I am on-site again, working in the office of The Client. This time I have some proper responsibilities and I do not feel like a minion. I am in direct contact with the TLs and the management, I can arrange the interviews myself and I can talk to the decision makers about the candidates and get direct feedback from them. So, I am taking a 2-week 'holiday' not as a Researcher but as a Corporate Recruiter. I even have my own room, which is a little accident, but still, I have a nice and small room next to the interview rooms, I have an enormous window and the sun shines in every morning. It's nice.
Most Recruiters who work for agencies have a dream of becoming a Corporate Recruiter one day. I might have this dream in a couple of years, who knows, but I don't think people really see what a struggle this is. I mean, I think it is more difficult and quite stressful to work for an agency, because your success is evaluated based on the amount of money you generate for the agency, amongst other things, but this being most important. There is lots of pressure on being good at what you are doing, handling key accounts, making candidates happy, collaborating with other Consultants, etc. But as long as you perform and most stakeholders are happy, you have relative freedom. And in the case of mission impossible types of assignment, it's great if you solve them, but you are protected if you don't. You get sh*t from clients at times, but that can be handled. And you choose which clients and which positions to focus on. If you are good, it's valued.
When you work for a corporate giant, escalations come into the picture. That's a bitch. After a while, even God knows that you cannot fill a position and everybody is looking for what you are doing wrong. Then, you have to chase TLs and managers for feedback on the interviews, they disappear for hours, you leave messages, then they don't answer etc. That sucks. If you fill a position, it's not appreciated, it's just how things should go. But if you don't fill one... well, you better fill them all.
The bottom line is that in corporates, Recruiters are just support staff who make sure that there are always enough people (and hopefully the right ones) on board. They are like other back office employees, like colleagues in the finance or administration departments. But in agencies, we do core business. The success of the firm is our success, or maybe the other way around. And in some way, I take pride in that.
Thursday, 29 September 2011
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Is there something about meeting someone too early?
Jani is working, which means that we got up at a decent time even though it's Sunday. I have two hours to be alone and do things that I generally like to do when I'm alone. Listening to Jamie Cullum or Stereophonics, for example, and read.
Something has been on my mind in the last couple of days. Is there really something about meeting someone too early? Patvaros - my first ever 'boyfriend' and the partner in my first kiss - had his birthday this Friday and he invited lots of people from our high school to join him at the opening party of his faculty. I called him on Wednesday to tell him I was going and before we hung up, I had said that I would call him or his girlfriend (who was also in our year) if I did not manage to find them in the crowd. Emese?, he asked. Emese, I replied. We broke up like a month ago, he said. Then a couple of sentences on the lines of "I don't believe it" and "you must be joking" followed.
They have been together for 4.5 years, meaning that they got together at the age of 21. Sure, there are couples that get together at the age of 20 and get married and start a family etc. I haven't read any statistics about whether they stay together and split up after a couple of years or more. My grandma met my grandfather at the age of 15, or so I assume because she gave birth to my father at the age of 16, but that's a totally different generation. With Peti and Emese splitting up, the one but last such couple in my surroundings broke up. The last one is Nadia and Urtah, an Indonesian couple, who have been together since the first year of AC (the age of 17) and got married this year, but they are from a very different culture. It seems that in my immediate surroundings and my culture, my generation fails in relationships, which started in the beginning of their twenties.
Is that because we hadn't seen enough before we got into these relationships? Is it because we are overly curious about what it might be like with someone else and fail to recognize the value of our current relationship? Do our parents fail to teach us that you can have a crush on someone else while being with your loved one and this is something that is quite unavoidable and that staying with someone is a decision and not a question of a crush? (Thanks, Joram's mom, for replacing mine for that night.) Or do we make the wrong choices in terms of chosing our partner at that age and even if we met years later, it wouldn't work out? Interestingly, one of my colleagues, Nóra married the guy whom she went out with at the age of 20 for two years, then they broke up for 3 years and now they are married. And later, do we only hold on to someone because we are scared of being alone? Or because we do not want to lose all the effort that we have put into the relationship, and we rather make the compromises we have to?
Are all relationships that start at the beginning of our twenties doomed? (Hm, or are all relationships doomed?)
Something has been on my mind in the last couple of days. Is there really something about meeting someone too early? Patvaros - my first ever 'boyfriend' and the partner in my first kiss - had his birthday this Friday and he invited lots of people from our high school to join him at the opening party of his faculty. I called him on Wednesday to tell him I was going and before we hung up, I had said that I would call him or his girlfriend (who was also in our year) if I did not manage to find them in the crowd. Emese?, he asked. Emese, I replied. We broke up like a month ago, he said. Then a couple of sentences on the lines of "I don't believe it" and "you must be joking" followed.
They have been together for 4.5 years, meaning that they got together at the age of 21. Sure, there are couples that get together at the age of 20 and get married and start a family etc. I haven't read any statistics about whether they stay together and split up after a couple of years or more. My grandma met my grandfather at the age of 15, or so I assume because she gave birth to my father at the age of 16, but that's a totally different generation. With Peti and Emese splitting up, the one but last such couple in my surroundings broke up. The last one is Nadia and Urtah, an Indonesian couple, who have been together since the first year of AC (the age of 17) and got married this year, but they are from a very different culture. It seems that in my immediate surroundings and my culture, my generation fails in relationships, which started in the beginning of their twenties.
