I'm Rich, B....

Having money to spend on things you care about is always a great feeling. Spending someone else's money on things you care about is an even greater feeling. I have only been a member of the Signature Consultants family for a little under a month now and I am quickly learning what it feels like to have a very healthy (very, very healthy) discretionary spend budget. To sum it up, it feels AWESOME!

From my very first interview, Signature made a point to emphasize that one thing they believe in is investing in their candidates, clients, and the community. They love to entertain and heavily encourage their employees to spend money in the form of lunches, coffees, dinners, happy hours, user group meetings, sponsorships....shoes, purses, Ann Taylor blouses (kidding, obviously). One thing I loved about my former role in Orlando was my involvement with user groups and the development community so this was music to my ears. I have always believed that in order to stand out, you have to get to know those involved in the community and demonstrate that you are invested. Pizza, beer, and raffle items aren't everything, but they certainly help, particularly in an economy where so many other firms are cutting corners and not interacting with those they are supposed to be helping on a daily basis. I am very good at spending money (Visa can back this up) so joining a company that gave me an open wallet to invest in the user groups that I love so much felt like a gift (seriously), and a gift that I was getting paid to enjoy, too. There are many things that suck a lot more than waking up and doing what you love everyday.

One of the first things I did when I moved to San Francisco was getting involved with the Bay Area .Net User Group. I made a lot of wonderful friendships in the Central Florida .Net User Groups and I wanted to get to know the San Francisco community just as well. And because my position with the Kforce office in San Francisco was on the health care team, I didn't get to interact with developers during the day, and that really bothered me. I knew I wasn't going to be given a budget for User Groups (.Net, at least) in San Francisco, but I still went to the meetings anyway to get involved in anyway I could. I quickly joined the volunteer ranks and helped with the meetings in anyway I could. I got to serve food, be the sign-in sheet monitor, room cleaner-upper, help brainstorm ideas to drive attendance, and assist with marketing. The third Wednesday of the month quickly became the day I looked forward to the most.

Signature was very aware of my involvement in the community in Florida and was happy to hear I was doing the same thing (or trying to) in San Francisco. When they hired me, they gave me an open budget for sponsorships, raffle items, lunches, happy hours, etc. At first, I thought they were kidding because it is a relatively expensive undertaking and I wasn't used to money being handed to me that easily (unless, of course, I was standing in front of my dad). They weren't. They were 120% serious. I was beyond elated. I immediately sent my buddy in the .Net group a message on Twitter and told him we were game to sponsor pizza until the end of time. He responded and was on board.

Fast forward to a week later.

I was having lunch with my manager, Scott, and we started to talk about the user groups and the developer community in San Francisco. I told him about sponsoring the .Net group and he asked what I was doing for a giveaway item.

Giveaway item? They were actually serious about that?

Long story short, he told me to feel free to spend $150 or so a month on a raffle item in addition to the pizza and drinks. Apparently Christmas was coming a few months late this year.

I immediately took my rich "Uncle Scott" up on his offer and started to do a Twitter poll on raffle items. Some of the responses I got were gift cards (Best Buy, Amazon, etc.), tech books, and a Zune, all of which I'm going to do. I'm also going to purchase some ReSharper 5 licenses, too, and get those into the mix (starting next month) assuming they have been released. I'm also toying with the idea of raffling off a signed picture of Ballmer. (I might "fix" that raffle, though, and keep it for myself. Ballmer would look hot framed next to my bed.)

I'm very excited about Signature's openness to the community because I really feel there are some great friendships to be made and those that know me, know I'm very relationship focused. In addition to the great friendships, there are some pretty cool and interesting speakers. The San Francisco Bay Area is home to many a brilliant technologist so some of the topics that get presented blow my mind. Earlier this month, some guy gave a presentation on Silverlight Media Framework and it was awesome. (Oh yeah, this "guy" was my boyfriend, Kevin Rohling.) Boyfriend or not, the presentation was great, interesting, easy to understand (even for me...thank you, small miracles), and he highlighted some of the goodness his company (Vertigo) was working on. (I'm still struggling with my Cat Cam, though...) Next month's presentation promises to be just as good. Check out the Bay .Net site to learn more!

