Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Getting of Wisdom - a lesson for recruiters
The last two years I have navigated a rabbit hole as strange and perplexing as Alice's extroadinary adventure. Complete with it's own shrinking rooms, strange characters and a strong sense of struggling to get back to the surface. This was a getting of wisdom that fate obviously felt I needed to learn, to say it straight from Spencer Tracey's mouth, I inherited the wind. I believe that everything that happens to us is the result of something we did, or didn't do, somewhere, somehow, sometime down the line. Everything is ultimately of our doing. A causational three headed creature of past, present and future, like a Chimera. This Chimera takes life and lives from the actions that we do, catching up with us, when we least expect it. The story I share with you, is how my Chimera came to life, and how after patiently waiting finally found me.
By the year 2000 I had enjoyed a lot of success as a Recruiter. I had experienced a long streak of working for successful start-ups, corporate clients and had co-foundered a successful agency. I was flying high and had become a little too self assured in myself, life, love and the universe in general. Towards the end of 2000 I had sourced and cold called a software engineer working for a competitor in Ottawa, Canada. Matthew's life was pretty good when I first contacted him. He was happily surrounded by family and friends, working in a job he loved, and for a company that loved and treated him well. Little did he know that there was a recruiter lurking in the distance ready to pounce like a spider, and you guessed it that recruiter was me. When I contacted Matthew I sold him a pretty wonderful opportunity and made a really compelling argument as to why he should leave his current situation. I had convinced him that the best decission he could make for his career and his life was to move to the West Coast, with the opportunity to work for a prestigeous software company. To cut a long story short, after weeks of interviewing, we presented Matthew with an offer.
To close Matthew we rolled-out the red carpet and we pushed pretty hard and after much convincing he decided to accept our offer. I hadn't lost a candidate all year and I wasn't going to lose one now. In hindsight, I was more concerned about my perfect record and the how the requisition report looked than I did about the life I was changing.
By the time 2001 had rolled in, the valley was still hot and I still had a perfect record to keep, people to hire and competitors to ravish. Matthew would come down to my office hoping to chat and I would always be too pre-occupied with a meeting or a deadline to take the time to chat. In the cafeteria and at company social events, I would often see Matt quietly by himself as I would make my way to the company's A-listers, distracted by the laughter and fun. I was too focused on the job at hand and the goals in front of me to look back on what I had created.
Come the middle of 2001 I had noticed that Matthew wasn't around. I would also see Matthew's manager in the HR Manager's office that was next door to me frequently. Being the insightful investigator that I am I realized that things were not right with Matthew, and I was right. Matthew had a nervous breakdown and his life had crumbled around him. His sister came down from Canada to take him home,and to salvage the wreckage left behind by what I started. I did this, this was mine. I started this whirlwind of events that took Matthew's life by storm. I came into his life and took him away from everything that was good and safe and familiar. The world we promised him was full of friends and smiling faces and the eternal sunshine of California. What we gave him was a job that turned out to be different from what we promised and an existance with no friends, family or community and he would now be changed forever. Even though this was ultimately Matthew's decission, we were so focused on the end result, as opposed to the person, we would not let him say no, we were blinded by our own motivations and not open to his. We approached, lured and led him to the waters edge, promising a world that was never meant to be. This was the causational paradox that unraveled itself into a Chimera, but this Chimera wasn't Matthew's, it was mine, and let me tell you how it found me.
So how did my Chimera catch-up with me? It laid a karmic trap for me two years later and like a bigger spider, had been patiently waiting to pounce. In 2003 I was lured to another city with an offer too good to be true. I was promised the world....sound familiar!! To cut a long story short, it wasn't what I expected or was promised. I accepted an offer as a sourcing and head-hunting specialist, but that changed in my first week of employment. A much feared business group in the Seattle recruiting community that had a reputation for chewing-up and spitting out recruiters, had driven their latest victim to a heart attack. I was plan B, the new lead for this group and no longer the promised subject matter expert that I so longed to be, instead I was now navigating a quicksand terrain. Everything that was expected of me as a recruiter was stepped up to the power of 4. The reporting, the stress, the level of ownership and the difficulty of the customer. I thought I knew everything there was about recruiting, I came to realize that I didn't!! I was working with people so smart it hurt!! They needed me to be smart and strong and to roll with the punches. I became smart and strong and rolled with the punches. I delivered, my customers were happy and a new year began.
