Labor Day Special: Be nice to HR & Recruiting

Last Tuesday, I read a post by one of my new favorite HR Bloggers, Punk Rock HR regarding her observation that 90% of her buddies in HR are looking for work.

Based on her blog post, and a few other observations I can't share publicly, it appears to me that the economic downturn across the U.S. is having a direct effect on the HR & Recruiting functions at many companies. What it comes down to is that companies are cutting back on areas that are cost centers, and in many cases (not all), HR & Recruiting are considered cost centers.

Managerial Accounting Tip: There are 4 large money buckets companies are concerned with, and in rough order of importance: 1) Cash (increase); 2) Revenue (increase); 3) Costs (reduce); 4) Profits (increase). Generally, in an economic downturn, companies focus a lot of attention on protecting their Cash, and do various things to increase Revenue if possible. They also methodically go through all Costs and work to reduce them. Hopefully, these actions result in more Profit, which is a great trick in a down economy.

Here's the scenario: You're working in Recruiting at a F500 company. And suddenly, there's a super-double-secret hiring freeze. You get assigned some other make-work tasks for a while. But then, the hiring freeze extends, and one day you, your peers, and your boss all get the dreaded pink slip because Recruiting is "not strategic", e.g. it does not bring in revenue.

Note to all you CxOs out there: If you have figured out how to NOT take this action, give yourself a gold star! There are ways to keep your recruiting function tip-top at all times, and they truly mark a great business strategist from the rest of the crowd.

For all you Developer-types out there looking for a job, your contacts within the recruiting function of some of the firms you'd like to work for are going to be unhappy, stressed, and probably doing a sub-par job. My suggestion to you is to give these people a break, and maybe even be nice to them (shocking, I know). They are doing their best to help the company find people like you, and after all, that's probably why they got into HR or Recruiting in the first place!