The moving job
From the mailbag:
I have a strange question for you, but I am quite stumped how to handle this situation. I was hired to work at Company X in November, as an associate buyer for e-commerce products. I have 5 years in the industry. Week one on the job, I found out my job moving cross country and my supervisor is leaving the department. HR has a position for me to move into that is the same job title, but it a product that I am completely uninterested in and I truly feel I will have quite a challenge with this product. My question is; is there a tactful way to say this to HR? I don’t want the position you are trying to move me into? Do I have a choice? Thanks for your time!
First of all, you always have a choice. It may not be a pleasant choice but there are almost always choices and if that’s the situation you are in, you can certainly opt out at this point.
The way to be tactful is a short but cordial note or conversation essentially saying you’re going to look for something else and try to be accommodating as possible in transition away.
The really irritating part of this for me is what kind of company brings a person on for a week and then announces they are moving the position? Are they going to tell anyone that they didn’t know this was coming down the line in some way or another? I think that is just a terrible thing to do to a new hire.
I hope that you find a good job where you’ll be able to stay for more than a couple months.
Do as I say…
So 12 days since blogging about me becoming the recruited, I haven’t blogged since then.
The bad part is that I haven’t kept up with blogging and then my database decided to die when I upgraded (but I did manage to fix it but it killed my scheduled posts). That, on top of general work and job seeking, has taken up a lot of time.
It shouldn’t matter though since blogging is good for your career and is even better when you’re job seeking.
So I just spent the last couple hours going through emails and answering them. You will see some of those coming through over the next week. Thanks all for your patience!
The recruiter becomes the recruited
Your HR Guy is for hire?!
In what should be an interesting turn of events for this blog, I am searching for a new job and you will likely hear more feedback about the recruiting process than usual. Part of the reason I am guessing some of you will hear about it is because job seeking sucks. But as I have advised my readers, that won’t get me down because that is how the game is played.
(Do I sound convincing yet?)
As far as career transitions go, this is about as good as it can go. I love the company I am leaving, the company loves me back and doesn’t want me to go but outside circumstances are forcing us apart like a corporate version of Romeo and Juliet (minus the double suicide). Those circumstances are a fabulous job my wife got…250 miles away. The last six months involved me telecommuting but HR is one of those things where something gets lost in the distance. Ultimately, they need an HR guy (or gal) on-premise and I really want to work with someone besides my cat. So while I help in transition, I also have the pleasure of seeking a new position.
The best part about this is applying some of the things I didn’t know when I first started job seeking a long while ago. For one, I have started by reaching out to my network instead of just mindlessly sending out a resume to every HR job in sight. I’ve already received a few leads along those lines. The next thing I am doing in conjunction with reaching out is…well, this. I am blogging about it. I know I have readers in Portland, OR and others who may be familiar with the area as well and I would love your tips and leads on anything HR/recruiting in Portland! Networking events and similar types of functions are also appreciated.
You can e-mail me at lance (at) yourhrguy (dot) com or you can check me out on LinkedIn (which more than a few of you are already linked up with me).
And your e-mails are being answered, I promise. They are just a little…slow this week.
I am not writing this right now
As if there wasn’t enough evidence that I am not the most advanced technological mind in the world, I just figured out a couple months ago how to write posts for future posting.
Here is the deal, I am located here on the western coast of the US. Most of my readers reside at least two to nine time zones to the east of me. Most of my best thinking comes at night (after dinner), a time when almost all of my readers are asleep. So, I future date my post so that it is waiting for them in the morning. Same thing with the weekends. Nobody reads this on the weekend so I future date my post to Monday or even later if it isn’t topical.
Right now, I have about seven future posts (that aren’t about current news items) in my queue for the next month. I will intersperse that with more relevant news items throughout the coming weeks.
Your HR Guy was snubbed!
Update: All is well. My suspicion was correct. Jason Davis really does a great job with this and if you are interested in recruiting, recruitingblogs.com is where you should be.
I can’t believe it either. The Best Recruiting Blogs of 2007 results were released this week and there were a lot of great blogs on there. Three of my favorites were on there with Recruiting Animal, Xtra Cheezhead and Wireless Jobs winning their category. Another great blog, Gautum Ghosh won the category I was hoping to win (Best HR Blog). The results made sense to me as Gautum has been doing this for a bit longer than I have and he is much more prolific than I am. When I went through the final results though, this is what I found:
10. Best HR Blog
Gautam Ghosh: 17.6%, 68
HR Search Mktg: 16.6%, 64
CollegeRecruiter: 16.1%, 62
Your HR Guy: 15.8%, 61
The Hire Sense: 14.2%, 55
Your HR Guy: 10.9%, 42
One Louder: 8.8%, 34
I apparently made it on the ballot twice (who knows how that happened) and got 103 votes but not the victory. I e-mailed JD about it but no dice EDIT: he just e-mailed me and he is looking into it.
I feel a bit like Al Gore here. If that means I have to make a documentary and win an Oscar and a Peace Prize for my efforts in HR, then so be it. I am a brave soul.
In all seriousness though, thank you all for your readership. It is nice knowing that people enjoy something that I put a variable amount of effort into week in and week out. I will be celebrating my ad hoc victory by actually answering backlogged reader e-mails next week so you better get on it if you want your question answered.
Breaking into recruiting
Here’s one from the mailbag:
Hi, I went to a pretty good university and graduated with a degree in human resources. The problem, I took some time off after I graduated to travel and work at places that offered flexible hours (i.e. waitressing, part-time marketing). I’ve tried talking to the career center at my school and looking up places to apply to. I have a lot of experience in marketing but I’d really like to break into HR as an internal recruiter. I was hoping you had some suggestions on what companies I should apply to. I’d appreciate any help you can offer.
Great question though I don’t know if I can help you with specific companies to target. The problematic thing is obviously the work record after college. And while it is problematic, it isn’t something you can’t overcome.
The biggest issue I see right off the bat is that getting into internal recruiting is not easy for newcomers. If you want to stay on the internal side, you might have to opt for an assistant/intern type program typically reserved for new grads (which you essentially are at this point).
If you really want to get into recruiting though, third-party recruiting may be a good start. If you have experience in marketing, a human resources degree and are relatively green to the industry, third-party recruiters are often looking for motivated people. And if you want to position yourself for internal recruiting, I’d say this would be a better bet rather than going for an assistant type position (unless it is a recruiting specific assistant).
A return to normalcy
I am happy to have the winter holidays safely and surely behind us all. It means more blogging for you to read (from everyone, including me). It means more reliable co-workers (thankfully).
What is always entertaining about January are the New Year resolutions people make. The jump in sales at gyms, fitness equipment manufacturers, and diet pill/system marketers is simply astounding. The fact that this is a constant source of good revenue for these industries just shows you how committed people are to making good on the most common resolution: losing weight.
This isn’t surprising. Bad habits are hard to break. Something as necessary to our existence as eating isn’t going to be something that changes easily.
Penelope Trunk puts together a decent post on how to actually keep your resolutions. Let’s just say I am not holding my breath. Making major changes at an arbitrary date simply doesn’t work well.
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About
Your HR Guy is a Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field. But don't let that fool you, this isn't a boring blog. I seek relevance and humor in a place we will spend much of our lives. Everything from workplace issues, job seeking and terrible bosses. Read more...
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