Unfortunate Names: Special Eyebrow-Waxing Edition

This is actually not recruiting-related. (*Body sagging like a toddler in the grocery store*) I don't wanna write about recruiting this week. Seriously, sometimes the only way to get through doing your job is to sort of pretend for a week that you're actually NOT doing your job and to instead read all your journals from ten years ago and think: a) yeah, that one auburn-haired kid at college who read "Scientific American" WAS really unexpectedly hot and maybe I should google him and see what he's up to and b) I might be crazy but AT LEAST I'm no longer circa-1996-crazy.

So this episode of Unfortunate Names has nothing to do with recruiting UNLESS you are in charge of hiring at my local salon. In which case: I don't want anybody whose name is Patti - crucially - with an "i" waxing my eyebrows.

I don't want to have to explain it, I think some of you out there might know or at least sense what I am talking about...all I know is I got them waxed, I was displeased, then she handed me her card and AS SOON as I saw "Patti" with an i, I was like, "Damn, I wish I had known that before."

I am sure there are a couple Patti-with-an-i eyebrow-waxers who are like the Michael Jordan of waxing and maybe I'll be flamed for my extremely controversial post here, but I know what I know. And I know I will be finding another waxist.

And no, I'm not surprised to see you, I'm just going to look like this for another three weeks.

Can't be bothered.

Addendum!

I've now recovered my seat on my exercise ball and have a little bit more to say about the below post.

"No HIDDEN drinking/drugs"?

The addition of this word gives me a sudden vision of walking past this dude's cube - which is of course decorated with a) pictures of his wife, b) footballs and power tools and other outre signs of unapologetic vigorous male heterosexuality, c) an Opus plush toy and d) a toaster, and seeing him, sleeve rolled up, belt around his bicep with one end clenched in his teeth, cheerfully shooting up because, much like his 100% red-blooded love-of-the-ladies, a love so virile it must be included on a resume for employment, his drug use is something about which he's completely open.

Can...not...type...

I read this on a resume and fell off my exercise ball chair and am typing this with one hand from the floor:

"Not divorced, not gay, no hidden drinking/drugs. U.S. citizen. Taoist/ Buddhist readings. Favorite comics:Peanuts, Blondie, Bloom County. Favorite waffle: L Eggo My Eggo!. HTML. Enjoy surfing the Net (maybe too much!)"

From a RESUME.

WHO RAISED THESE PEOPLE?

I can't go on. That is too much for a Monday morning. The waffle-eating, "Bloom County"-reading, not divorced/not gay Taoist candidate might have pushed me over the edge. I'm going back to the weekend.

"It's my fondest dream..."

Doing a little Sunday evening prep work for the week (and about to watch "60 Minutes" and also preparing to be bummed about Ed Bradley whom I've been watching since I was a kid and who seemed like a really all right guy), and listening to some work messages.

One candidate called me back, saying she's excited to talk to me because "it's [her] fondest dream to work for Current Nameless Corporation."

(Key detail: not an ESL candidate. Not a quaint mistranslation. Native English speaker fully conscious of her word choice.)

Okay, I know I am the one on my laptop on the weekend and watching a CBS News Program like I'm a retiree or something instead of the frisky young lady that I am, but I am seriously depressed now about this lady's life if doing ANY kind of job at Current Nameless Corporation is her "fondest dream." Like, even if you DREAMED of being the CEO, wouldn't you just be dreaming of cashing out at some point so that you could go actually live your "fondest dream?"

Or maybe that is just me and maybe that is all part of why I am ill-suited. There are some good and interesting things that happen in this environment but I could not imagine dreaming about it.

(Damn, one minute into the Ed Bradley tribute I am already teary. )

The Wrong Answer

I recently had to do a lot of phone screens for an entry-level position. The screening process included one particular question that seemed to trip up most candidates.

The question was:

Tell me about a time you had to multi-task.

When I would ask the question exactly as it was written, invariably the answer would come back too general. Rather than provide an example, per the question, the candidate would usually just give a kind of stock answer about how they "always" do that or "did it all the time."

