HR Professionals Are Never Beating The Allegations — Part 1

Dear Readers,

This is an attempt to add to the grand slander that HR professionals already face. This writer is going for the jugular because that’s how I’ve felt these past months; like I’m lying on the ground in my elegant ball gown which represents my experience and expertise, while HR professionals have their feet on my neck, with some of them pushing their heels deeper into my throat.

There are three things you should note before reading this especially if you’re an HR Professional:

1. Saying “Not all HR professionals are like this” doesn’t mean anything to me or to anyone who has experienced HR professionals who are like this or even far worse.
2. All your explanations as to why some of your colleagues act the way they do would never make sense to me and just like you during KPI/OKR and MPR meetings, I only see them as excuses. Nothing but excuses.
3. This is a culmination of my experience with both local, multinational, and international firms. As a matter of fact, the HR guys from some of your fave companies are also guilty of this weird AF behavior.

Before I go on, I think it’s only right that I introduce myself.

I am Adebola Williams, I have been relentless in building a marketing career since 2018. Like most people in marketing, I started off as a generalist. Content creation, then social media management, blog, and website content, website and blog management, email marketing, copywriting, market activations, publicity and PR, market research, and advertisement. All the works.

After a while, I discovered Content Marketing and I was intrigued. I’d finally found the most creative part of marketing and I was determined to make it sweet spot. Like anyone who finds a new obsession, I consumed everything I could find about Content Marketing. I watched YouTube videos, read a ton of blogs, subscribed to a bunch of newsletters, connected with international Content Marketers, joined Content Marketing communities , took a few courses, and most importantly, practiced what I learned. During the pandemic, I was freelancing. I worked with different clients and used all of them to test out my new obsession. I needed to figure out if I could truly build a career in this niche. After a few months, I knew I was right to become obsessed.

After a year of practice at a few small businesses who for the first time in their lives started selling online and for a few established brands who had always had a sales approach to acquisition and retention, I was ready for full-time employment. I had made mistakes, learned from them, and had some small and big wins. I tailored my resume right and optimized to be hired as a Content Marketing talent but soon discovered most Nigerian companies didn’t give a hoot about that role. The HR department will just wrap it up under the Digital Marketer and Social Media Manager or spread the JD across the entire marketing team. I finally got my first Content Marketing role and all was well with the world again but after three months, I knew I would have to make a difficult call soon.

Fast forward to today, I had been the Brand Storyteller at Moni for about 2 years and most of my functions revolved around Content Marketing.

Whew. What an introduction.

Now, let’s go back to the people we are here to burn at the stake.

I would be dividing this article into two parts like how we had Side A and Side B on cassettes growing up.

For visual understanding, Gen Zs, see what a cassette looks like below:

Cassette (from the internet)

SIDE A — HR PROFESSIONALS WHO COME TO YOU WHEN YOU’RE JEJELY ON YOUR OWN BUT STILL END UP ACTING SUS

These are my favourite HR professionals to pick on and they are the guiltest on the spectrum cos why did you come and talk to me, get my appetite whet only for you to ghost me? It’s giving toxic.

I get different messages from HR professionals regularly. Some of these guys don’t use the usual template “poachers” use. They personalize their messages.

An example of such a message would be:
“Hello Adebola. I am currently hiring for a Brand Storyteller/Head of Content/Creative Brand Strategist for ABC and I found your profile. The most important skills we’re looking for in this role include Creativity, Storytelling, and successfully executed B2B/B2C campaigns. I have gone through your profile and your portfolio and we think you’re a great fit. Does this look like an opportunity you would like to explore and when can we set up a call to chat?”

I don’t know about you but when I see this, it feels like a validation. I feel special or am I mad? They get my email or calendar, hook me up to a call to understand what they were looking for and what the company does, etc.

The average steps to finally getting an offer look something like this:
1. Discovery Call

2. First stage interview

3. Assessment or test

4. Second stage interview

5. Culture fit

6. Final round with CEO, COO, and all the other C’s that matter.

You would think that number 7 would be getting and signing your offer, right? Well, darling, it isn’t. In my experience for the past eight months, the next step is SILENCE.

UTTERLY DEAFENING SILENCE.

Oh God, help me not to name names because my fingers are itching to do it.

It’s a psychotic disorder — they laugh with you, give positive feedback and even areas of improvement, and answer all the questions you have until it’s time to give the offer.

