Friday, February 17, 2006
A sort of professional milestone was passed over the last month marking my assent in the corporate world: Being bombarded by various projects it was determined that we needed more staff. And believe it or not I was given a budget (me, with a budget!) to hire someone to report to me. An old colleague and professor of mine, who also knows the CEO, had a candidate in mind.
I told the candidate I didn’t want to do a formal interview. I suggested going to a trendy restaurant-bar where we could sit down and chat--I don’t believe in the traditional hiring process. She was bright – just graduated at the top of her class at Columbia University – and wanted to do something of substance with her career. And a couple of glasses of wine later over some tuna tar tar, I got out of her what she was making and what she was capable of doing (and that she was interviewing with some top consulting firms). She got out of me exactly the types of things she would be working on and what my management style was. We both walked away entheusiatic about the prospects.
And yesterday I made her an offer. She accepted.
There’s also less fun things going on. . .
One of the reasons I’ve been hired is that I have technical skills my predecessor did not have. And because of his lack of these skills we have had to staff a contractor to do some relatively simple reports. I determined we could do the job internally with existing resources and had to let him go.
Doing this was quite a performance. I explained situation to him –about my role, what was going on with the company and the project he was working on – to a point where I didn’t even have to say anything like “your services are no longer needed”. He figured it out himself and simply asked me “so do you want me to continue finishing up January or not?” And that was it.
He was a nice, honest guy and yea, I can’t help but think about his family, etc., who perhaps relied on that check from this company. But at the end of the day we have a business to run and if I’m worth the salary they pay me I’ve got to figure out ways to save money and do things more efficiently. We have investors.
God, did I really write that!
I told the candidate I didn’t want to do a formal interview. I suggested going to a trendy restaurant-bar where we could sit down and chat--I don’t believe in the traditional hiring process. She was bright – just graduated at the top of her class at Columbia University – and wanted to do something of substance with her career. And a couple of glasses of wine later over some tuna tar tar, I got out of her what she was making and what she was capable of doing (and that she was interviewing with some top consulting firms). She got out of me exactly the types of things she would be working on and what my management style was. We both walked away entheusiatic about the prospects.
And yesterday I made her an offer. She accepted.
There’s also less fun things going on. . .
One of the reasons I’ve been hired is that I have technical skills my predecessor did not have. And because of his lack of these skills we have had to staff a contractor to do some relatively simple reports. I determined we could do the job internally with existing resources and had to let him go.
Doing this was quite a performance. I explained situation to him –about my role, what was going on with the company and the project he was working on – to a point where I didn’t even have to say anything like “your services are no longer needed”. He figured it out himself and simply asked me “so do you want me to continue finishing up January or not?” And that was it.
He was a nice, honest guy and yea, I can’t help but think about his family, etc., who perhaps relied on that check from this company. But at the end of the day we have a business to run and if I’m worth the salary they pay me I’ve got to figure out ways to save money and do things more efficiently. We have investors.
God, did I really write that!
# posted by otas : 7:15 AM