To those that are interested in learning more about Signature, some of the great events we are participating in, want us to sponsor your User Group in the Bay Area, or have a raffle item suggestions, please feel free to contact me via email or Twitter. I'm equally addicted to both and would love to spend my newly acquired riches on you, too!

(Homeless people and those looking for a "sugar mamma" need not apply.)

We're Not In Kansas Anymore

For the sake of this post, let's consider today opposite day, because unlike in The Wizard of Oz, I don't think I want to go back to Kansas.

I am now entering my fourth week with my new company, Signature Consultants, and I am absolutely loving it. I love that there is a company out there for me that really appreciates my knack for marketing, branding, and all things creative, and is giving me the opportunity to combine the things I love-social media, networking, technology, recruiting, and geeks. I liken my experience with my former employer to that with my ex-husband. It wasn't overwhelmingly crappy, but it also wasn't particularly exciting, either, and overtime, it became impossible to ignore the huge elephant in the room. I just wasn't happy and it was time to move on. (For the record, I did make one hell of a trophy wife. Barbie had nothing on me.)

The past three weeks with Signature really feel like I am coming out of a fog. I'm very relieved to see that there are other firms(*cough* Signature) that care about what they are doing on a day to day basis. Maybe it is because they are a smaller company, but it is beyond refreshing to wake up excited and to believe in my abilities again. I am often accused of being a "bleeder" in that I always want to do the right thing, even if it isn't the most popular or profitable thing. Signature operates the same way and focuses on the long term and serving their candidates and clients the right way. My dear readers, I think I found "The One". There is something completely genuine and honest about Signature. Above being a business, Signature is a family, and the incredible culture is infectious.

My first week with Signature consisted of hopping on a plane with my partner Susan and flying to Ft. Lauderdale, FL and Charlotte, NC. Because everything happened so quickly with my job change, I first met Susan at the airport about an hour before our flight left. We hit it off immediately. She had IT staffing experience, too, and we both shared many of the same experiences with our previous firms. Like me, Susan was attracted to the culture and core values that Signature had to offer. Staffing can be a "shark tank" so a company that places so much emphasis on integrity definitely stands out.

We had training in Ft. Lauderdale Monday and Tuesday and flew to Charlotte at the crack of dawn on Wednesday morning. I was still on California time so I was beyond exhausted. I think in those three days, I logged about 14 hours of sleep collectively. Immediately upon landing in Charlotte at 8:30am, we reported to the office and were greeted by a swarm (seriously, a freakin' swarm) of smiling country folk...otherwise known as our Charlotte office. (And, I use the term "country" loosely and jokingly. They had accents, BUT also had all of their teeth, sported pearls and looked like they popped right out of the Brooks Brother's catalogue, and were all absolutely gorgeous. God Bless the South.) They actually reminded me of the munchkins in The Wizard of Oz because they were all so damn friendly. Coming from the fiery pits of staffing hell, this was so completely foreign to me...but I loved it! I got a few hugs, shook a ton of hands, and was immediately welcomed into the Signature family.

After the most exciting meet and greet ever, we got right down to training. Because I was about three seconds away from having a narcoleptic episode, this was pretty painful. Fortunately, our trainer extraordinaire, Princess Meggan of Charlotte (she is no joke, people), looked into our sleep deprived eyes and decided to take it easy on us. We had a nice lunch out with some of the office, and later, an even nicer dinner. One thing Signature knows how to do is entertain. I think I ate the equivalent of a small country in the week I was traveling. Thursday consisted of more training (thanks to Greg Detwiler for letting me shadow him a bit), and lots of eating and drinking (again, Greg, thanks for the drinks. My liver is still in detox.). I also got to spend some good quality time with my buddy, Paul, that introduced me to the position with Signature. Though I was ridiculously tired, I had an absolute blast.

