I find the word fascinating. It means 'similar' and I'm not sure about its etimology but if you translate its components, you get 'similarly hairy' (or 'hairy on the tummy' - but that makes even less sense).
I was taking the tram from the Moszkva square to Klára's, my colleague's place to meet her dog and to go to a party later, and I was thinking about this word. Because it's nice to be surrounded with hasonszőrű people and this is exactly what the environment is like at my workplace. They are young, friendly, easy to talk to, interested in a lot of things and cool in one way or another. I love them. I'm now member of the lunch team, the group of people who go to get lunch together. Someone sends an e-mail around 11.30 (or earlier, depending on how hungry they are) to our e-mail addresses about where we should go and after a short discussion, we are ready to leave at 12.05. I'm surprised how little time it took to feel so cosy with them and how little time it took for them to take me in. It's gezellig.
The next week is going to be a milestone for me. On October 1, my initial try-out or probation period expires and my legal status changes. I'll be a proper employee. That is, if they don't state sometime during the course of the next week that they don't want me anymore. Normally, I wouldn't worry because I've been working hard, I am well integrated into the team and my TL likes me, but there are some big changes coming up which probably imply personnel changes, too. People are in a state of uncertainty, their professional career and their team is at stake, and RA was a place that was a great choice both in terms of career and team spirit. The management says that not many things are going to change but we feel that not many things are going to remain the same.
We'll see.
Since I hardly ever get the chance to write, I'll make use of the fact that Jani is still sleeping upstairs (he was working early morning) and mention everything else that may be interesting:
1. After a party in the RA office, a colleague asked me whether I am willing to bartend at events. Sure, I said and I found myself bartending alone at a wedding for 160 guests. The preparations were funny because the groom was a real mierenneuken, he called me every other day before the wedding to ask me questions. The bride, on the other hand, was quite laid back, very sweet. She said that she wanted a small wedding originally, with maybe 20-30 people, but the guy insisted on inviting everyone. So, a big wedding it was and I arrived within the last 15 minutes of the civil wedding, just before the beginning of the party. In the first 3-4 hours, I continuously had a queue of at least 10-15 people in front of the bar (2 school desks because we were in a high school) but even later, there was not a single moment when no one would ask for a drink. I agreed to bartend till 1.45 but at that point the hosts asked me whether I would be willing to stay longer. In the end, I spent 7 hours mixing drinks without a single break (not even a bathroom break) and then I joined the remaining crowd to dance for a while. I got home around 6 and I only realized how tiring it was the day after. Pretty much all the cocktails included shaking and 7 hours of shaking is quite an exercise, and about half of the cocktails involved fresh lime, lemon or orange, which damaged my fingertips to such an extent that I was hardly able to type the next day. I stood there for 7 hours, leaning forward (because school desks are never as high as a proper bar) and my back hurt as if I was 70, seriously, I fell back on the bed the day after because I wasn't able to get up and I moaned every time I got up from my chair on Monday. But it was a nice party. I enjoyed it, I made some money, 3 guys asked for my phone number and the groom called me the day after to tell me how absolutely great I was. Quite an ego booster. I'll have something else coming up next week.
2. I had the worst hangover within the past year yesterday. I was with friends, we committed the mistake of drinking a wide variety of liquor (vodka, pálinka and absinthe) and wine and the result - besides a great night - was a total disaster the day after. I didn't really want to get up because my head was killing me but Jani said we should eat some soup at Bábelék (our favorite little restaurant around here), so we hopped on our bikes and eventually got there. It took me half an hour to eat a single bowl of soup because I felt my stomach screaming me 'no' after every sip. But I won! I ate the soup, it took me another 3 hours to get better and I swear I won't get so drunk again within a year.
3. My sister is going to do her SATs soon! How exciting! She was contacted by a couple of US colleges and they would consider her to be a good candidate for sports scholarships. I hope she'll do well.
Sunday, 26 September 2010
Thursday, 9 September 2010
Sick leave
Coughing doesn't let me (or Jani, for that matter) sleep and I figured it would be best to get up. I'm on sick leave. It sucks. Yesterday, I had the chance to experience a piece of Hungarian reality when I had to wait 1,5 hours to see my doctor. She said that what I have is a combination of a viral and bacterial infection of my windpipe and the rest. I said I wanted to go back to work on Friday. She said no chance. The only problem is that she'll only fill out the pink form (proof of illness) when I go back to see her next week.
So, in the breaks between blowing my nose and coughing my lungs out, I have some time to update you, guys, on how I'm doing. Healthwise, quite badly, obviously. Workwise, okay. I never would have thought this was such a fierce market. And there are a number of factors that are really important in my work
Speed. You need to find the right candidate as soon as possible. You often see a deadline for application on job boards. As an applicant, you should disregard that completely. The way companies hire resembles rolling admission at universities. What this means for me is that I need to be quick in finding and contacting the right candidates, especially because other recruitment agencies are working on the very same assignments. And only one gets paid: the one that introduces the candidate who gets hired. All the agencies are working with the same pool of applicants - people registered on job boards - and so it's quite likely that we'll find the same people. The question is who finds them first.
