Can I trust human resources to tell me the qualifications for a job?

Question

Is human resources the most reliable department to ask about job qualifications? Should I contact someone else at the business?

Answer 1

Yes, you should rely on HR to tell you the basic items for the job.  If permitted, it is a good idea to speak to person in the department where you would like to work, to get a more specific description. It shows your interest in the job, and desire to make sure that it is a job that would be good for both you and for the prospective employer.

Answer 2

Yes, HR is the best way to find out job qualifications.  They have job descriptions w/the requirements and for certain jobs what is required by law for those jobs as well.  However, qualifications can very from company to company depending on what that company requires for the job.  Say for example your a nurse looking for a job, by law you will have to have a license in the state you practice in to get the job, so the hospital or doc's office will have this as one job qualification but the others like whether you have a BS or AS in nursing, so many years of previous experience, things like that can be different based on what they want.  Whatever is in the job description for qualifications by employment law you have to have those qualifications, if HR hires someone that doesn't meet these qualifications, that is illegal and legal action can be take against them.  If you just scoping out jobs to see what is entailed in them, and what you need for qualifications like a degree, or yrs or exp, HR can help you the best, they can also tell you the average salary which is going to be more accurate because they know what other companies in the area are paying, rather than asking a school, they will give you the high salary w/o including that you need the exp to get that salary.  You can also talk to managers over certain jobs, they would obviously know what you need.  But if your at a company and they have an HR, use them.  HR's job besides hiring is to make sure the company is running legally.

Answer 3

Not really. For legal reasons they will give you a job description that is in writing. But the real screener is the manager. Ask them.