Friday rolled around, along with my hangover from Thursday night's "team building", and we had a meeting at the office before we were set to fly back out to San Francisco. Though I was tired and not feeling particularly hot, I was over-the-top excited to see that Friday at Signature meant Chicken Mini goodness from Chick-Fil-A. I was not as excited to find out that in order to get my Chicken Mini fix, I had to share with the class (of about 50) five embarrassing stories about me. Technically this was not that hard to do (umm, have you met me?), but I was hoping I could go to the airport known as "that cool girl from San Francisco" and not "Megan from San Francisco that 1) wanted to be a deer when she was little and would graze in the backyard, 2) was Santa's elf at the mall for several years...when she was chubby, 3) passed out drunk in the Wendy's drive-thru line 4) dressed like Hulk Hogan (handlebar mustache and all) when she was little and 5) countless public transportation incidents involving homeless people and tears". But, alas, like any addict, I did what I needed to do to get my former chubby-kid hands on the Chicken Mini crack rock.

Since I returned from the Signature "world tour", we have had quite a few Signature faces visit us in San Francisco. We had Meggan (Princess Meggan, that is), come out for half a week, Scott (one of our managers), "Cherry" and his wife, and this week we have Kira, and Dr. Jay...the owner. I love that Signature is such an inclusive company and that it is important to the owner that we are all friends at the end of the day.

I remember my blog post I wrote about a month into the Kforce San Francisco transition and I can't help but laugh at how different I feel writing this post. My Kforce post was filled with so much apprehension and I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. I tried to reassure myself in the post but I knew deep down I was lying to myself and things weren't going to be ok just because I blogged they would. Now, a month into my new job at Signature, I feel zero apprehension and doubt. All I feel is excitement, an intense desire to work hard and serve my candidates the best way I can, and gratitude for the opportunity I have before me. I finally feel like I am doing what I love again and that is a huge relief. I made some great friendships at Kforce and was fortunate enough to learn from some of the best in the industry. All in all my experience was positive, but after over three years, it was time to move on, and leave Kansas, so to speak. I'm very excited about my new "adventure" and can't wait to see what my staffing travels have in store for me!

Take This Job and Shove It

Well, folks, I finally did the unthinkable. I cleaned out my desk and broke up with Big Brother. After over three years, I filed for the "Big D" (again) and left The Force, due to irreconcilable differences and overall incompatibility. I'm sure this takes most of you by shock-after all, we did seem to be the perfect couple-but the flame that was once so hot just died. Our relationship was no longer exciting and the little idiosyncrasies that I used to find cute and endearing started to become downright annoying until we couldn't even stand to be in the same room. Most of you that know me, know I took my relationship with K. Force very seriously, often to the point of obnoxiousness. I never said a bad word about The Force and was always happy to jump right in and tackle any task while giddily singing the praises of The Man. Even when times were tough, I took it on the chin and worked through it. Dr. Phil would have been very proud of my perseverance and loyalty. I wasn't going to let our passionate staffing romance fail without a fight.

It seemed everything changed after I moved out West. While my job with Kforce in Orlando was everything a little passionate recruiter could ask for, my job with the Kforce office in San Francisco office was not. At first I chalked it up to change and assured myself that I'd adjust to the "new way" and everything would work out. I am many things and adaptable is definitely one of them. As my time in the San Francisco office elapsed, I'd take a moment every few weeks to check in with myself and gauge where my head was at. By this point, I had enough time in my new position to really pinpoint what my big issues were. Though part of it was merely adjusting to the change, the bigger issues were environment, management's openness to creativity (or lack thereof), and the jobs I got to recruit on (a far cry from the development positions that really excited me). Once I figured out that these were my biggest complaints, I devised a little checklist and addressed each category accordingly. I figured this handy system would help me see if I my happiness and overall job satisfaction was improving or declining. It was like Kforce's KPIs but cooler.

