In this situation, the hiring manager is a “fellow at a think-tank” and so was hired for her or his smarts as a single contributor. The fellow may be out of his or her depth dealing effectively with a pure interpersonal managerial issue, but he or she simply has to actively address it. In all fairness to HR, it’s possible he or she has never raised any concerns with the recruiting team over any of the last four unsuccessful hires! If that is the case, Pattie’s recommendation of an in-depth sit-down with HR, with the well-designed hiring plan she described, is certainly the right first step.

At any rate, I know so many HR professionals – recruiters, managers and senior executives – who would tolerate any recruiting behavior within their departments in which solid candidates are chased away and others with dodgy practical skills are selected.

There’s one immediate solution, and you already offered it: The manager should go tell HR to stuff it. Otherwise, the manager is not doing his or her job.

The long term solution is to get HR out of the recruiting and hiring business. If HR wants to make final hiring decisions, it should put those hires in HR and manage them. Since when is HR responsible for that manager’s bottom line?

This is perhaps one of the biggest unaddressed failures in business today: Accountability. The manager who lets HR decide who he or she is going to hire doesn’t deserve to be a manager.