Meanwhile, back-at-the ranch in a manner of speaking, my personal life crumbled around me. In that same year that I relocated, my father in Australia fell seriously ill, my two much beloved dogs died, both shockingly quick and close in time to each other, I was devastatingly heart-broken. The renter of my house in San Jose stopped paying rent and refused to move, when I notified her that I was putting my home on the market. I bought a home in Seattle as I had to move out of corporate housing, giving me two mortgages to pay and an eviction to fight, all on half the salary. To make matters worse, the company I was working for only paid monthly, making it hard to keep up and on time with bills, and my credit rating took a dive. I was alone, and in a long distance relationship, with all the stress that comes with being seperated from a significant other. I was hit with a past tax bill, my car was stolen, and I discovered that I had to undergoe reconstructive oral surgery, of course costing a small fortune. I was also working intense 13 hour days in a rapidly snowballing job. At that point, I had a karmic revelation and I realized what it felt like to be Matthew and what it was like to believe a promise that wasn't delivered. I had the realization that this was an important lesson that was a long time coming. For so long, I have been affecting and changing destinies, so many destinies had I molded in my hands, with little thought for the causation that can unravel and the people whose destinies I was changing. Even though I always thought I was doing the right thing by my candidates, it was an important lesson to see it from their eyes, and at that point I came to know what it was like to be those people.
I survived this karmic storm, but with a cost. This experienced aged me emotionally and physically, and nearly destroyed me financially. I did learn however how to re-build, and metephorically speaking, to build on higher ground. That way, I would atleast see the storms coming.
So now, in my wisdom, I try to master the art of candidate whispering as opposed to the used-car salesmen approach. I respect that every candidate I speak to is a human being who is connected to other human beings. All full of fears and hopes and concerns, with families and careers and destinies. I treat each one with care. I listen not only to what they say, but what they don't say. I have taken the time to play marriage counselor, life coach, devils advocate, well wishing friend and teacher. I am no longer the carpet bagging recruiter only caring about what my requisition, offer and headcount reports look like. I am the changer of destinies! I hold self esteems and hopes and dreams in my hand. I deliver good and bad news, I hear their hurrays and their sorrowful request for why we rejected them.
The advice I give is to always acknowldege the humanity of every candidate. Respect the change and risk they undergo to themselves and their families when they accept your offer, especially when they relocate. Respect and accept their reasons for declining an offer, and respect their fears and concerns and questions. The only contact they have to the other side of their decission is you. Once they have made that decission, than take the time to keep in contact through their progress to make sure that their transition won't be a disaster.
I give this advice because the destiny you change may just be your own.
By the year 2000 I had enjoyed a lot of success as a Recruiter. I had experienced a long streak of working for successful start-ups, corporate clients and had co-foundered a successful agency. I was flying high and had become a little too self assured in myself, life, love and the universe in general. Towards the end of 2000 I had sourced and cold called a software engineer working for a competitor in Ottawa, Canada. Matthew's life was pretty good when I first contacted him. He was happily surrounded by family and friends, working in a job he loved, and for a company that loved and treated him well. Little did he know that there was a recruiter lurking in the distance ready to pounce like a spider, and you guessed it that recruiter was me. When I contacted Matthew I sold him a pretty wonderful opportunity and made a really compelling argument as to why he should leave his current situation. I had convinced him that the best decission he could make for his career and his life was to move to the West Coast, with the opportunity to work for a prestigeous software company. To cut a long story short, after weeks of interviewing, we presented Matthew with an offer.
To close Matthew we rolled-out the red carpet and we pushed pretty hard and after much convincing he decided to accept our offer. I hadn't lost a candidate all year and I wasn't going to lose one now. In hindsight, I was more concerned about my perfect record and the how the requisition report looked than I did about the life I was changing.
By the time 2001 had rolled in, the valley was still hot and I still had a perfect record to keep, people to hire and competitors to ravish. Matthew would come down to my office hoping to chat and I would always be too pre-occupied with a meeting or a deadline to take the time to chat. In the cafeteria and at company social events, I would often see Matt quietly by himself as I would make my way to the company's A-listers, distracted by the laughter and fun. I was too focused on the job at hand and the goals in front of me to look back on what I had created.