And honestly, I don't really care, but this particular hiring manager was a stickler for the specific answer. Wanted the concrete example. So then I would have to ask the question again, and try to get them to describe one particular situation.

So in order to save time, rather than asking the question, getting the wrong style of answer, and then asking it again, I started saying this right off the bat:

Please tell me about a time you had to multi-task. I realize this might be a skill you had to use nearly every day in your previous position, but that's not what we are looking for with this question. Rather than a general sense of your skill in that area or what you did every day, we're really looking for a specific situation related to multi-tasking, like one project or particular period in time.

And 3 out of 5 times, the candidate's response to this was:

"Oh, that's something I had to do EVERYDAY."

They gave me the answer I JUST TOLD THEM was the wrong answer.

Look, despite this whole blog, I AM ON YOUR SIDE. I don't like to be rejected and I don't want to reject you. You want a job and I want to help you get a job. Work gives a person purpose, dignity...at least for the first week until you realize how small your paycheck is and it's going to be six months till you get benefits and can get that tooth fixed and the department head is a mouthbreather and the whole damn system starts to eat at your soul.

But I want you to have that first good week! I want to pass your resume onto the hiring manager!

So please: work with me. If words are coming out of my mouth, make your best effort to listen to ALL of them.

Ladies' Mid-Morning!

When I was but a wee lass, there was a group in my high school called the "Society of Women Scholars." It was a group for the ladies.

Although I was both a) a lady and b) kinda brainy, I refused to join because it was an exclusionary group.

(The second reason I refused to join was because the aconym was "SOWS." Seriously. WHO PICKS A NAME for a WOMEN'S group with THAT as the acronym? And, although I look back now and think I was probably pretty durn cute and should have been running around in halter tops quite a bit more than I did, at the time I felt the usual young-lady insecurity about...well, everything. So I think I also just did not want to be associating with something with a name like SOWS, like to give myself a fighting chance.)

I didn't - and don't - like exlcusionary groups NOT because I am so open-minded and open-hearted that I just love everyone and everything the same. (As we established, I don't actually have a heart, just a shrivelled little nub of an organ that keeps the venom circulating regular.)

Rather I cannot stand everyone and everything about the same, and so I don't like exclusionary groups because I think you are all a bunch of shaved monkeys (when I say you, I mean THEM, not YOU, Reader[s], I mean the Other People, the ones who don't read this) so why bother dividing you up into classes and colors and genders of shaved monkeys and making distinctions about it. Most of the time I'm too busy being racked with despair that I am trapped here with the lot of you all (Other People) on this, the only planet we know of that I can survive on.

But, occasionally, despite this, sometimes I cannot help but notice that certain kinds of shaved monkeys aggravate me in particular ways. Again, ultimately, the quantity of aggravation is about equal, it's more like...like Style Points.

So, with that preamble out of the way, today, Ladies, let's discuss some Style Points you've been accumulating. The following is directed at you because I keep hearing something similar from quite a few of you every week, whereas I cannot think of a single instance of a guy doing this. And I talk - literally - to hundreds of people every month so screw it, I'm going to make a distinction.

First of all, let me say I know first hand the conditioning we go through to be cooperative rather than competitive, to always be inclusive and considerate, and all that other stuff. And, actually, that is all good stuff.

But that said, when I ask you "What are your current job duties?" your answer should NOT nearly exclusively contain the pronoun "we" unless you are, in fact, applying for a job with your conjoined twin.

You might be working as part of a team. You might feel like giving credit where credit is due. It might feel weird to toot your own horn. But guess what? Your team is not going to get you this job. Your modesty is not going to get you this job.

The purpose of an interview is for you to draw for me, the interviewer, clear connections between what YOU have done and how that will fit in with a new position. And if you kept telling me how "we did this" and "we did that," I'm going to wonder what the heck YOU were doing at that previous job besides trailing along behind all those other folks.

So, ladies, say it with me now: I. I. I. I.

If you did it, you can take credit for it. So say it.

