What Recruiting Has Taught Me

Having made the decision to leave my job at the end of May in favor of what's next in our lives, my boss tasked me with writing my job description and managing the hiring process.

It has been very enlightening.

• You should do what the job description says (what documents they want, where they want you to send it, etc.) It may be clever of you to track down the head of the department (in this case, my boss) but odds are that, even though they make the ultimate hiring decisions, they aren't the one coordinating the details. So it makes you look stupid to send your application to him, instead of the e-mail listed.
• It is very, very easy to make snap judgements on resumes. I had my top candidates ranked after a very brief scan; a lot of this is from poor formatting (huge blocks of text, etc.).
• Say why you'd be good at the job you applied for, specifically, not why you'd make a great employee in general. It's really obnoxious to have to dig.
• The company may already have an idea in mind of what type of person they want to hire, and will rule out others accordingly, even if there's nothing inherently wrong with their application or experience. (I need to remember this when applying for my next job...)
• Don't (PLEASE) track down the person who sent you an e-mail of receipt on LinkedIn and attempt to contact them through a chain of connections. This puts that person (again, the person coordinating the details, not the person responsible for hiring) in an awkward situation.
• E-mails matter. Make yours something that is just your name, simply, not something that involves lots of random letters or numbers. 
• Pictures on resumes = awkward. 
• When it says "do not call" that really means "do not pester". This includes e-mails.

Overall, it's been an interesting experience being on this side of the fence. It turns out that phone interviews are just as nerve-wracking for the interviewer as the interviewee.  Who knew.

So close, yet so far away

AMU Graduation, a few years ago. Photo by Deacon Wallace

This is how I feel right now--graduation is SO. CLOSE. Yet there's so much more to do before it's here. For Brian, his thesis defense (Friday) and finishing a final project for his independent study; for me, Senior Awards (tonight), interviewing replacements for my job, proctoring exams (starting Saturday), an always laborious and seemingly-endless process, and cleaning the entire house before his family arrives next Thursday.

And then...I just don't know.  Brian got accepted to SLU but as yet hasn't been offered any money and we're reluctant to go any further into debt, especially in this economy. We're pondering a deferment and a move back to Raleigh (a prospect that excites me to no end; 2 years away has taught me just how much I miss it). In the meantime, we're going to visit family and figure things out from there. Which means that being settled and figuring things out is so close...yet so far away.

Gators'll getcha

It's springtime in Florida, which means...

I see you trying to break your Lenten fast

Sometimes I wake up and think..."how am I living in southwest Florida???". We have gators, owls (a coworker had a nest of baby owls on her window sill last week), wild boar, bears, hawks, eagles, vultures, and ENORMOUS locust-like grasshoppers, and panthers. If I'd had to think about it, I probably would have assumed we would live in NC, pretty much for ever, if not in our hometown. Southwest Florida was never on my mind. As we wrap up our time here (the ad for my job went up today), I'm trying to appreciate the very unique (if dangerous and frequently frustrating) experience of living in the Everglades. Not every neighborhood has its own resident gator. Plus, you can't beat the views from our windows:

I suppose that's always the way: appreciating something just as it's ending. I'm looking forward to the next chapter in our lives, whatever that may hold (even as I'm frustrated by not knowing), but I'm trying to spend these last 2 months be grateful for what we've been granted while we've been here. A great community of grad students, egrets flying outside our bedroom window, and the excellent icebreaker of "I used to live in the Everglades. No really, IN the Everglades."

Happy Holy Week...I'm looking forward to Easter and being able to eat chocolate again like nobody's business. 

Desert Island Wishlist

Inspired by Little Stories

"When someone asked G.K. Chesterton what one book he would want to have along if stranded on a desert island, he paused only an instant before replying, 'Why, A Practical Guide to Shipbuilding, of course'". -Philip Yancey, from the introduction to G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy

Ah, the time honored question, What book (or in this case, 10 books) would you take with you to a desert island?

1. ) Narnia (the big anthology....that's not cheating). Who wouldn't want to have Peter, Lucy, Susan, and Edmund with them if they were stranded on a desert island? And Reepicheep. I'd really want Reepicheep.

2.) Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Say what you will about it, this book always succeeds in taking me to a new, magical world, something I'd imagine you'd really need if trapped on an island.

3.) The Bible. No more excuses for not knowing it in and out! Plus I feel like you could read the Bible for years and not learn everything it had to teach you.

4.) Me Talk Pretty One Day. I'm going to need a laugh and a homesickness remedy while on the island...David Sedaris, a Raleigh native, covers both of those.

5.) I suppose it's too much to hope for the collected works of Jane Austen, so I'd want Pride & Prejudice.  But I really wish I could have Sense & Sensibility and Northanger Abbey, too.

6.) The Blind Assassin. Really I'd be happy with any Margaret Atwood, but this is the densest (is that a word?) and one I could really delve into if given extended periods of time.

7.) The P.G. Wodehouse Omnibus. Bertie for laughs and Jeeves for practical advice. Plus all those other characters I've never got around to but have been meaning to read.

8.) Love in a Time of Cholera. I feel like I could read this book over and over and get something different out of it every time.

9.) Frederica.  My favorite Georgette Heyer (and, conveniently, the longest).

10.) Honestly, I'd want at least one book I hadn't already read. Pulling out of my to-read shelf, I think I'd go with The Portable Dorothy Parker.  The mix of literary styles would be nice.

And The Practical Guide to Shipbuilding, of course.

In life news, Brian didn't get in to Fordham. Note the lack of tears on my end.

March Madness

(No, not the basketball kind. But I'm looking forward to that too..)

I've been looking forward to March for a while, for a number of reasons, and I'm so glad it's here.