Come the middle of 2001 I had noticed that Matthew wasn't around. I would also see Matthew's manager in the HR Manager's office that was next door to me frequently. Being the insightful investigator that I am I realized that things were not right with Matthew, and I was right. Matthew had a nervous breakdown and his life had crumbled around him. His sister came down from Canada to take him home,and to salvage the wreckage left behind by what I started. I did this, this was mine. I started this whirlwind of events that took Matthew's life by storm. I came into his life and took him away from everything that was good and safe and familiar. The world we promised him was full of friends and smiling faces and the eternal sunshine of California. What we gave him was a job that turned out to be different from what we promised and an existance with no friends, family or community and he would now be changed forever. Even though this was ultimately Matthew's decission, we were so focused on the end result, as opposed to the person, we would not let him say no, we were blinded by our own motivations and not open to his. We approached, lured and led him to the waters edge, promising a world that was never meant to be. This was the causational paradox that unraveled itself into a Chimera, but this Chimera wasn't Matthew's, it was mine, and let me tell you how it found me.
So how did my Chimera catch-up with me? It laid a karmic trap for me two years later and like a bigger spider, had been patiently waiting to pounce. In 2003 I was lured to another city with an offer too good to be true. I was promised the world....sound familiar!! To cut a long story short, it wasn't what I expected or was promised. I accepted an offer as a sourcing and head-hunting specialist, but that changed in my first week of employment. A much feared business group in the Seattle recruiting community that had a reputation for chewing-up and spitting out recruiters, had driven their latest victim to a heart attack. I was plan B, the new lead for this group and no longer the promised subject matter expert that I so longed to be, instead I was now navigating a quicksand terrain. Everything that was expected of me as a recruiter was stepped up to the power of 4. The reporting, the stress, the level of ownership and the difficulty of the customer. I thought I knew everything there was about recruiting, I came to realize that I didn't!! I was working with people so smart it hurt!! They needed me to be smart and strong and to roll with the punches. I became smart and strong and rolled with the punches. I delivered, my customers were happy and a new year began.
Meanwhile, back-at-the ranch in a manner of speaking, my personal life crumbled around me. In that same year that I relocated, my father in Australia fell seriously ill, my two much beloved dogs died, both shockingly quick and close in time to each other, I was devastatingly heart-broken. The renter of my house in San Jose stopped paying rent and refused to move, when I notified her that I was putting my home on the market. I bought a home in Seattle as I had to move out of corporate housing, giving me two mortgages to pay and an eviction to fight, all on half the salary. To make matters worse, the company I was working for only paid monthly, making it hard to keep up and on time with bills, and my credit rating took a dive. I was alone, and in a long distance relationship, with all the stress that comes with being seperated from a significant other. I was hit with a past tax bill, my car was stolen, and I discovered that I had to undergoe reconstructive oral surgery, of course costing a small fortune. I was also working intense 13 hour days in a rapidly snowballing job. At that point, I had a karmic revelation and I realized what it felt like to be Matthew and what it was like to believe a promise that wasn't delivered. I had the realization that this was an important lesson that was a long time coming. For so long, I have been affecting and changing destinies, so many destinies had I molded in my hands, with little thought for the causation that can unravel and the people whose destinies I was changing. Even though I always thought I was doing the right thing by my candidates, it was an important lesson to see it from their eyes, and at that point I came to know what it was like to be those people.
I survived this karmic storm, but with a cost. This experienced aged me emotionally and physically, and nearly destroyed me financially. I did learn however how to re-build, and metephorically speaking, to build on higher ground. That way, I would atleast see the storms coming.
So now, in my wisdom, I try to master the art of candidate whispering as opposed to the used-car salesmen approach. I respect that every candidate I speak to is a human being who is connected to other human beings. All full of fears and hopes and concerns, with families and careers and destinies. I treat each one with care. I listen not only to what they say, but what they don't say. I have taken the time to play marriage counselor, life coach, devils advocate, well wishing friend and teacher. I am no longer the carpet bagging recruiter only caring about what my requisition, offer and headcount reports look like. I am the changer of destinies! I hold self esteems and hopes and dreams in my hand. I deliver good and bad news, I hear their hurrays and their sorrowful request for why we rejected them.
The advice I give is to always acknowldege the humanity of every candidate. Respect the change and risk they undergo to themselves and their families when they accept your offer, especially when they relocate. Respect and accept their reasons for declining an offer, and respect their fears and concerns and questions. The only contact they have to the other side of their decission is you. Once they have made that decission, than take the time to keep in contact through their progress to make sure that their transition won't be a disaster.
I give this advice because the destiny you change may just be your own.
