[avs733]

E.g., (1) it took us 7 months to hire a (US citizen) post doc. (2) we lost a faculty candidate because HR took so long to generate an offer letter that the person applied for and started another job between when they got a verbal offer and when they got a written offer letter.

HR is completely non responsive and on the off chance you get in contact with them you get one of three answers:

- you're dumb because you didn't know about this other form/rule/policy

- you actually need to talk to X (typically the person who sent me to them)

- the policy from last time changed, or are claimed to have changed

[jason_s]

That doesn't sound too much worse than some HR in industry...

OT: could I ask you some questions about another thread (semiconductor fabs), privately? My twitter contact info is in my profile.

[SOMA_BOFH]

amen. thank you. unfortunately similar challenges exist in industry enterprise environments. small companies can be immune from it.

[avs733]

I've worked at a bunch of places...honestly small company/startup HR scares me just as much.

Somewhere in there is a happy balance between 'no HR' and an 'HR run organization'. I haven't experienced it, but I would choose big companies over academia in a heart beat