I named my system the "The Top Five Ways to Tell if You Hate Your Job" and my checklist is as follows:

1) Regardless of how much sleep you got, you wake up with a pit the size of a baby planet in your stomach every single effen day. CHECK.
2) You have sexy fantasies of running and taking a swan dive out of your office's 18th floor window. CHECK.
3) You have adopted Tom Petty's "Free Falling" as your personal theme song during the work week. CHECK.
4) You intentionally touch every single thing your sick coworker handled. (Sure, that means you'll get sick, but when you are miserable, time off is time off.) CHECK.
5) You know that homeless guy that crapped his pants and walks around the city in dirty, poopie pants and stinks so bad you throw up your mouth? Yeah, you start to envy him and his freedom. CHECK.

At first, I was only identifying with numbers 1 and 3. I'd have fleeting romances with number 2, but all in all, I concluded I was only about half way miserable, definitely not the fully miserable that would prompt me to look for another staffing suitor. I definitely was not to the point where I expressed any emotion other than sympathy for Mr. Poop Pants. Every time I saw him (and smelled him) I felt bad and gave him a few dollars. Our daily exchanges put things in perspective for me and I was happy (borderline, at least) to return to my cube in the staffing version of Office Space. It could be worse. I could have crapped my pants.

After a few weeks, things started to slide downhill pretty quickly. During this week, I was given several clerical positions to recruit on (no offense to those that do this work, but I'm way too geeky and technically inclined to find this remotely interesting). It was during this week that I fully committed to number 2 on my list. It became a daily exercise for me as I stood at the printer to imagine myself dropping my stack of freshly printed resumes and sprint, heels and all, to the window, and go skydiving...minus the parachute. (For the record, in case any of you are thinking of Baker Acting me right now, I'd never really do it, but the thought of complete freedom from paralegal and medical records recruiting was very appealing.) In any event, this vision got me through that week and the weeks to follow. Occasionally, my coworkers would catch me grinning like a drunkard. They thought I was finally coming around. I was just imagining my Ann Taylor clad self mid-air. (Cue the Tom Petty.)

Two more weeks passed and by this time, number 4 and I had become very close. Fortunately we had a few sick people in the office so I didn't even have to touch their stapler, phone, doorknob...lick their half eaten sandwich, to get sick. It happened rather organically and I was out for two glorious days. (If it were any other situation, I'd chose a word other than "glorious"...after all, I was legitimately sick which SUCKED, but I was out of the office and free from all work related misery, so I figured "glorious" was fitting.) At this point, I was religiously checking off four out of five items on my checklist. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that this isn't heading in the right direction.

But yet, I still did not envy the dude that pooped his pants. So back to work I went.

By the end of the next week, I was perfectly fine with crapping myself if that meant I didn't have to go to my job every again. That evening, I walked out of the office, found my feces covered buddy, and asked him for his resume. Little did they know it, Kforce would soon be looking for another recruiter.

It was about this time I got a phone call from my buddy, Paul, at Signature Consultants. Paul and I had been friends for about a year and I initially met him in Orlando while I was working for Kforce. I was perfectly happy with Kforce in Orlando so I never really thought I'd join the Signature crew, but Paul and I stayed in contact anyway and grew to be pretty good friends. Even so, I had always heard good things about Signature and it helped that my boyfriend was a former Signature contractor and absolutely loved them. Kevin is one of the pickiest people that I know and is not a fan of too many firms so the fact that he raved on and on about Signature definitely intrigued me.

As it turned out, Signature was in need of someone...for their San Francisco office! Paul explained to me that they were expanding and looking to open an office in San Francisco and was curious if I knew of a good recruiter that would be interested in joining their family.

"Me!!!", I said.

"Yeah, ok....right. Seriously, do you know anyone?", Paul retorted.

Screaming through the phone, I shouted, "Yes, ME!!!!"

