Comment by Xylakant

I respectfully disagree. Get some decent HR people and don't give them the last call on hiring decisions. Make it clear that HR is supporting the process, but not leading the process and that the last call is with the department/team that is looking for a hire. Let HR take all the tedious tasks of hiring from the developers, such as all the legalese, handling employee benefits, sick reports and all associated paperwork, but do not let them define the flow of a hiring process. Developer time is far to valuable to be wasted on mainly administrative side-tasks.