Hiring again
Hiring again
While one third of my team is at hospital / home being ill for different reasons, we started the 2008’s round of hiring personnel. Honestly I feel quite uncomfortable with the idea, as it takes lots of time and the results are usually not amazing. But when I see around me at my office, I look at some of my people who I chose through this procedure and I become courageous again, being proud of their character, personality, seriousness and decision to succeed in life. As this starts again, it inspired me to write today few things about hiring…
A… “determined” person wants to be hired
-“And why do you want to work in my company?”
– “I don’t know”
– “What are your skills?”
– “I don’t know, maybe that I like to work hard and I need money because life here is difficult”
– “Are you going to succeed in doing the tasks that I described to you?”
– “I don’t know, maybe I am not good enough”
– “What do you mean?”
– “I don’t have experience, I don’t know a lot of things to do, I am not sure that I want to work now”
– “And what are you going to do with your life?”
– “I don’t know, I will see”
– “I am sorry, why did you come here for an interview?”
– “You called me”
– “We called you because you sent us your CV and asked for an interview”
– “I did?”
– “Yes, this is your CV here”
– “Ok, sorry, my mistake then. Bye” (he / she stands up, turns his / her back and leaves)
This is a typical part of dialogue that happens at least in one of the ten interviews I do and whoever DARES to say that I exaggerate, I have another 200 people ready to declare that things are even worse.
After Agatha Christie’s “The 10 small Indians”, here it comes:
The 3 secretaries
It was the end of a long morning, almost 16.00, in the end of August. I had over 50 scheduled interviews for a secretary and assistant manager, out of which I was happy to interview the record number of 19! (usually not more than 25% appears to scheduled interviews). I shook hands with the last candidate and told to myself for a moment “better 3 than none”.
While this last candidate thanked me, we decided the details and the existing assistant was showing her the way down (my office is at the first floor of our villa – headquarters), I was summing up the situation: I had fired one secretary for not working and the second one came to me after few days informing that she will work for a giant multinational company who offered her a salary she could not resist. She was an excellent colleague, but for keeping her I had to pay 2.000 euros / month, as the giant offered her 1.800! (25 years old, with few months of experience… Sorry guys, wasn’t it too much for starters?)
For this reason I decided to hire 3 persons, so as to be sure that at least the 2 of them will prove to be good at my work (yes, I never stop dreaming). So, I agreed with 3 ladies to work together, SHOOK HANDS (for me this is the strongest contract) with them and I felt that this task was completed… Wrong feeling…
Three, meaning two…
Out of these 3 ladies, the last one I shook hands with was someone declaring that she is very serious and professional, with years of work abroad and desire to start here a successful career. She shook hands, stood up, I called the assistant, the assistant came, she opened the door, I introduced them each other, they shook hands together, I announced to my existing assistant that this lady will work together with us. Maybe it was too long and tiring procedure, because when my “new colleague” closed the door and left together with the assistant, the assistant said: “I am glad that we will work together, you look very serious” and received the answer “But who said we will work together? I will go to an interview of HP”. We never heard of her again… (and honestly I didn’t bother asking HP if they really hired this serious lady).
Two, this only one…
The first one I had hired was a lady around 30. “I am married, I have 2 children, I need the work, I am very serious and determined” would be her motto in few words. After we shook hands with her, she simply disappeared “because she decided that she wanted something better”. Believe it or not, she sent us her CV again after around 3 months, I saw it by co-incidence. When we called her, she was willing to come for an interview. After we explained to her who we are, she answered that she doesn’t remember all the companies she applies to. No comment…
One? None…
The second hired lady was around 23 – 24. Needless to say that she declared her professionalism etc and apparently she surprised me by appearing to the first training that I organized for all the new ones (for me even an assistant manager must know the basics of my work, so as to participate, understand, help or simply to have the possibility to be promoted in the future). So, she was there in the training of Saturday, also on Monday at work.
The existing assistant was supposed to leave in few weeks (the multinational giant gave her one month period to join) and she asked her new colleague: “Are you going to stay? Shall I show you everything here? If you are not sure, please tell me, so as not to lose our time, you see, the work here is much” “Are you crazy??? OF COURSE I want to know, didn’t I come for this reason? Who do you think I am???”. She showed her all and they both came to my office a the end of the day, so as to inform me that the new one knows now all the basics and she just needs to practice in action what she heard and saw that day.
On Tuesday morning, she “worked” few hours and then… it was the time I cursed mobile telephony … her mobile rang. She went out of her office to answer it, returned in 2 minutes, took her coat and said to the surprised people “it was nice to meet you, I go because Porsche Romania invited me for an interview” (interview, not even job).
Well, to be very honest with you, after the shock of losing all 3 persons I hired, I felt very happy and saved. My saviors were these 3 ladies, who disappeared and “allowed” me to hire in their position 2 very good and serious persons instead. But the lesson remains: While hiring in Romania, if you do not work for a company with a major multinational brand – known to Romanian people, wait to see if and who will actually come to work.
PS. Coming from Greece, I want to assure you that the symptoms are exactly the same there. But the only difference is that usually the % of people who behave like this is not the same.