...and the rest was history. Paul set me up with a series of conversations with several Signature folk and I ended up accepting an offer with them. In addition to clicking with everyone I spoke with, their company message really spoke to me. They seem to not only "talk the talk" but also "walk the walk". Most companies stress growing (and maintaining) strong relationships with clients, candidates, internal employees, but Signature actually practices that on a day to day basis. Everyone knows each other and goes out of their way to be helpful. Recontacting from the very beginning of the recruiting process(Kareforcing to those that read my last post) is highly stressed and employees' recontacting rates are actually tracked, which is awesome. They really seem to get the relationship piece of this industry and I can't stress how appealing to me that is. Another thing that really sets them apart is they don't lose sight of how important their contractors are. When one of their banking customers was forced to cut rates (substantially), Signature was the ONLY firm to shoulder that hit and not drop their consultants' pay. In the staffing industry, that is unheard of. Ultimately, these were some of the big reasons that I made the decision to leave Kforce and join the Signature team. I wanted to feel proud of what I did for a living and I really think Signature is going to give that to me.

With that said, it was definitely a strange feeling to put my notice in at Kforce; I had been there forever and I did learn a lot from some great people (Rich, Jason, Tracy, Glen, etc.). My manager was extremely supportive and understanding though so overall, it was a positive experience. I am still close with everyone I worked with in Orlando and I sincerely can't say a single bad thing about the Orlando office. For that matter, I really can't say a bad thing about my team in San Francisco either. I'm going to miss my team (a great group of ladies) and my work boyfriend, Jack. (I know I'll never find another coworker that loves Argyle as much as he does and that makes my heart sad.) I got a tremendous start at The Force but I'm so ready to take everything I've learned and apply it to a company that matches my recruiting style a bit more. At the end of the day, it just wasn't a good fit and that isn't the fault of anybody. After all, crap happens (just ask my homeless friend).

Introducing Kareforce Bear, the unknown Care Bear

That’s right, just like the Jonas Brothers, the Care Bears have an unknown, very rarely talked about additional member. Blogging world, please meet Kareforce Bear (or just plain Kareforce for short). Kareforce (Gaelic for: Provide exceptional service on a consistent basis) was first introduced to me on November 6th of 2006 when I first joined the Kforce family and has been a pretty big part of my life ever since. In addition to being known for being the best staffing firm in the universe (just ask Robert Half), Kforce is also known for its quick wit, creative way with words, and mind blowing ability to impose the letter “K” in front of every word or saying to make it part of the Kforce brand (ex: KDay, Kforce Khronicle, Kyou’re fired…and…wait for it…Kareforce.)

Kareforce or kareforcing is one of the most important responsibilities a Kforce recruiter has. Kareforcing focuses on building and maintaining a relationship with your consultants as you put them to work, once they are working, and ultimately, when it is time to redeploy them. This seems like a pretty easy concept (and it should be) but often times it is neglected after a consultant starts an assignment. In any event, the basis tenets of kareforcing are assist the candidate with on-boarding, interview walk-ons, first day walk-ons, hug and a brown bag lunch (kidding…kind of), first day check-in phone call, first week check-in call, (lather, rinse, repeat for a month), one month mark check-in call, lunch, “I know you hate your manager. I hate him, too.” check-in call, etc. You get the idea. Because I feel like I spend half of my life kareforcing, I thought it would only be fitting that I take this opportunity to kareforce myself and debrief about my first month with Kforce’s San Francisco office.

I’m not going to lie. My first day was kind of rough. Being new to San Francisco, I anticipated some first day hiccups…but I did not anticipate said hiccups to start as soon as I woke up. Waking up so early was a huge shock to the system. In Orlando, I’d wake up at 7:00am and be in the office around 8:00pm. Sometimes I’d hit snooze (and when I say “sometimes” I mean “more often than not”) but it took me an hour (tops) to walk the dog, eat breakfast, get ready, and drive to work. Not so much the case in San Francisco…not even close. I woke up at 5:00am (with the thought that it’d give me plenty of time to get everything done and still get to work early). As I rounded up our dog to take her out for a walk she decided she couldn’t hold it and proceeded to take a crap on the neighbor’s doorstep. Beautiful. After I got that cleaned up, I went about my routine.

