30 “Job Interviews From Hell”, As Shared By Applicants And Employees Online

Bored Panda reached out to Marisa Eckberg PHR, SHRM-CP, founder and CEO of Grey Owl HR, to talk all things job interviews and the role of human resources in this whole process of getting and doing a job.

“The job of HR… HR is responsible for the humans that work for a company from the moment we attract the candidate to a job to the time they leave the company,” explains Eckberg about what it really means to be an HR. “We are responsible for the policies, how the Company sets their strategy and how people in the company are managed. We touch everything from recruiting, onboarding, training, making sure everyone is paid fairly and on time, coach leaders on how to manage their teams properly, make sure that working for the Company is attractive with medical/dental/vision, 401K, paid time off, etc.”

“HR is a lot of kind of ‘behind the scenes’ work, and not every HR department in every company looks or functions the same. Some have one person doing everything, some have outsourced to an HRO or PEO, some have whole teams doing only one part of HR, like the talent acquisition team or the payroll team, and still some don’t have a dedicated HR department at all.”

Needless to say, HR’s job is anything but easy. Just imagine having to be responsible for everything from finding, drawing in, managing and keeping talent engaged at work to also keeping up overall morale, organizing perks and events for employees, liaisoning between them and management, and the like. Sure, these are different profiles of the job, but it’s all in the scope of HR. So, you might want to excuse some awkwardness during job interviews.

“The biggest challenge, I think, is attracting and retaining employees,” elaborated Eckberg. “There is a lot that goes into retaining employees—getting them hired is only half the battle. Every person at the company is an individual with their own needs and wants, likes and dislikes, backgrounds and career goals. Making the workplace somewhere that employees WANT to be and WANT to spend their precious time away from the things that are important to them is critical for HR these days. First you have to get employees to trust you enough to share what they need and want in a workplace and then you’ve got to convince management to invest in those things. It is a constant balancing act.”

If you’ve been on the internet long enough, you’ll be aware of places like r/AntiWork, where people share all things work-free life. There, as well as in several other places, you’ll often hear the idea that the task of an HR is not to help employees, but rather to protect the company. So, we asked Eckberg to comment on the reality of the statement:

“Look, whoever said that whole ‘HR is not your friend’—I always think to myself, who told you we were your friend? HR is a department or function just like any other within the company—finance, IT, Marketing. Again, we walk a very thin line between ensuring both the employees and the company are protected.”

“And just like any job—there are HR pros out there that are great at what they do, and there are others that maybe should reconsider their career choices. Anyone who has worked in a company with the latter will definitely feel like HR is ‘only there to protect the company and don’t care’. But we’re not all like that.”

“My suggestion is to keep the mindset that HR is just like any other department at a company, and they are employees of the same company as you. Sometimes the same complaints you have are the same as ours.”

“Not all of us are ‘evil HR ladies’ just waiting to get you in trouble or screw up your benefits deductions or just make your life difficult in general. Most of us want to make sure people that work at a company are treated fairly and that the work environment is one everyone wants to be in… including us,” added Eckberg.

At the end of the day, everyone in the company is responsible for the work environment they create—there isn’t a specific role like manager or HR who are supposed to be doing all the work. According to the Swedish Work Environment Authority, while the employer is responsible for the bulk of shaping the work environment, employees and employers still have to work together to make it happen in general. It’s an “everyone gets to play” sort of mentality that was proven to work in the long run, so employees are encouraged to stay realistic with their expectations of the work environment.