Actual Unfortunate Names - Too Good to Leave in Comment Trail

A million thanks to Lisa the Mad Tatter for alerting me to what is really one of the most questionable and unfortunate names I have encountered. From her comment:

You think "Lucifer" and "Little" are bad? I know of a young man (7 years old) by the name of Handsomestranger. Yes. Handsomestranger. It begs the question: Was he named for his father?

That is FANTASTIC. Merry Early Xmas Everyone!

From the ashes!

My will to nitpick basic spelling/grammatical errors on resumes has been nearly destroyed by the realization that its existence is utterly pointless and anachronistic in today's world...

But every once in a while, it's stirred to life, like the phantom pain of an amputated limb. And today it wants to say:

Is it too much to ask that, if you make $140,000 a year BASE SALARY, working at a job that can be done whilst SEATED and in an climate-controlled building, you know the difference between "your" and "you're"?

Is it, sir? Is it really so beyond the pale to expect that?

And now (to mix imagery) my will to nitpick has exhausted its frail constitution. It's slithering back into its hole. (Please feel free to refer back to the prior sentence for correct usage of "its" vs "it's." Like anybody cares.)

That sound you heard, Candidate...

...was the phone falling from my hand in stunned disbelief when you said the following sentence to me (emphasis, this time, not really added, just transcribed):

"Yeah, right now, I'm really working a solid forty hours a week."

Now, please excuse me for a moment, Candidate, while I turn to Reader(s) and explain this to them.

Was this person emphasizing the amazing work-life balance available in their current position?

Or was this a person in a part-time position explaining why she figured she might as well move to a full-time role?

No, Reader(s), and no.

This was a person COMPLAINING. To ME. The person interviewing them for a FULL-TIME job.

I mean, look, you can see the time I'm posting this, I'm no innocent, I know we don't always work a "solid forty hours a week."

Nevertheless, do we complain about it when we have to? You know, complain about working the number of hours generally considered to be a normal workweek? In a job interview? What is she, from FRANCE or something?

P.S. She wasn't. And not slagging off on the French, just sayin' I'd understand the statement if she had been.

I'm sorry to have been unclear, Rain Man.

Okay, so let's say your current and previous position titles were some variation on Florn-Jumper. You've been an Assistant Florn-Jumper, Junior Florn-Jumper, and now risen in the ranks to become a Senior Florn-Jumper.

But in your heart, you know what you were really put on this earth to do is Queeg Analysis. Any time a project came up in your Florn-Jumping world that involved Queeg Analysis, you rose your sweaty little hand and said, "Me! Me, Boss, I can do that special Queeg Analysis project!"

And finally you are ready to get out of the Florn-Jumping business (much like pole-dancing, it's hard on the body) and try to get into Queeg Analysis full-time. So you apply to my current Queeg Analyst I position posting.

Now, I am hard up for candidates. So although I only see one lone bullet point on your resume about a special project involving Queeg Analysis and everything else seems a little off, I decide to give you a shot.

I talk to you about my Queeg Analyst position, and I like you. You seem like a bright lad. So I say, okay, although Queeg Analysis has not been your primary job duty, I believe you could do it, so I am going to send your resume to the hiring manager.

However, the hiring manager is going to need to be convinced. So I ask you to send me a new resume, highlighting your experience in Queeg Analysis.

What I meant was:

REWRITE your resume to expand on your experience in the area of Queeg Analysis. Although this might have just been a part of a project or two that you worked on in addition to your daily Florn-Jumping duties, flesh out your involvement to show you are not a complete Queeg Analysis novice.

What I DID NOT mean was:

Send me the EXACT SAME RESUME you already provided, but with the bullet point about Queeg Analysis highlighted. Literally. With the yellow highlighter function in MS Word.

I realize this is my own fault. I am talking to to some serious calculator-heads and as my friend who is married to one of them has pointed out, they can be like computers. You have to actually program each step or else they will...well, send you a resume with a bullet point highlighted.

So my apologies, Raymond. I will be more precise moving forward.

P.S. I'm already irritated with my own intra-blog slang, so if you also found it a bit twee and aggravating, I am working on it. I do need to be vague but there must be a better way.

Breaking: It's not a conference call if there are only two people involved.

Then it is called a "phone call."

