A Message for Employers/ Recruiters

A recent conversation with a close friend inspired me to write this blog, because I have had it happen to me, and now several other people I know.

Creating a FALSE sense of urgency.


There are MILLIONS of people in the United States currently looking for jobs. Some are more fortunate than others and are currently bringing in income while others are desperate to get employed because they have no money coming in. The people who are desperately looking for work will be some of the most reliable candidates you have ever seen. They will be 15 minutes early to every appointment, they will come dressed better than anyone else, and they will emit an Ora of the highest professionalism you have seen thus far (there are of course exceptions to this general rule.)  These people will also take it very personally when you blow them off, even if it is unintentional.

When you make your initial phone call to your prospective candidates do not open with something like this: "When is the soonest you are available to meet as we are looking to expedite this process and fill the position as quickly as possible." The over achiever, desperate job seeker on the other end of the line will take you for your literal word. They will shuffle anything in their current schedule to make it to the soonest appointment possible just to get a foot in the door.

This person will show up to their interview and do everything they can to impress you. When you are finished interviewing this person, they will still remember what you previously told them about needing to expedite the hiring process. Therefore, if it takes you two weeks to contact them for a second interview, or even with a rejection letter, you will leave this person confused, miffed, but worst of all with a bad taste in their mouth about your Company. Making your business or Company look bad is something no body should encourage or partake in, not even HR personnel.

Even if you really are looking to expedite the hiring process but the Vice President came down with a case of the chicken pocks and hasn't been in for two weeks leaving you with no decision making power, completely omitting the fact that you are "trying to expedite the process" in your intial contact with the person you are looking to interview will eliminate the potential for you to look bad in the long run and come up with excuses later on.

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Family...

I have often wondered what actually defines families. When you really think about it who we are, and where we came from is all chance. Or is it?

The word "family" comes from he Latin word "Familia." It defines a group of people who are connected by a) consanguinity (same blood line) b) affinity and c) co-residence.

It's funny to me that two out of the three possible definitions are matters of choice, and one of them a matter of chance or fate (whichever way you prefer to look at it.) It's also funny to me that the one determined by chance or fate, is actually the least defining characteristic of  a real family. 

Consanguinity is not a choice, one has no say in which bloodline he/she belongs to. But this characteristic is so petty and so little. Affinity and co-residence are matters of choice. You can choose who you're close to...you can choose who you live with (for the most part) and more often than not the people you choose to be close to and life with, turn out to be a bigger definition of your family, than those who share your bloodline. How?

They say blood is thicker than water... Physically you could say yes. But Spiritually?

In light of recent circumstances my answer to that question would be "No."

Have you read the news lately? Have you heard the horrors? Fathers sexually molesting their daughters, mothers drowning their kids in order to be able to party more. I mean, parents and children are the closest form of the consanguineous bond...so how is blood thicker than water when things like a perverted urge, or a party lifestyle come before it?

People adopt children every day and the way those families behave, the way they interact and love each other leaves no way to tell they are not "technically" a family. They fulfill the co-residence, and the affinity portions of the familial definition yet consanguinity never seems to matter.

People abandon their children all the time because of the choices the children make: people they chose to love, degrees they chose not to pursue, and the opinions they hold yet I have met people who have been friends for years who are closer to each other than to their actual family.

I don't believe blood is thicker than water. I think a family is what you make it. I believe there are consanguineous families who really do love and cherish each other the way one would expect but I believe that's a choice; because for every blood family that treats each other well, there's another that doesn't.

Behaving as a family is a choice. It comes from deep love and respect for one another which outweighs the love of self and arrogance. It comes from a place of peace and a mutual understanding that even though we may not always agree with one another, we love one another enough to see past it without forcing each other to sacrifice a part of ourselves.

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