Highway to Happy

It is hiring season once again, and even though the number of target hires is not as many compared to that during October, recruitment is still recruitment and I encounter the same stressful scenarios, such as:

1. Being mistakenly identified as an HR staff
2. Having to text so many faceless people and encourage them to join the firm
3. Overriding HR procedures just so we can hire the best people for TROG (tax department)
4. Begging for managers to allot a couple of their precious minutes to interview applicants
5. Relying on ‘first impressions’ and pure intuition when profiling applicants, which is totally not easy!
6. Having to answer personal questions, sometimes relevant, a few times totally not. But I have to answer them anyway because being KIND and APPROCHABLE is kind of in the job description.

And so on and so forth… The list can never get too long, really! But even so, I volunteer to do this- well, actually, I was handpicked to be trained to do this, but then I can back out anytime since I’m not formally a part of the HR team- and willingly subject myself to avoidable stress. And for what?

For the glimpse of my old, idealistic self that I get in practically every applicant I encounter…

For the opportunity of hearing shrieks of pure joy when I get to spill the big news that he/she made it and is now a CPA…

For the many different personalities I encounter, not just of applicants but also of managers, that, at times, tests my patience but gives me a sense of fulfillment every time I decide on being the bigger person and act more maturely…

For the semi-break I get from all the tax reports and queries from clients; it’s a breath of fresh air…

For that fraction of influence I am able to pass on to these kids that may help them in facing the very first decision they will make in the real world…

Sometimes it gets too tiring, what with all the pressure from the big bosses and the raised eyebrows from “real” HR staffs. But whenever I get a text message from an applicant asking for advice, for a personal opinion on picking his/her first job, it reminds me of why I took on this role in the first place. I was once a clueless fresh graduate who had a pretty long list of what I wanted to do in life. I didn’t know where to start; I had no idea how to get to where I wanted to be in 5 years. If not for the strangers (who are now friends and mentors) who patiently gave sincere points of view that helped me made a decision, I probably wouldn’t have made one and just went with the popular choice among my batchmates.

I’m not saying the opinions I got led me to my decision, in the same way I’m not assuming the opinions I gave could seal any applicant’s choice. The bottomline is, every person out there, as clueless as they can be, already has an idea or an inclination towards a career path. For the most part, what one needs is encouragement and a little assurance that it’s okay to make that choice; what they need is a sort of go signal from a person in the real world they can trust. So if, even in the smallest measure, I am able to provide that kind of unassertive guidance to a lone clueless soul, it would definitely make all these extra work worth it. :)