So please stop referring to it otherwise.

This isn't helping.

Right now, when I am not talking to people with vague jobs related to "process improvements" (I love how the lack of common sense, institutionalized in Corporate America, has now spawned an entire career path/industry that is, at its most basic, basically about making people do things in a logical way), I am talking to accountants.

Which, actually, I wasn't entirely minding: at least what they do (bean counting) makes sense to me.

Then I saw this.

You would think this would make me like them more. But it doesn't.

Could be worse...

After multiple complaints about overwritten job descriptions, saw this in The Seattle Times:

"Filling Mic Dinsmore's shoes at the Port of Seattle is apparently a very big job.

How big?

The headhunting firm looking for his successor last week issued a job description and candidate profile that runs to 21 pages."

Yikes.

Of course, the people working on that position are making about eight times what I do, soooooo...guess it could also be better. Harrumph.

And on the flip side...

So it's 10:40 PM at night and although I took a few minutes to blow off some steam about today's idiot, I am actually up this late to send reject notes to some people I phone screened recently.

And you know how most candidates respond to this?

With surpise (that someone bothered) and appreciation (that, again, someone bothered). I get the sense that a lot of my counterparts don't bother so much. I, of course, lose sleep if I tell someone I'm going to do something and then don't.

Anyway...I can't really blame my counterparts themselves. We're generally working under a lot of pressure to produce and since it's the client (not the candidates) who pay the bills, guess who gets all of our attention. And quite frankly, were I not generally riddled with guilt, I would probably much rather - per my friend's exhortation today - JUST TURN OFF THE LAPTOP at a decent hour. But I TOLD these candidates I'd do something so I am trying to do it.

I just wish that we could build decency into the system. (See also: tilting at windmills.) You know, like it should be built into my work hours this time to circle back to people who took the time to talk with me. It shouldn't be something I have to do on my own time.

But whatever.

Burning Yer Bridges, Take Two

Reader, are you seated?

I need to tell you something.

I…occasionally…make mistakes.

I know this might be hard for you to fathom, but it does happen.

For example, sometimes I have in front of me a job description that is a dense two pages of text, none of which seems to correspond to actual human activity; a hiring manager who will not make time to talk to me; and direct recruiting leadership that is as clueless as – if not more than – I. In such a situation, I might, on occasion, contact the wrong candidate for a position.

Like, for example, if in the two –single-spaced, with no paragraphs – pages of job description, (with so many words you think there would also be some actual information, but, you know, this is the Corporate America, aka, Bizarro World), I see something approximating what might be position requirements, like, say, “head-standing queeg analysis” and “underseas florn-jumping.” (I know, that just sounds ridiculously unrealistic – I mean, there are no acronyms in those at all – but just go with it.)

And, in conducting a search online, I come across a resume that says “single-legged queeg analysis” and “partially-submerged florn-jumping.” In fact, I come across maybe two resumes total with anything even mentioning queeg analysis and/or florn-jumping. And the other dude already works for the company I’m recruiting for.

So I risk it. I send the job description to that one person I find, even though it might be a little off.

Now possibly, to someone with advanced degrees in both queeg analysis and florn-jumping, this might be a ludicrous, possibly insulting error.

And maybe, in whatever Bizarro World I have unwittingly stumbled into, you have the resume equivalent of like Scarlett Johansson, just The Absolute Most Searched Resume in the World. And possibly, you find yourself so inundated, so completely besieged by recruiters attempting to inaccurately match you up with employment, that you can no longer bear it.

Here are a few suggestions.

1) Take down your resume. Don’t leave it to languish out there, all seductive and vulnerable. Set up a job search agent and only apply for the jobs that match what you are looking for. (And be ready for the job search agent to be wrong every once in a while, too.)
2) If you simply MUST leave your resume up there to tempt us recruiters to send you the wrong job…well, here’s a thought: why not set up an anonymous blog to outline all those recruiters’ mistakes for you and your fellow partially-submerged florn-jumpers to laugh at. (I will vouch: it’s therapeutic!)

What I would absolutely NOT suggest you do is the following: send me a rude and insulting e-mail questioning my intelligence and professionalism.