Fast forward about an hour and a half to me standing at the bus stop. I have a two step commute: 1) take the EmeryGoRound to BART and 2) take the BART into the city and walk to work. Simple, right? Yeah, not so much. After standing on the corner (insert inappropriate joke here) for a few minutes, a bus rolled around. Assuming it was the EmeryGoRound, I got on, took a seat, and started to read my book. About 20 minutes into my bus ride, something started to bother me. The drive was taking way too long. A little freaked out, I decided to ask the bus driver how far away the BART station was….and that is when it happened. I was informed that my dumb self had gotten on the wrong bus. Fortunately, the sweet driver felt so bad for me that he drove me (and only me at this point) to the BART station so I could catch my train. (Ironically enough, the same thing happened to me on my first day of high school…except I went all the way to the wrong school before I realized I was on the wrong bus.)

It was only 7:30am. I still had ten more hours to go.

Fortunately my BART ride went smoothly and I arrived at work relatively unscathed. Right off the bat, we started to whiteboard. Anyone that knows me knows how much I love to whiteboard so my time in the office was off to a good start. Everything was pretty similar to Orlando…except that instead of recruiting on entirely technical positions, I would now be working on functional roles. After the whiteboard, we went into a conference room and had a huge brain dump on all of our clients. This was pretty intimidating because our clients out here are huge and no joke. There is a process for every process…and then another process. After the hour long client debrief, we got straight to work and started recruiting. My first position was some extremely rare skill set (and functional, to boot) and I spent the entire day leaving voicemail and voicemail, the occasional email…and more voicemails. I left at 6pm with absolutely nothing-not a candidate interview, not a submittal…hell, not even a returned phone call-to show for it. I was off to a great start.

The majority of my first week went by just like this until about Thursday when I started to make some traction. By Friday, I had submitted a few people and by that following Monday, I had an interview request from a pretty big client. (And when I say pretty big, I mean huge. We are one of 60 vendors fighting for the same one or two spots every single time.) The interview was set for that Thursday and I was stoked. As soon as I got home, I shared the good news with my boyfriend, Kevin, and we celebrated with some wine. Things were looking up. I actually was good at my job.

The interview request was cancelled the next day.

And so it went for the next few weeks…so many near misses. I thought about pitching myself out of our 18th floor window but then I quickly decided against it. After all, what would Kevin do if I was no longer around? What about our dog, Lexi? What about Dave Dunkel?

Though my recruiting efforts were an epic fail, I did manage to make some friends in the office pretty quickly. I already had my best buddy Alysia sitting across from me (reunited and it feels so good…) and I actually really liked everyone on my team. I quickly found my geek recruiter soul mate in the form of tiny Aileen (but you can call her Baby Einstein), my almost-as-weird-as-me-but-not-quite BART buddy, Jessica, and super successful recruiter by day, super domestic homemaker by night, Eva. AnneMarie left pretty quickly for maternity leave but I liked her already and my boss/Account Manager, Lindsay is a riot and pretty much runs the Technology Healthcare market in San Francisco.

I also met Jack. And his piranha. In my pocket.

One Friday, (I believe it was my second week), I was hanging out at the BART station with Aileen waiting for our train. It had been a long week and we both just wanted to go home. The train was running a little late (shocker!) and it was beyond cold. My hands were freezing. I stuck them in my coat pocket with hopes of warming them. My cold, nearly numb hands touched something…something strange. I looked in my pocket and saw something resembling rawhide hanging out of my pocket. I was beyond grossed out because if it was rawhide it had been in my pocket for a year, as this was the first time since last winter that I wore this coat. Freaking disgusting.