Brian should be hearing back from more schools this month (he got into St. Louis last month!! Hooray! Except he's on the waitlist for an assistantship, so we still don't know if he can even go there. *sigh*). Every day when I check the mail I pray something from a school will be in it, but so far no luck. But now I can really say that it will be any day now!

Plus, we're going to...drumroll...the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!! I am so psyched. I am justifying the expense by saying that we will probably never live within driving distance again, plus we get the Florida resident discount. I have been dying to go there ever since they announced it was opening and I intend to thoroughly enjoy myself. I'm thankful for a day of vacation, no matter how short.

Work-wise, my biggest event is this month, and I'm both looking forward to seeing all the pieces come together (I've been planning it since November) and that it will be over (and hopefully a moderate success). 

Brian's first draft of his thesis is due at the end of the month, which I know he is stressed about, but I'm looking forward to it since I'm that much closer to getting him to myself for a couple of months this summer. Graduation is only 2 MONTHS AWAY!

There are, of course, plenty of things I'm worried/stressed about (not knowing where on earth we're moving, and when, being a large part of it) but I intend to enjoy March while it's here. April will have to be a month of decision making, but I'll take that when it comes.

Valentine's musings

This past weekend, Brian and I traveled up to Lake Placid to speak at the Campus Ministry retreat about our relationship & marriage. It got me thinking, just how very, very fortunate I am.

When Brian and I met, I was 14, and he was 15 (he doesn't remember this. He went by BJ back then, but he hates being called that so don't tell him I told you).  We had both been through our parent's divorce in nearly exactly similar circumstances, and so when we met again (about 2 years later) through our church youth group, it was an incredible relief to find someone I could talk to about everything. We hung out at church and on the track team, I dated one of his friends (awkward...) and we got to know each other. Brian is one of the most reassuring, funny, and enjoyable people to be around. He both makes me laugh and makes me relax, a great combination as I am usually wound up and tense.

At the retreat, we were asked to speak about overcoming our divorced family past and deciding to get married anyway....but if anything, I think the divorce spurred me on toward marriage. I wanted a lasting relationship, since I didn't have one in my life. I knew that we needed to address our issues when they came up, because our parents didn't. I knew we needed to never part angry, to show each other love whenever possible, to laugh together. I can't help thinking, every day, how much I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with him.

As I told the group this weekend, we have our hard times like anyone else. We argue, nitpick (or as we call it in my family, nitpickard, after my mom's family of phenomenal nitpickers, the Pickards), and occasionally wound one another. But knowing I get to come home to my best friend at the end of the day, and wake up to him in the morning, is such an enormous blessing that I don't take enough time to appreciate.

Today was just another reminder of that fact; Brian got me flours. Get it? Flours? Well, anyway, he got me 4 small bags of flour, and for a baker who goes through an extraordinary amount of flour, this was the perfect gift.

So, for all of you who have been through a divorce, either of your parents or one of your own, know that you can heal, and find that person who makes you feel worthy and important. As How I Met Your Mother once said, "They're out there, coming as fast as they can".

Happy Valentine's Day.

Things I'm Proud Of

The ability to end a sentence without a preposition not included.

Sometimes, (ok, most of the time) I can be very, very hard on myself. I'm not a good enough wife, housekeeper, employee, etc. etc. I should be doing more, earning more, look more put together, be thinner, cook better...

Periodically I find it helpful to remind myself of the things I do well, despite the fact that this is much harder than naming the things I don't do so well.

Here goes:

• Cook. For a long time I took for granted that cooking came naturally to everyone. My parents both cook, but when they got divorced they both stopped for a few years, and if I wanted anything other than take-out it was up to me to make it. Baking has always come naturally, and the more I cook, the more I enjoy it. So, I'm proud that I can cook well. 
• Read. Reading is also something I've taken for granted--growing up I was always allowed to go to the library as much as I wanted. Both of my best friends, one from high school and one from college, are readers and we've always traded books. Now that my dad's semi-retired he reads a lot, and we trade too. But working with students with disabilities, I've met a lot of people who struggle to read, or just plain hate it. I'm proud that my reading comprehension is high and my reading speed fairly fast.
• Empathize. Prior to my parent's divorce when I was 13, I was very self-absorbed and spoiled. That had to change pretty fast, so between that, coping with an eating disorder over the next couple of years, and working with adults with disabilities beginning in my freshman year of college, I find that I'm pretty good at empathizing, even with situations I haven't experienced. I got in a discussion about abortion with a pro-choice classmate and, just as she was gearing up to get irritated and angry, I explained that, even though I disagree with abortion, I can absolutely understand how a woman, afraid and more than likely alone, might find herself in a situation where abortion looks like the best option. My classmate stopped, blinked, and said "oh..you're the first person I've met who said that". We then had a frank, reasonable, non-angry discussion. This also comes in very handy being a social worker.
• Write. I'm no Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, but I find that I can write reasonably well, a talent that's come in handy doing papers, research documents, grants, graduate applications, and more. 
• Stick to goals I set. In middle school, I determined to make my sloppy, nearly illegible handwriting that featured huge circles over the i's better. And I did.  Just this past New Year's, I set a goal to go back to exercising 4 times a week--so far, 5 weeks later, I haven't broken it. It's comforting to know that if I set a reasonable goal, I'm capable of achieving it.
• Being left-handed. This is obviously nothing I had control over, but I'm proud of it nonetheless. It's nice to be a little different, and to feel like I've overcome my teacher's insistence that they didn't know how to teach me--to hold a pen, to write, to sew--because of my handedness. I still get "You're left-handed?!?" frequently enough to remind me that it's still not the norm. 

That's enough for now...I can't really think of any more, plus I don't want to sound terribly conceited. What are you proud of?