When a simile is both amazing accurate and completely frightening

My employer is undergoing some rather large structural changes. One of these is that our Customer Service & IT departments will become part of another company at the beginning of 2017. This is unprecedented for us, and obviously there has been a lot of concern among the impacted employees as to how this will look in the end. You'd hope that there had been lots of time put into planning for this transition before it was announced. You would, of course, be wrong. The head of HR for the other organization made the following comment Friday "It's like we're flying the plane while we're still building it." He is exactly correct. It was both amazing accurate and completely frightening. To further his comparison, I'd say we're in for a bumpy ride. My department will be undergoing the same transition some time next year. Perhaps by then it will be smoother, but I'm not placing any bets on it.

Proof that God loves us- both big ways and small

God loves each and every one of us. It's a fact. And while we "know" that, how often do we recognize the many, many ways he shows us? Yesterday I had two examples that reminded me of how God shows His love to us in ways both large and small.

First, the small way. I had a meeting cancelled. Any time a meeting is cancelled, I see it as proof that God loves me. First of all, because who likes meetings? Secondly, it is insanely busy in my job right now, and the cancellation freed up time for me to do other things that direly needed attention.

The second was larger. I lost a soon-to-be-hired employee's paperwork. All of it- application, background screen release, interview notes, the whole shebang. Some of it I could ask the candidate to resubmit, but some of it was irreplaceable. Not good. Before going into full blown panic mode, I took a walk. While on the walk I prayed that I would find it. When I got back to the office, I asked one of my coworkers if I had mixed the documents in with the payroll data I had reviewed for her. Nope. Not long after that I grabbed the folder for another job I am working to fill. It was almost as if the pages in the file miraculously parted, displaying all the items I was seeking. What a relief!

I am so very thankful for the many ways God shows His love to me, including the above. May I continually remember to look and be thankful for them.

Super Shady Surveillance

Friday morning my boss asked me if the phone had rang in the conference room where I was conducting interviews the day before.  I said it hadn't. She said "It must have been (coworker)". When coworker arrived, my boss asked her. She said that it had. She answered, but no one was there. She also said that as soon as that happened, another member of the team who is director level unplugged the phone from the wall! My boss then explained the situation.

It seems that at that building, there is a feature you can enable on the phone. You then call from another room, say nothing making whoever answers hang up, and then the phone is on conference unknown to the occupants of the room. You hear everything that's being said. Yes, that's some super shady surveillance. Just think, you could listen into a round of interviews for which you are a candidate and know all the questions in advance. You could also secretly learn about confidential management and HR discussions.  I'm not sure how this was discovered, but the cat is out of the bag now. When the phone administrator was contacted, she said "that's not possible." She was told it has happened. So now part of my interview prep when I'm at the building is to unplug the phone before we begin. Imagine what would happen if people put as much energy and creativity into legitimate ways of getting ahead as they do things like this.

Sometimes things are part of a bigger plan

One of my friends recently got a jetski. That is fantastic news as I get enjoy the fun of riding without the cost of ownership. I will admit to being honked, though, that I had to buy my own life jacket (a must when jetskiing) and state park gate pass (the closest boat ramp). In my opinion, the former is the responsibility of the jetski owner, and for the latter, we could just meet before entering the park rather than each of us purchasing a pass. But I didn't gripe, because, oh yeah, I get to jetski for free.

Fast forward to last weekend when I realized there was a bigger reason I bought both of those, unbeknownst to me. My family spent last weekend at an area lake. We rented a cabin for 2 nights and went boating. The lake is part of another state park, and my park pass came in very handy. The life jacket also got extensive usage while we were tubing. The boat we rented had life jackets, but the style of mine was much more comfortable to wear while performing that activity. I told my mom that the purchase of these items was part of a bigger plan of which I was not aware at the time. So often life is like that. Things happen that we don't love at the time, but (sometimes much) later when we look back, we realized it was all part of a larger plan that we just couldn't see then.

Read this before you next job interview

As a recruiter I conduct a lot of interviews. Some are good, some leave me saying "there's x amount of my life I'll never get back." To enhance the chance of your next interview being more like the former than the later, read and put into practice these interview tips from the Evil HR Lady.

Squirrels, unicorns, and the world of recruiting

I've written before about purple squirrels. At my current job, I've determined that even this elusive creature will not satisfy some of our hiring managers. They are seeking rainbow unicorns. Let me explain.

We have been in drastic need of trade X at my employer since before I was hired. At the time I started working to staff these openings in January, Dept. A needed 4, Dept. B 3, and Dept. C 1. Since these are all the same positions, just in different areas, when we interview candidates at least one person from each department attends. If multiple departments want the same candidate, we prioritize based on need. As of last week, I have filled Dept. C's 1 spot and Dept. B's 3 spots plus 1 additional opening that was created. You'll notice I left out Dept. A. That's because they have not liked a single candidate. Meanwhile, I am getting feedback from departments B&C about how well their new hires, aka the people not good enough for Dept. A, are doing. After one interview in my frustration I told my boss "They aren't looking for purple squirrels. Squirrels are at least real. They are looking for purple unicorns." One of my coworkers laughed. I was talking about the situation with two members from Dept. B., aka the department that has hired 4 of trade x in 5 month, and one of them told me "they aren't looking for a purple unicorn, they're looking for a rainbow unicorn." Another person from the department contributed how you catch a rainbow unicorn- with a golden lasso!

This week the unthinkable happened- Dept. A interviewed a candidate and liked him enough to offer him a job. When I got back to the HR department I told my boss "we used our golden lasso and caught a rainbow unicorn." She did not need a translation. She was, however, as shocked as I was. And even better, the candidate accepted our offer. If I was a gambler, I would have bought a lottery ticket.

Interview tip: Don't touch the recruiter

A public service announcement for all job seekers: to improve the chances of your interview going well, don't touch the recruiter.

By now you're probably wondering what led to this tip. First, some backstory about me. I am not the touchy feely type at all (that breeze you just felt was all my friends and family nodding strongly in agreement). Not once but twice this week, candidates violated my personal space. Yesterday we were interviewing an external candidate,and he touched my arm while answering a question. It was quite on purpose, not an accident brush. I quickly but as unobtrusively slid myself and my stuff down the table so I was out of range. After the candidate left, I mentioned this. My teammate didn't notice, but the other interview team member saw the whole thing.

Today we were getting ready to begin the interview of an internal candidate. Once everyone was in the room, he tried to hug me! I immediately put up my arms and said "I'm not a hugger". I barely know this person. Who does that? And he hadn't tried to hug anyone else on the team. Just me.

In summary: a handshake at the beginning and end of the interview is fine. Other than that, hands off the recruiter, especially if she's me.