Laughter in the air

I just laughed at a candidate during our interview. I couldn’t help it, she was Anna Kendrick’s character from “Up in the Air.” I think she studied the movie for tips because she nailed it. I’ve laughed at candidates before but it’s usually more of laughing with them. This time, she was completely serious and I laughed, playing it off as a cough…I’ll never know if I was successful in my lame cover-up attempt but she didn’t seem to miss a beat. Wow. I started to ask her questions just to entertain myself. I’m a mean recruiter! In the end I may end up hiring her and she can change our organization from the inside out while learning a little about life in the process. Man, I think I need to watch that movie again tonight.

I’ve been thinking about my new full-time recruiting gig and it may re-direct my career long-term. I can see myself being successful specializing, rather than being a generalist and handling a bit of everything. Down the road I can take all the tips and tricks I know and share them with other people. I’ve often thought about working/volunteering at a college career center or working for an outplacement company. I don’t want to be the one “firing” people like George Clooney’s character in “Up in the Air” but I would love to help them transition, prepare their resume, and decide their next step. Someone with an I/O degree and a strong recruiting background would be good at that. Hmm.

I could do HR, work myself up the ranks, master employee relations, and hold a company’s entire liability on my shoulders. I could do that…then again, I’m not sure I want to. I’ve had the opportunity in my current role to grow and I could have exerted the initiative I saw in the candidate today to take on a lot more than I did. I’ve asked myself a few times, “Why didn’t I seize that opportunity to terminate that employee? Why am I suggesting that my boss handle this situation rather than tackling it myself?” Maybe, it turns out, the direction I’ve been heading was undetectably wrong. Now that I’m moving into a full-time recruiting role and taking on some college recruitment, things will change. My career path is a lot more up in the air, and I think I like it that way.