Precision. There are a number of things that have to be administered properly, otherwise things might go horribly wrong. Imagine a scenario in which a company asks a recruitment agency to find the right candidate to replace one of their employees - who has no idea that he or she will be fired in the next couple of weeks. You can't mention the name of the company on the phone because if you do, you might cause a nice little scandal. Another issue is accidentally contacting an employee of one of the companies that we work with. Obviously, it wouldn't be too ethical to call someone that a company hired through us and lure him or her over to another company. Most of the time, I think we can't recruit anyone from the companies that we work with, regardless of whether they were our placements. So, checking the CVs and our central database is very important and even then it might happen that we see an old CV which does not yet include the most recent change in the person's professional life. Checking the database is also important because it will tell you whether anyone from the office has already contacted the person. It takes time but it also spares time because it might turn out that they don't want to change jobs at the moment or that their English is not good enough. In that case, you don't call, obviously.
People management. When you work with people, you have to be good at establishing and maintaining contact with people. Candidates are surprisingly thankful when you call them to let them know that our client chose someone else, because they are used to not being informed about the final results if they were not the ones who got hired. And it frustrates them. So, the rule is: always follow up and always answer e-mails. And for me, this is the most difficult part, because you might not reach someone for days and you might forget about them, or you might have things to do which appear to be more important - after all, you can't make money of letting people know that they were rejected. But maintaining good human relations pays back. For example, one of my candidates rejected the offer he got from our client but he said that he wanted to keep in touch because of all the agencies he had been in touch with, we provided the best services. So, maybe in a couple of years, we'll be able to "sell" him.
I learn something new every day, and some of my tasks are gradually becoming routinized: it's taking less and less time to check CVs, for example. It takes practise to know what to look for. I'm becoming better with cold calls, checking every important aspect of the candidate's profile on the phone before inviting him/her for an interview.
All the rest is fine. I finished my thesis and got an 8. I rented out my apartment. I officially moved in with Jani. I had a lovely surprise birthday party last week. And I'm slowly catching up with friends. Life is happening.
So, in the breaks between blowing my nose and coughing my lungs out, I have some time to update you, guys, on how I'm doing. Healthwise, quite badly, obviously. Workwise, okay. I never would have thought this was such a fierce market. And there are a number of factors that are really important in my work
Speed. You need to find the right candidate as soon as possible. You often see a deadline for application on job boards. As an applicant, you should disregard that completely. The way companies hire resembles rolling admission at universities. What this means for me is that I need to be quick in finding and contacting the right candidates, especially because other recruitment agencies are working on the very same assignments. And only one gets paid: the one that introduces the candidate who gets hired. All the agencies are working with the same pool of applicants - people registered on job boards - and so it's quite likely that we'll find the same people. The question is who finds them first.
Precision. There are a number of things that have to be administered properly, otherwise things might go horribly wrong. Imagine a scenario in which a company asks a recruitment agency to find the right candidate to replace one of their employees - who has no idea that he or she will be fired in the next couple of weeks. You can't mention the name of the company on the phone because if you do, you might cause a nice little scandal. Another issue is accidentally contacting an employee of one of the companies that we work with. Obviously, it wouldn't be too ethical to call someone that a company hired through us and lure him or her over to another company. Most of the time, I think we can't recruit anyone from the companies that we work with, regardless of whether they were our placements. So, checking the CVs and our central database is very important and even then it might happen that we see an old CV which does not yet include the most recent change in the person's professional life. Checking the database is also important because it will tell you whether anyone from the office has already contacted the person. It takes time but it also spares time because it might turn out that they don't want to change jobs at the moment or that their English is not good enough. In that case, you don't call, obviously.
People management. When you work with people, you have to be good at establishing and maintaining contact with people. Candidates are surprisingly thankful when you call them to let them know that our client chose someone else, because they are used to not being informed about the final results if they were not the ones who got hired. And it frustrates them. So, the rule is: always follow up and always answer e-mails. And for me, this is the most difficult part, because you might not reach someone for days and you might forget about them, or you might have things to do which appear to be more important - after all, you can't make money of letting people know that they were rejected. But maintaining good human relations pays back. For example, one of my candidates rejected the offer he got from our client but he said that he wanted to keep in touch because of all the agencies he had been in touch with, we provided the best services. So, maybe in a couple of years, we'll be able to "sell" him.
I learn something new every day, and some of my tasks are gradually becoming routinized: it's taking less and less time to check CVs, for example. It takes practise to know what to look for. I'm becoming better with cold calls, checking every important aspect of the candidate's profile on the phone before inviting him/her for an interview.
All the rest is fine. I finished my thesis and got an 8. I rented out my apartment. I officially moved in with Jani. I had a lovely surprise birthday party last week. And I'm slowly catching up with friends. Life is happening.
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