretty familiar.....