What do HR people actually contribute to their organizations? Let’s do some math.

A really good HR department supports me and makes it possible for me to lead troops into the fight by making sure I actually have troops, and doesn’t waste my time with people that should have been culled long before they get to the door.

I need to hire 20 engineers. Four of these need to be senior engineers with at least 10 years of experience and capable of solving pretty complicated problems using some unorthodox techniques so I’m looking for a type of mind versus specific skills. Three will be doing test and integration and they need some specific skills using our toolchain to be effective coming in, and also need some experience with particular certifying bodies. The rest need to be competent, enthusiastic and capable of working under direction that is the polar opposite of “micromanagement”.

While this hiring is going on, I’ve also got to bring the guy who is going to be running the group up to speed on things, meet a bunch of deadlines, give some keynotes, meet investors, sit on committees and do a crap ton of technical work and writing. I have nearly zero time to spend actively sourcing candidates outside of my extended network.

To make those hires, you’ll need to create multiple job descriptions that are fully descriptive but which appeal to different aspects of the job to get people with different view points and motivations to apply (think of it as split testing). You’ll need to advertise and promote the positions. You’ll need to talk to your networks. You’ll need to possibly engage outside recruiters to fish out people that are not actively looking for jobs but who are clear fits.

And you’ll have to source applicants. About 80% will be “thanks for applying” responses that hit the shredder. Of the remaining 20%, half will flunk some aspect. Of the remaining 10% by the time you get to them about a quarter will have taken some other job. If you’re lucky between indecision and flunking background checks (because, yes, we do those) you might get to interview about 5% of the total applicant pool

And of those, you might make offers to about half. And about half of them will accept.

Which means to fill the open req’s you need to source a minimum of about a two thousand resumes. Minimum. Maybe double that.

And once you do hire them, you need to coordinate start dates, benefits, making sure they’ve got someplace to sit, that they have IT and phone equipment, network access, card keys, login credentials….

Plus… you have to know what to pay them. Not just what your budget is, but why your budget needs to be that at minimum. What’s market? In this sector? In this location or locations? Is there an uplift for X skill? Is there an uplift for Y experience? How “hot” is this, and do I need to sweeten the offer to get this person, now? Like now-now?

That stuff doesn’t just magically happen.

A really good HR department supports me and makes it possible for me to lead troops into the fight by making sure I actually have troops, and doesn’t waste my time with people that should have been culled long before they get to the door.

A really bad HR department? Well… the worst I ever dealt with was bad. When the CEO asked how they were supporting me, I replied “Like a rope supports a hanged man”.

There were changes after that. Starting with the new head of HR recruiting an HR department so they had the tools and team to do their job, so I could do mine.