Because guess what? Five minutes after you do, the company’s decided to move operations to a sand bar, and now I need to look for partially-submerged florn-jumpers. Now it’s perfect for you. A little bump in salary too. And this company would be a shorter commute.

And no matter how hard up I am for candidates: I WILL NEVER CALL YOU FOR THIS POSITION. I will also send your e-mail around to my counterparts, and make a note in the company database. So I doubt they will be calling you either.

“So what?” you might scoff. “You saw how few candidates there are with my skill set. You don’t want to hire me? About 100 other companies do.”

All righty then. Then the last thing I will say is that, much like the wise patron avoids pissing off his/her server (you know, the person who brings you the food you are about to ingest?), might I also suggest that you not insult the people who have access to your personal data?

Like your e-mail? Your phone number? Your home address?

Please know, I’m not saying that I would ever do ANYTHING with that confidential information. I took The Sacred Oath of Recruiting the day I got my BigJobBoard.com log on. (I’m kidding. There is no Oath, no one cares.)

But I still wouldn’t ever do anything, because I’m a Good Girl, a Very Very Good Girl, virtuous to the point of self-hindrance at times.

Then again…it is always the quiet ones, isn’t it?

I've had too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too too

much coffee today.

I'm kind of a Fast Talker Betty Crocker anyway, but I sincerely apologize today, Candidates!

More later, like when I am up until 2 AM because of the caffeine.

Good Morning, Sunshine!

I received the below from an internal candidate or a contractor with the organization for which I'm recruiting. This was in response to my "I received your resume..." e-mail:

"No, Ill-Suit. I am not interested the [redacted] position. I am not very excited about the competence of this department. Is the hiring manager [redacted]? If it is, definitely a NO!"

What is that smell? Coffee? No?

I love the smell of burning bridges in the morning...smells like...career suicide.

Utterly Off-Topic

I can't write about recruiting today.

I actually had an A-OK day, there was a cheering level of common sense displayed, candidates were pleasant and intelligent and I don't hate them all today.

But I still have about two hours of dayjob work to do and then another hours of secretjob work to do, so although I feel somehow obligated to try to make some kind of post everyday, the only thing that is recruiting-related that I could write about is a little complicated. And the idea of that makes my head hurt.

So I'm briefly wavering on my pointlessly self-imposed restriction to keep this blog to exclusively recruiting-related topics, at the risk of losing my two, possibly three, readers (Hi!!!).

What I want to talk about tonight, Reader(s), is clogs. Or, to be specific, Crocs. These things:



While I don't particularly care for these shoes, I also don't hate them with the same vehemence as some people. When it comes to shoes, I'm a lover not a fighter and so all my strong emotions are reserved for some deep, stereotypical, medulla-oblongata-generated, lustful passion for anything with a heel that looks like it scars hard wood floors.

You know, whatever, to each his/her own, and some people - rightly so - would prefer to not court the possible ankle-twisting and lower back pain associated with what Dianne Brill called "High Risk Shoes." Good for you.

But today I saw something I just did not get.

A dude in camouflage Crocs. And a camo tee shirt.

And this was no metrosexual. This was no hipster appropriation of camouflage. This was a big dude buying smokes and, I imagine, like beef jerky and American beer and something else to take with him wherever those kinds of people go with that stuff. Somewhere that you come back from with a large mammal strapped to something.

And I just kept staring at his feet. Because camo...CLOGS?

Like, if you are somewhere that you need camo...aren't you necessarily somewhere that you also need a FULL SHOE?

I dunno. It just really perplexed me.

Okie dokie, back to recruiting!

Another reason I distrust Western medicine.

A few years back, I worked in Staffing at a major hospital.

Because I was the young whippersnapper on staff, I got stuck with the task of retrieving passwords for employees for the internal job posting site.

So one day, I get a message from one of the staff nurses who needs a password reminder so she can apply for another position at the hospital.

I check in the system and her password was - I shit you not - BLACKDEATH.

Despite the really excellent health plan and stellar reputation of this organization...let's just say I did not avail myself of their services very often.