Evil HR: The worst thing you could do to candidates

For many candidates, human resources is not their favorite department. Candidates often complain about HR staff asking stupid questions, accuse them of making candidates do work for free and discriminating against applicants who live in poor districts.

But even if you don't like the HR department, it is never wise to bang heads with them, because they can really make your life miserable if they want to.

In a Facebook post on HK office politics, a writer shared the ultimate plan to destroy a candidate.

Step 1: Invite candidate to a two hour written test after a five minute interview. Extend the job offer to the candidate and then conduct a reference check with his or her boss to make sure the boss knows the candidate wants to leave.

Step 2: Call the candidate one day before the starting date to inform it is no longer necessary for him or her to report for work. Or even better, fire the candidate with immediate effect anytime within the probation period.

This is of course a horrible thing to do. Most human resources professionals are of high integrity and character and will never do something like that.

But one respondent of the post said it is actually common for big organisations to fire employees before they pass their probation, even their performance is up to standard.

"The aim is not to mess with candidates, rather, it is because the company is not able to hire people for short-term jobs. So the company posts a recruitment advertisement for a permanent role, gets people on-board for the job, and then fires them as soon as the job is done.

"It is easy to fire employees who are still on probation. The supervisor can simply report that the employee performed poorly, so he or she has to be terminated. Nobody will ever find out the truth," he wrote.

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