Is that because we hadn't seen enough before we got into these relationships? Is it because we are overly curious about what it might be like with someone else and fail to recognize the value of our current relationship? Do our parents fail to teach us that you can have a crush on someone else while being with your loved one and this is something that is quite unavoidable and that staying with someone is a decision and not a question of a crush? (Thanks, Joram's mom, for replacing mine for that night.) Or do we make the wrong choices in terms of chosing our partner at that age and even if we met years later, it wouldn't work out? Interestingly, one of my colleagues, Nóra married the guy whom she went out with at the age of 20 for two years, then they broke up for 3 years and now they are married. And later, do we only hold on to someone because we are scared of being alone? Or because we do not want to lose all the effort that we have put into the relationship, and we rather make the compromises we have to?
Are all relationships that start at the beginning of our twenties doomed? (Hm, or are all relationships doomed?)
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
A nice evening and the rest
It's 9 pm and I'm at home alone, so I decided I should do something nice. First I thought of running. Nah. Then, I thought I should watch an episode of True Blood. Nah, it's becoming worse and worse... I should read the book I started to read over the weekend. Maybe. Or I should write a post! So here I am.
Saturday, I started the evening with Sali in the Ráday street, talking, drinking sangría, eating Belgian fries and smoking sheesha, which was absolutely lovely. We've known each other for 13 years and at this moment that is half my lifetime. We even have our own vocabulary. We are never out of topics to discuss, and if we are, silence doesn't get weird. It is completely comfortable.
As for the rest of the night, I was invited to a farewell party (the second in a fairly short timeframe as my sister has only left 2 weeks ago or so). I suspected that the crowd was going to be mixed, but what I saw was more than what I expected: 30 gay guys and 4 women. By the end of the night, only 2 of us girls remained and I saved our reputation by dancing the whole night and not badly! People were sweet, they greeted me, asked me how I knew the host and most importantly, danced with me. There was one guy who did modern dances, the other was a ballet dancer and teacher and I danced with everyone who had the tiniest inclination to involve me in music and movement. I am not sure why gay parties are much nicer than straight ones - if there is ever such - but it might have to do with them not trying to become alpha males when they gather into a hoard, being willing to dance and baking fantastic cakes, which I never have the energy and willpower to do.
I decided to come home by public transport, which took an hour and even though I almost fell asleep on the bus, the walk and the wait did do a good service for sobering up. I was in bed by 5 - alone of course, because Jani was at one of his friends' party in Tök ('Pumpkin') and even though I expected him home midway through the night the latest and he got home at 8 am. Some things don't change. Let's hope that some others do. Of course, I spent half the day sleeping.
Qué más?
Work: it's going well, luckily, having a great relationship with a client for which I am the main point of contact (and since then we have been the number one suppliers, yay), overperforming my target and preparing for the toughest part of the year: the end.
Friends: seeing, meeting quite a couple of them and also spending quite some time with my team not only during work hours. I gained a couple of new ones as well, especially because I still keep in touch with people from The Client's HR.
Family: my sister is gone and I still hasn't got the chance to talk with her, although she did write to me. Mom seems to have become a salsa addict, connecting well with Jani in this respect, and Béla bácsi and I are forming the opposition, arguing for what I would name something like a 'balanced life perspective' if I were a scholar.
Holidays: 2 days spent at the Balaton. I still have 12 days of holidays for the year, which I better use and not let get lost!
And I'm 26!
Saturday, I started the evening with Sali in the Ráday street, talking, drinking sangría, eating Belgian fries and smoking sheesha, which was absolutely lovely. We've known each other for 13 years and at this moment that is half my lifetime. We even have our own vocabulary. We are never out of topics to discuss, and if we are, silence doesn't get weird. It is completely comfortable.
As for the rest of the night, I was invited to a farewell party (the second in a fairly short timeframe as my sister has only left 2 weeks ago or so). I suspected that the crowd was going to be mixed, but what I saw was more than what I expected: 30 gay guys and 4 women. By the end of the night, only 2 of us girls remained and I saved our reputation by dancing the whole night and not badly! People were sweet, they greeted me, asked me how I knew the host and most importantly, danced with me. There was one guy who did modern dances, the other was a ballet dancer and teacher and I danced with everyone who had the tiniest inclination to involve me in music and movement. I am not sure why gay parties are much nicer than straight ones - if there is ever such - but it might have to do with them not trying to become alpha males when they gather into a hoard, being willing to dance and baking fantastic cakes, which I never have the energy and willpower to do.
I decided to come home by public transport, which took an hour and even though I almost fell asleep on the bus, the walk and the wait did do a good service for sobering up. I was in bed by 5 - alone of course, because Jani was at one of his friends' party in Tök ('Pumpkin') and even though I expected him home midway through the night the latest and he got home at 8 am. Some things don't change. Let's hope that some others do. Of course, I spent half the day sleeping.
Qué más?
Work: it's going well, luckily, having a great relationship with a client for which I am the main point of contact (and since then we have been the number one suppliers, yay), overperforming my target and preparing for the toughest part of the year: the end.
Friends: seeing, meeting quite a couple of them and also spending quite some time with my team not only during work hours. I gained a couple of new ones as well, especially because I still keep in touch with people from The Client's HR.
Family: my sister is gone and I still hasn't got the chance to talk with her, although she did write to me. Mom seems to have become a salsa addict, connecting well with Jani in this respect, and Béla bácsi and I are forming the opposition, arguing for what I would name something like a 'balanced life perspective' if I were a scholar.
Holidays: 2 days spent at the Balaton. I still have 12 days of holidays for the year, which I better use and not let get lost!
And I'm 26!
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