Just Another Day...(for a recruiter)

I need to take a minute to reflect on my Tuesday from this week. It felt more like a Monday, and when you're done reading this, I'm sure you'll agree that I certainly didn't have the worst day among the people I encountered!

First there was client ABC, who I had been working with for several weeks to fill an open position. They were down to 2 candidates, from 2 different agencies, and 1 of them was my candidate, Karen. In the end, they made an offer to the other candidate, so the job had been filled, we lost that deal, and now I had to tell Karen.

Next there was client XYZ, who was supposed to call my candidate, Adam, for a phone interview that afternoon, but they ran late, never connected with Adam, but thankfully ended up being able to reschedule for Wednesday. Now, this happens fairly often, we all get busy, things run late, I know...but Adam is one of those candidates with high expectations around the process, and when something doesn't go as planned, I immediately spring into damage control mode. Luckily, the client took matters into their own hands to contact Adam and get the call rescheduled, eliminating the need for me to convey their apologies, which let's face it, after a while when you're the middle man, the sentiment often gets lost in translation! Crisis averted!

And then I received an email from another candidate, Joanna, who I was scheduled to speak with after 5pm to prepare her for her interview with our client on Wednesday. The email says that she's not only under the weather, it's serious enough that she is going to the Emergency Room. She can't make the prep call, and can't make the interview. It's Wednesday as I type this and I still haven't heard back from Joanna on how she is feeling, and whether or not she's been released from the hospital...

Later that night, at around 7pm, I finally heard back from Karen and had the pleasure (sarcasm) of delivering the bad news from earlier that day to her. It was disappointing, but I did my best to reinforce all of the positive feedback the client had provided throughout, as well as the constructive feedback that might benefit her in her next interview process. We both left the conversation feeling somewhat thankful for having worked together, despite the outcome not being what we had hoped for...

So today is a new day, nowhere to go but up, and most days don't have all of these things compounded on top of each other. So when the going gets tough, just keep moving! You can't control the uncontrollable, you can only try to minimize the impact to everyone else involved...Just another day as a recruiter I suppose!