sbozy25
Mechanical
- Jun 23, 2005
- 395
I have had a few years now of low level management, with small teams usually consisting of myself, 1 other engineer, and a CAD person. I was very recently awarded my masters degree in international business, following a very long 2 years of after work schooling. Upon completion, my company informed me that they now felt I was ready for a full time, upper level management role, and that they were going to allow me to pick my team.
I am being put in charge of new product development of our medical device segment. Here is what HR and the managers above me are allowing me to choose. I was told that my team would consist of: 4 engineers, 4 CAD designers, 1 test engineer (could be shared with other groups depending on how much work he has), 1 quality engineer (could also be shared), 1 application engineer for inside sales work, 1 customer service rep, and 2 outside sales contractors. I am being given basic free reign on this team, and can pick them at my leisure, as long as I have them picked by the end of Q2-2014, which is fine with me. I'm also given the option of picking entirely within the company, or going outside and picking from fresh candidates. I will also be given 2 engineering summer interns of my choice once school lets out for the summer. For each of the positions, I was given a chart of salary ranges that could be awarded based on years of experience. I was also given a total year budge for salary that my whole team needs to try and fit within, not counting my salary. HR has also stated they will help me with the negotiations since this is my first time truly setting a team up and having to hire people.
This is all a dream come true for me, and I'm very excited to get this moving. I have reviewed the job descriptions and job placement adds that will be put out to use while searching for candidates, and have made the changes I wanted. Things are moving very quickly so far, and 2 weeks ago I already had a stack of 60 resume's to review. From that list, I picked 10 that I liked and wanted to conduct interviews with. I was also given 3 internal candidates that I liked and had to interview also.
Here is the issue that I'm facing now. I've interviewed all 3 of the internal candidates, and only liked 1 that I wanted to offer a job to. Then, out of the 10 I've interviewed from the outside, I did not like any of them, and told HR I would like to pass on all of them. HR got a little irritated with me, told me I needed to not be so picky, and then asked me to provide a 1 page summary on each person as to why I did not like them and felt we should pass. This caught me off guard, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. Is this a normal request from HR and is this something any of you have had to do in the past? I don't think I really need to explain much about why I want to pass. Our standard interview process is to have the candidate meet with HR for the first hour, meet with one of the other managers of a similar department that they will work in, and then meet with the hiring manager for the last hour. On top of this, I have prepared a basic CAD test for any designer applicant, and then a basic engineering test for any engineering / technical applicant. The tests are not super hard, and are more used for evaluating the candidate's thought process and reasoning skills. HR was not the most fond of this and told me that they would allow it, but didn't want me to base my decision on the test results only, which is fine with me. Then once the interview is done, the three interviewers sit down for 30 minutes and debrief each other on our thoughts. In each case, HR was in love with the candidate, and the other manager was in line with me and my thoughts.
I don't want to be bullied into picking the first people that come in the door, and if this is my team to select, I think I should select the best possible person for each role. Is this not the right way to think about it? I want to make sure I give myself and my team every chance for success and feel that if that truly is the case, I should be able to have my team the way I want it.
Anyone have some thoughts on how I can effectively neutralize HR and do things my way, or should I just roll over and do as they want?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Definition of irony: A Ford Focus driver with ADD...
I am being put in charge of new product development of our medical device segment. Here is what HR and the managers above me are allowing me to choose. I was told that my team would consist of: 4 engineers, 4 CAD designers, 1 test engineer (could be shared with other groups depending on how much work he has), 1 quality engineer (could also be shared), 1 application engineer for inside sales work, 1 customer service rep, and 2 outside sales contractors. I am being given basic free reign on this team, and can pick them at my leisure, as long as I have them picked by the end of Q2-2014, which is fine with me. I'm also given the option of picking entirely within the company, or going outside and picking from fresh candidates. I will also be given 2 engineering summer interns of my choice once school lets out for the summer. For each of the positions, I was given a chart of salary ranges that could be awarded based on years of experience. I was also given a total year budge for salary that my whole team needs to try and fit within, not counting my salary. HR has also stated they will help me with the negotiations since this is my first time truly setting a team up and having to hire people.
This is all a dream come true for me, and I'm very excited to get this moving. I have reviewed the job descriptions and job placement adds that will be put out to use while searching for candidates, and have made the changes I wanted. Things are moving very quickly so far, and 2 weeks ago I already had a stack of 60 resume's to review. From that list, I picked 10 that I liked and wanted to conduct interviews with. I was also given 3 internal candidates that I liked and had to interview also.
Here is the issue that I'm facing now. I've interviewed all 3 of the internal candidates, and only liked 1 that I wanted to offer a job to. Then, out of the 10 I've interviewed from the outside, I did not like any of them, and told HR I would like to pass on all of them. HR got a little irritated with me, told me I needed to not be so picky, and then asked me to provide a 1 page summary on each person as to why I did not like them and felt we should pass. This caught me off guard, and I'm not sure how to feel about it. Is this a normal request from HR and is this something any of you have had to do in the past? I don't think I really need to explain much about why I want to pass. Our standard interview process is to have the candidate meet with HR for the first hour, meet with one of the other managers of a similar department that they will work in, and then meet with the hiring manager for the last hour. On top of this, I have prepared a basic CAD test for any designer applicant, and then a basic engineering test for any engineering / technical applicant. The tests are not super hard, and are more used for evaluating the candidate's thought process and reasoning skills. HR was not the most fond of this and told me that they would allow it, but didn't want me to base my decision on the test results only, which is fine with me. Then once the interview is done, the three interviewers sit down for 30 minutes and debrief each other on our thoughts. In each case, HR was in love with the candidate, and the other manager was in line with me and my thoughts.
I don't want to be bullied into picking the first people that come in the door, and if this is my team to select, I think I should select the best possible person for each role. Is this not the right way to think about it? I want to make sure I give myself and my team every chance for success and feel that if that truly is the case, I should be able to have my team the way I want it.
Anyone have some thoughts on how I can effectively neutralize HR and do things my way, or should I just roll over and do as they want?
Thanks for any suggestions!
Definition of irony: A Ford Focus driver with ADD...
