My history is full of short jobs that I did for fun. Most of them never made it to my resume. It was only once I started working as a sourcing executive for an MNC, in the US process, that I actually stuck to the job. I liked it.
There is no other job that makes you feel both like a King and a beggar, all on the same day.
My work was to find suitable resume in job boards with the needed skills, call them to check if they were interested and share resume with the recruiter to take forward. It was the time of global economic meltdown. People were losing jobs left, right and centre. So, most people were glad for the call. Some left hate messages, but such instances were few and far between.
Since it was a night job, it took a toll on my health, and I moved to a day job in the same industry as a Recruiter–big mistake!
There is no other job that makes you feel both like a call centre employee and a beggar, both on the same day.
Recruitment is often advertised as Human Resources job. In reality, it is double marketing. You sell man to job and job to man. I was never a salesperson.
It was a head-hunting company. My job was to:
- hunt for suitable candidates who were best in the industry, AND
- make sure that they reached the interview venue, AND
- ensure they joined the job.
I hardly went beyond first base, and never beyond second.
First Base: Nearly everyone on the job board had been contacted and rejected. It required cold calling at least 80 people before I could get one good candidate ready to go for interview. My upper limit was 30 calls. I was never the one to pick phone calls at home. My possible suitors would call my home number only to find my parents on the line. That’s why I never had a boyfriend until I got my own mobile phone. It was against my inherent nature to call unsolicited.
W, who was doing well in the same industry told me a trick. It required extensive lying. You call a junior in the target company in the same department, offer them a position that does not exist. Once you have their confidence, you ask them for help to fill another position, which is really the one you are recruiting for. You ask them to refer seniors for the position, and once you have the details, you put the guy on back burner. A great trick for someone who could lie. I am a terrible liar. I have memory of a goldfish, and am afraid that I won’t remember what lie I told and to whom. I might stop mid-sentence to remember what I was saying.
Another way is creating a Linked In network, which may take months, and looking up people on Facebook. I hate Facebook AND Linked In.
So I hardly crossed the first base.
Second Base: I thought sending people for interview was just about sending a reminder message. Apparently, it was about judging whether the person was lying about being late.
I am a gullible person who believes in the universal goodness of human beings. I trusted people when they said they were interested in the job; that they are on their way for the interview; that they met an accident on the way; that they had a death in the family. I openly gave them second chances and third. But as the death toll rose and the accident numbers became higher than the city’s population, I had to admit, I was missing something.
Third base: After one year in one organisation and five months in another, not a single person joined the job. I reached the ocean floor of depression, where I stayed drowning in sorrow of my own making. I couldn’t believe another human being without questions. I was never into cigarettes, alcohol or drugs, else, the time was ripe for the next remake of Devdas*.
That’s when I quit the industry for good, and moved into Learning. It is one place where I help people by teaching essential job skills and, hence, delay their next interaction with the Good Recruiter.
Author’s note: This story is off the record. So, if you are my manager or had ever been one, this post never existed.
*Disclaimer: This post is not meant to hurt the feelings of believers of any religion. I am not a historian. I don’t claim to be correct. Let’s agree to disagree.Lately, I came across Trojan Wars–a piece of history of Troy, Sparta and Mycenae during the Mycenaean era (1100-1600 BC) that has inspired a lot of literary pieces of the European continent–the most well-known being the Odyssey and Iliad by Homer, written somewhere between 900-600 BC.I was surprised that the central story draws a lot of parallels with Mahabharata. The time of writing this book is not clear but it pre-date Homer for sure, which makes me wonder if the same event had inspired both the books from across the globe.Here is the central story of Trojan Wars/Mahabharata:A set of Brothers live as exiles hiding from their hostile uncle. They are demi-gods, strong and skilled in the art of war, and looking for a chance to reclaim their kingdom. A king calls in princes and kings for the marriage of his eldest daughter who is a demi-goddess, and the most desirable and haughty woman alive. One of the brothers, Agamemnon/Arjun (don’t they sound the same) wins the hand through show of power (political/archery skill) but his brother gets to marry the princess. (Mahabharat’s Draupadi had to marry all the five brothers. Trojan Wars’ Agamemnon gets the other daughter.) Nobody asks the princess who she wants to marry.The prince gets back his kingdom from uncle with the help of father-in-law and the brothers rule for many years in peace. But another prince abducts/attempts to rape the princess causing uproar from husband and other kings.(In Mahabharata, the said prince is the hostile uncle’s son who exiles the brothers again for 13 years and decline to return the kingdom thereafter.)The brothers fight for the lost honour. A lot of other kingdoms enter the war for their own agendas (hatred/oath). They look like losing until they cheat. An important person from enemy camp becomes a traitor and helps the brother breach the defences (Antenor/ Bheeshma). The war ends with the death of all the people who abducted/dishonoured the princess. The end of the war also marks the end of an era (the Age of heroes/Dwapar Yug).I am not saying that these are the same stories–there are a lot of other events in the stories that make them seem pretty different overall, but the still, as a book lover, the similarities are too striking.There are a lot of deeper parallels including various characters that I’ll discuss next time.Meanwhile, let me know your thoughts through the comments section.
Short Stories | Fish-eye Perspective 