You know I still justify this bad behavior the same way people who find it difficult to get out of a toxic relationship do? I tell myself they must be busy. They must have forgotten. They have so many things on their plate.

So I reach out. I start a dialogue. And either of these three things happen:

1. They apologize for ghosting you and give excuses that tally with the exact one I already made up for them.
2. They acknowledge your message but say nothing about the next steps.
3. They don’t respond to you at all.

No matter the route they take, you’re still at the No-Offer Bus stop.

There’s one particular global company that I got to the final stage with and they just ghosted. I can’t count how many follow-up emails and LinkedIn messages I sent. I copied all the C’s that matter as well but nothing still. I even reached out back to the external recruiters but those are even worse. Omo, I just gave up because sometimes, a man must know when to give up to not fuck up his steeze.

I’d genuinely like to know why HR professionals do this. Why do you ghost? Is it too much work? Or utter disregard for people?

HR is usually my first glance at the culture of a company. If my interaction during the recruitment phase is warped, I don’t think the culture of the company is great and I get so happy that I dodged a bullet. This happiness doesn’t invalidate the sadness of not getting an offer or how my time and effort were wasted. Many things can co-exist at the same time.

If you have experienced this category of HR professionals, drop a comment here. I’d like to hear from you. And if you’d like to share anonymously, fill this form or send a DM on IG or Twitter.

SIDE B — HR PROFESSIONALS WHO YOU ENCOUNTER ON YOUR JOB-HUNTING JOURNEY

Meeting these guys feel like a sweet meet-cute. This is the usual way you meet the one. You turn in your application and they have their work cut out for them. They either think you could be the next talent they’ll hire or not and in my experience, these guys could do either of these things:

1. Send a “you made the selection” email. Here, they’ll acknowledge how your talent fits what they are looking for and detail the next steps.
2. Send a “you didn’t make the cut” email and share reasons as to why you’re not a good fit for the company.
3. Just send a “you didn’t make the cut” email.
4. Not give any feedback at all.

Among these four experiences, the one that stresses me out the most are those who never give a feedback.

Why? Because it’s 2024 and that basic task can be automated.

Have you sent in your application at 3PM and by 3:15PM, you get a rejection feedback? That’s how basic getting back is.

It was an automated process. No one is sitting behind a desktop and sending rejection emails under 20 minutes.

It’s common courtesy that when you start a conversation with someone, you end it. HR professionals just leave the chat room with no prior announcement.

People have argued that we shouldn’t blame them for this behaviour stating that the boss may have put a freeze on hiring, or promised another person the role or maybe it’s just a bad time to hire and my retort to that is a bunch of questions:

1. When stakeholders ask HR to start a recruitment process, what are the questions they ask? Do they see the need for the talent or do they just have a hiring quota to meet? Can the existing team do without this new talent?
2. Does each company have a code of conduct during recruitment? A standard operating process that helps them hire effectively and give incoming talents a good experience?
3. Do HR professionals optimize for feedback and clear communication during the recruitment process?

If the answers to these are yes, then they have no excuse. They, of all people, should know and do better.

If a Human Resource personnel can’t communicate, then what can they do? I believe that a huge part of their role is communication and that’s not only done with words.

When a HR personnel ghosts me, they’ve communicated the “closed mouth” culture of the company to me and it doesn’t excite to join the team.

When a HR personnel moves interview dates more times than expected, they’ve communicated that they don’t have their sheets together.

When a HR personnel doesn’t give any feedback and doesn’t respond to email checks, they’re telling me that I’m not important in the grand scheme of things.

When a HR personnel takes their sweet time and their recruitment process is 3 months and some more, they’re telling me that the role isn’t that important and I may just be hired to occupy space.

There’s so much communication happening in the silences and disappeareances.

These are some of my experiences with HR professionals — both local and international.

I’ve also experienced some really amazing guys. People who were honest about the situation of things and even offered further help outside of their expected interaction.

But most of my experience have been weird, outrightly rude, mentally jarring and emotionally scarring.

Did you know you can anonymously share your horrible HR experience here? Let it out.

My next piece is about how HR fails to help people setting in on new roles and few things they can do better.

Share this to anyone job hunting. It’s not them. It’s the guys recruiting. And also it’s the job market. Rooting for you.