Many years ago when I first got into recruiting I was given a bit of advice by a very wise HR professional.  He said, "Glenn, whatever you do...never....I mean NEVER....EVER become the head of recruiting for a company.  It is a painful, thankless job.  You can never do it fast enough or cheap enough and everybody will hate your guts - - especially HR folks!!!"

At the time I thought he was joking.  After all, how can HR - the function with the word "HUMAN" actually in it - hate anyone's guts?  Well, sadly, after several years of leading recruiting organizations, I can honestly say he was absolutely right.  HR, for some reason, seems to be the one function that typically is the first to throw recruiting under the bus at any and nearly every opportunity.

This became more and more evident in recent years as I found myself sitting in meetings with HR business partners and their business executives.  Instead of discussing workforce planning or various strategies on how to recruit more effectively for their department, my HR business partner would always turn the discussion to how my recruiting team was not finding candidates fast enough.  According to my HR business partner it was the recruiting department's fault as to why their business client was going to miss hitting their numbers because the recruiting department was preventing them from hiring the candidates they needed.

Yes, recruiting is a very important function within the HR department.  Frankly it is the only function in HR where success or failure can be directly measured.  And yes, from time to time I had been known to say to my HR colleagues that there are only 2 things HR really needs to do:  Hire People and Pay Them - Everything else in HR is optional!   But, recruiting, as important as it is, should not be the Rodney Dangerfield of HR - always looking for just a little bit of respect!