Recruiting vs HR

In the past it seems that most of the time Recruiting and HR have been separate entities with vastly different goals. Now that companies are streamlining departments and cross training employees, I am finding more and more instances where Recruiting and HR are being combined into one department with a joint function. Even in our company, the two outsourced divisions of RPO and HRO have now been merged to form just one Managed Services Division.

What do you think of this trend... care to comment on the good, the bad and the ugly? Can we really all just get along?

Comment by Heather Phillips C.A.C. CIR on February 4, 2008 at 4:30pm: I think it is a good idea as long as the HR employees are trained and as motivated to find the best as most Recruiters are already trained to do.

Comment by Leah Purugganan on February 4, 2008 at 6:01pm: In my opinion, HR and Recruitment are two VASTLY different functions. In my experience, HR has historically not truly understood recruiting and what it requires .

Depending on what position needs to be filled, recruiting takes a combination of business sense and sales skills and not administration or process skills. As Michael Homula, owner of Bearing Fruit Consulting in Michigan has written, "Recruiting is not an HR function and vice versa. Great recruiting is most often the result of significant sales type efforts and competencies. Networking, cold calling, competitive intelligence gathering, strong relationship management, prioritization of tasks, the art of negotiation, consultative needs analysis, great scripting, leaving voice mails that get a call back, getting around the gatekeeper, finding passive talent...I could go on and on....are sales skills and not HR skills. Rarely, and I do mean rarely, do the skills required to be great at recruiting and the skills required to be great at HR intersect. As a result, the vast majority of recruiters in corporate America are ill equipped from a training and recruiting skill development perspective to actually get great results for their company. Often, companies are hiring the wrong people with the wrong skills and behavioral competencies into recruiting roles. Too many companies use recruiting as the entry level job into Human Resources when in fact it should be the role to aspire to and be separated, at least in strategic direction and tactical execution, from the HR environment in a company. That is not to say one is better then the other. They are just different and require different skills and competencies."

I think he made my point for me. Hope that provide clarity and insight into the differences and intricacies between the two.

Thanks!

LP

Comment by Kelley Pearson Nicastro on February 4, 2008 at 6:22pm: I agree. Recruiting is about Talent Acquisition. Traditional HR is not structured to really go out there and find that truly exceptional candidate. But it is changing. There are companies who have come to realize that (like the comment above pointed out) HR shouldn't be an entry level portal into a company, a back of the house function, but rather it should be the example of the best talent in the company.

Comment by Recruitnik on February 4, 2008 at 8:19pm: I spent the first 5 years with my company as a HRG. I focused on Employee Relations and Management Recruitment. 2 years ago my job split in half. Recruitment was always my 1st love so it was always obvious which way I would go. Recruitment is part of HR in my organization as it should be in my eyes. All areas of employee relations, training and recruitment communicate on a regular basis. It has been hugely beneficial for us to have a team dedicated to the talent acquisition function.