interviewing/dating

Hiring sucks.

I mean, looking for a job sucks, but I gotta tell all y'all who may be job hunting--it's no picnic on this side either.

I know who I want to hire as my President of this country (tomorrow woooo!). Hiring our latest Account Coordinator was the easiest thing in the world. Hiring this Account Executive we've been looking for for the last.... forever. That's been a different story.

I don't want to get into it too much because this is a public blog and who knows who reads it (she said, waving hello to her clients, employees and press contacts). So let's just say this.

The hiring process is like dating. I've actually been saying this so much lately I'm kind of surprised I haven't blogged it yet. Here's how it goes:

If you're hiring a replacement position then it's like starting post-breakup. Even if things ended on the best of terms, there's still a little sting of rejection there, it still kind of sucks. Plus, no matter how much you'd like to just take a break from dating and just hang out with your girlfriends and drink tequila/watch bad movies/go dancing/eat cheese and ignore all those losers for awhile, you can't. You have to get out there and date some more.

So you post your job, or your online dating profile/Myspace/Facebook page. And then you deal with all the losers trolling for tail.
Them: "Hey gorgeous, let me tell you all about why you'd be into me."
You: Um, okay. Would you care to start with why you're into me first, since you contacted me and presumably you'd like to go on a date?
Them: "No babe, but I lease a Mercedes and can bench 200."

UGH. Then, let's suppose in all that pile, you come across someone with potential.

"Hi, I think you're beautiful and amazing and would love the opportunity to take you out. I'm reasonably attractive, have a proper job, shower regularly, and can demonstrate a decent sense of humor in email format."

So you go on a date. Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn't. Maybe you go on dates with multiple people, and some go well and some go really really well.

Here's where the similarity between hiring and dating ends: When you're dating, if a date goes well, then you..... go on another date. Or maybe it goes really really well and it goes back to your place. (Bow chicka wow wow!)

When you're hiring, however, if the first date goes well then you just skip ahead to moving in together. (Insert lesbian/U-haul dating joke here.)

It's just so frustrating and exhausting and after what has been a particularly difficult hiring process, it's just really hard to us trust someone enough to have them move in again. What if it turns out he can't communicate his feelings and you're feeling insecure all the time? What if he can't get along withe the rest of your family? What if he leaves wet towels on the bathroom floor and dishes in the sink and expects someone else to clean up after him? What if he can't get it up? What if he cheats on you? I mean, you would try & date someone long enough to find the answers to these questions before moving in together, wouldn't you?

But when you hire, you just have to make the leap of faith that a person knows what the CC line is for, that he'll respect and get along with your staff, that he'll pull his own weight, that he can keep up with the volume and speed of the job, and that he won't share your press list with the competition. You just have to go for it.

I feel like we've been interviewing/dating our US presidential candidates for close to 2 years, so we know them reasonably well enough to make a decision tomorrow. I've known the Account Coordinator we just hired for 3 years and couldn't be more thrilled to have him on the team.

I wish I could know just the right answer to this conundrum or have a better conclusion for all this, but I don't. It's just a leap of faith, and it's nerve-wracking, and I'll be really really glad when the whole hiring process is over and we have someone in place. Assuming, of course, we make the right choice.

For those of you on the other side of this, those of you job hunting, here's all I would say:

1. Write a good cover letter and include WHY you want that particular job in your letter BEFORE you talk about yourself. Also, keep it short--no one has time to read a long list of bullets about how awesome you are, and it comes across as conceited besides.
2. Proofread your shit, and use spell check. I can forgive typos if everything else on a resume is good, but if you didn't even take 2 seconds to click spell check, you're outta there.
3. READ THE JOB DESCRIPTION BEFORE YOU APPLY. Oh, my God, if I get one more sales person applying for our publicist job, I'm going to lose my ever-loving mind. Using my dating analogy, this is as basic as having a dude send you his profile even if your profile clearly stated you were only interested in women.
4. Come prepared to your interview. Look the part. Be neat, be yourself, be sincere.
5. Send a thank you email/card, and feel free to state again, some more, that you really want the job, and why. Most people will send a thank you, but almost no one takes that extra step, ever, so it will really set you apart.
6. I've got all kinds of other advice here, so just click that and don't screw it up.

That's it. I'm done. Hopefully we'll have someone hired soon and I can quit dating and all these shenanigans. Call me old & lame, but I am seriously just ready to spend some Saturday nights on the couch in my sweats with no makeup on watching Buffy. You know?