1.        WE SPY ON YOU!

 They loved your CV. The interview went really well. You think it’s over, right? Not quite. They haven’t let the spies loose. HR Professionals admit that when it comes to certain middle & senior management jobs, there is a lot of secret cross-referencing and checking that goes on even before they invite you over. For instance? Well, did you know than when you are sitting in the lobby outside the recruiter’s cabin, some junior HR geek may be making notes on which magazines you flip through? Eek! A fortune 500 company once made a candidate sit around waiting half a day just to check his patience and resilience levels. An HR head says, “People are trained to make discreet enquiries with former employers. We also make it a point to take the person out for lunch or dinner to see if he can hold his drink.“ Tanaya Mishra, HR head of Financial Services at ICICI OneSource explains, “There are special referencing agencies that play detective on behalf of the company.” They will go to your university to actually find out whether you passed out from there. Or, whether you’ve been ethical in all your past jobs. And they will check your criminal records to make sure you weren’t a serial keyboard thief.

 2.        WE LIKE TO LEAVE THINGS HAZY

 Ok, so most human resources managers are not negative minded, but not all of them are angels either. While a multinational company may be transparent about precisely what benefits you are entitled to, others may be purposefully vague, and count on your trusting nature or stupidity. For instance, you may be told that you are entitled to a car, but are you sure it is a new car, and not a three year old beaten-down vehicle in your wife’s least favorite color? Or, you could be entitled to a house, but you may find out a bit too late that it’s a flat in a flea-infested colony?

 HE heads advice that you should make sure every thing is stated black and white upfront. “Ask for the costing rather than the benefit,” says one recruiter, requesting anonymity. This is why some of the progressive IT companies give employees the full amount – what they call “Cost to Company” – and leave it to them to decide whether they want the company to give them a car or prefer to get some cash in hand.

 3.        ONE PERSON’S GENERAL MANAGER IS ANOTHER’S SLAVE

 If you are changing jobs, be very clear to check on his hierarchy of the new organization. Let’s say you are working as a manager in a company. Now, you are being enticed to join as General Manager in another company. GM may be a fancier designation, but you need to figure out whether it is truly a step up. In HR jargon, there is a “personal grade” and a “job grade”. It’s like the big fish in a small pond syndrome.

 So you may be a GM, but your job grade could be 10 out of 22, which means you are stepping down in the hierarchy. The HR guy needs to spell out exactly where you fit into the structure of the organization. How many people will be reporting to you? How much money will you be handing? Why this matters is that if, by mistake, you take a step down, for the rest of your life people will have that lingering doubt that ‘there must have been a reason he was forced to take a step down’.

 4.        MEDICAL BENEFITS ARE NOT ALWAYS CLEAR

 Most times, medical benefits are sacrosanct and are in place uniformly across companies. But there are things people need to look out for. If a company says, ‘hospitalization is taken care of’, don’t just sit back. Find out how much it is, and (especially if you are young) whether maternity is also covered.

 Finally, there’s a little secret that your HR department may never tell you. Many companies have a floater cover. This means that even though the employee is entitled to, say, Rs. 3 lakhs in insurance, if she or her family member has a medical situation which costs a lot more, the company actually has the coverage for it. But the money will be given at the discretion of the management. So make sure your boss loves you!

 5.        YOU CAN REVERSE INTERVIEW US

 It’s like that gruesome first date. Neither side fully reveals what’s on his or her mind. Same with HR interviews. You think the recruiter is gauging your skills, and actually he’s just trying to figure out, ‘Did the person leave his last job under natural circumstances or was he asked to leave?” That’s usually a big question on recruiter’s minds, says Anita Ramachandran, head of Cerebrus Consulting. But just as HR people have their doubts about you, you should have your doubts about them.

 Do your homework and know what to ask. “It’s called a reverse interview,” says Shubhendu Kumar, HR head of Diebold Systems. Some things to ask: why the person you are replacing left. (Who knows – the department head may be a sexual harasser.)

 “The employee should ask the recruiter to elaborate on all information that is not available in the public domain such as the internet – especially when it comes to HR policy,” suggests Kumar. For instance, will he be entitled to superannuation automatically, or is it at the management’s discretion? It shouldn’t be that you don’t get a good deal because your boss doesn’t like the shape of your legs or nose.