I got a puppy and she is EVERYTHING.

YOU GUYS. The cuteness.

You're probably asking yourself - what does this have to do with recruiting? Or yoga pants? Or recruiting in yoga pants?

NOT A DAMN THING.

But she's cute. LOOK AT HER.

I love her. Thanks to Google's generous pup policy, I can't wait to take her to work.

Winning Friends and Influencing Recruiters

Y'all - I got my feelings hurt on the internet.

I know I know... you're thinking "what, is she new to the web?" or maybe "wait a minute she has FEELINGS??". No and YES. LOTS OF THEM. But I digress.

I get on average about 18.6 million pings a day from prospective candidates or other like-minded folk who want to do business with me/my company (that's only a little hyperbole - it's truly LOTS of pings). A lot of these emails / tweets / inmails / connection requests come from people who want to work for my company. 0.0001% of them are likely qualified to do the actual roles I'm recruiting for.

These are NOT "bad" candidates. They are, for the most part, people who are highly skilled or qualified in something I am personally not involved in. I don't recruit accountants. Or sales people. Or university grads. I work on a small yet critical piece of the Company family - engineering managers for a specific product area.

If you're looking for a job as a database administrator, I am not your girl.

That said, I know what it's like to be staring down an online application wishing just someone, anyone, a REAL PERSON would throw me a bone. When I'm asked, I do my best to not only respond, but also respond with some sort of valuable tidbit that allows the person asking to walk away from our interaction feeling just a little better.

It doesn't always work.

A few weeks ago a job seeker we'll call "LinkedIn Member" contacted me. This person has a background I know NOTHING about. I explained my role, also adding that I'm relatively new to my company and not sure how to best help, but encouraged the messenger to apply online and offered to give feedback on their resume.

I did exactly what I said I would do. We had a bit of back and forth ending with me encouraging this person to find a recruiter who focused on their particular skillset and have that recruiter (or more than one!) also review the resume and provide additional advice and even better, vet MY advice. Talk to an expert in YOUR field who just might poke holes in what I've told you to do. I left the conversation feeling kinda warm and fuzzy about my "good deed" only to get this shortly after -

DID. NOT. WANT. TO. HELP?

Look I'm not saving lives here, ok? I get it. I spent probably and hour, in total, back and forth with this job seeker and reviewing the resume / drafting my advice. Maybe that doesn't feel all that significant or helpful. But dammit I TRIED. Not just tried to be nice, or respond to every single message like some think recruiters should do, but I tried to HELP. I gave this person not only a recruiter's insight but also SPECIFIC ADVICE on what to do next.

It stung, y'all. My logical mind knows this says more about the job seeker than it does about me. I have been doing this long enough to know that someone, somewhere, is going to not like you no matter what. While I'm using this specific instance as an example, don't be fooled. I get this kind of shit day in and out. This particular unhappy person could be any number of people I've interacted with over the years. And it ain't fun.

So the next time a recruiter is snarky or unhelpful or simply just doesn't respond, give them just a wee little benefit of the doubt, please? Maybe they just got their feelings hurt too.

Yoga Pants of the Day - Work From Home Edition

Admittedly I don't work from home as often as I would like... my employer embraces face time as a valuable opportunity to get to know and work more closely with your colleagues. Of course they are perfectly fine with you showing up in yoga pants, and the food is pretty good, so it's all good from my perspective.

I know a lot of people swear by the whole getting up / getting ready routine. I totally understand and I wholeheartedly embrace the idea that everyone should do what works for them. Just because I'm ok rolling out of bed right to the (home) office doesn't mean everyone else should do it.

Today is one of those rare "no meeting" days - a bunch of emails to catch up on, a few post-interview loose ends to tie up, some candidate updates to share by phone, but NO ONE has to actually see me today. It's a GREAT DAY to embrace the messy bun, no makeup, yoga pants look my husband claims to love.

After all, he took this picture.

These yoga pants though? These are my LUCKY yoga pants. I was wearing them when I accepted the offer to join Google. I didn't wear them during my interview of course, even I'm not that brave. That day I wore my "dressy but still really yoga pants even though no one can tell" pants. :)

I rant on the internet and call it blogging.

I'm a smack talker.

There, I said it. I run my mouth like it powers the electrical grid. Some people find this annoying. A few find it amusing. At least 4 people I am not related to have thanked me for my bullshit over the years. You are SO WELCOME.

So here we are. Many of you know I've been a regular contributor to various sites including my dear friends at Recruiting Daily I still love those guys, and will continue posting as often as they let me. So why this blog? Why now?

BECAUSE I CAN.

That's really it. For years I've resisted starting my own site - it was easier to lean on editors to make my stuff pretty, check my grammar, and yeah, offer a built-in following. People were probably reading my stuff because it was somewhere they were already going for content.

So.... if this little old site gets any love/traffic/traction at all, it will be because you like me, you really like me!

Or not. Who knows.

What I DO know? I love recruiting. I love yoga pants. And we're going to talk about all of this and more.

Your fearless author getting ready to tackle another workday at the Goog.