Fortunately, it wasn’t rawhide. It was something must worse. It was a petrified piranha body, dried fish eyes and all. The scream that escaped from my mouth would have made Hitchcock proud. I was terrified. How in the hell did a dead fish end up in my pocket??? Aileen, who stood witness to the entire thing, immediately recognized it as Jack’s piranha and told me that it is a joke that he plays on all of the girls in the office. Apparently, that fish had made appearances in bars, on airplanes…and now, on BART, in my pocket. Because it was Friday, I had the great pleasure of riding all the way home with the fish, now in my purse, and spending the weekend with it.

I took the weekend (as did the fish) to think about what kind of relationship I wanted to have with Jack? Would I hate him? Would I smile at him and curse him behind his back? Or, would we work past our issues and be friends?

My answer was loud and clear on Monday morning when Jack walked in wearing an argyle sweater…to match mine. It was then decided that I could not hate Jack and we would be friends. Our relationship has progressed since then to sharing the occasional elevator ride, talking about Brooks Brothers, sharing sideways glances during recess (or not), picking out the name for his soon-to-be-born baby, and the occasional conversation when he cube-hops over to my “office”.

But anyway, I’m running off on a tangent…

To summarize, there are so many things about this office that differ from Orlando and I am still getting used to the change.

I do miss my coworkers in Orlando and all of the fun we used to have. The environment here is very different and often times I have to remind myself to take it down a notch and be a little more politically correct. If you’ve met me (and definitely worked with me!) you know this is not an easy task. I miss my user groups and having a developer community that felt like family. Rebuilding that part of my life is not easy but I’m optimistic. I miss recruiting on highly technical positions but I know I’m gaining so much more experience here. (Fortunately, I get my fill of “techie talk” from the mister when I come home every night so I’m not completely out of the loop.)

Inspite of everything, I think this was a very good move for me (even though I have to wake up early). I know that while the ramp up might be slow at first, I’m going to flourish professionally. I’m fortunate enough to have the chance to work with some of the best in our company. (Intimidating, yes. Inspiring, absolutely.) Being reunited with my former Account Manager and best friend, Alysia is a HUGE perk and starting a new chapter in my life with Kevin in the most amazing city in the world was pretty appealing, too.

Day one started off rocky. Week one was questionable at best. Week two was a little better with a few notes of disappointment and lots of stress. I’m at the one month mark now and I’m starting to see things come together. Even though starting over from scratch is beyond scary and nerve-wracking, I think, honestly and truly, I’m going to be OK.

Orlando Woman Gives Birth to Two Feathered Babies!

Just when I thought Kforce couldn’t give me anything more, I was completely surprised. About a month ago, Kforce made me a mom…in a very unusual sense of the word.

That’s right, a mom…to Carl Dunn and Jordana Valle, my little baby technical recruiting birds.

Tweet. Tweet.

To most of you, it is no secret I am in the process of moving to California to embark on a crazy (and exciting!) journey with our San Francisco office. (To the rest of you, get with it.) Because of this, our Orlando team was in desperate needs of some new, insanely good recruiters. There was a lot of fretting, lost sleep and appetites because my greatness is very hard to replicate. There were even rumors that Big Brother was toying with the idea of closing Kforce all together; after all, what is Kforce Orlando Tech without Megan “Hoppy” Hopkins? Fortunately, they recognized that it was very shortsighted to throw the baby out with the bath water and instead, focused their efforts on finding someone almost as impressive as me. After scouring the world (or just Orlando) and interviewing countless people…they succeeded in finding some awesome talent…and that awesomeness came in the form of 5’7” (3/4) Carl Dunn (who, you don’t know, but…) and Kforce’s own OnStaff rock star, Jordana Valle.

At first, I was overwhelmed at the idea “training” anyone. (Ok, who am I kidding? I loved it. Not only am I a great recruiter, I’m an even better bosser-arounder.) The idea of molding them into the technical recruiters they needed to be was intimidating; everything I did they would mimic and I was going to greatly affect their moral compass and help them become responsible recruiting adults. If I said a foul word, I was afraid they’d pick it up, too. If I lashed out and hit a candidate, would they do the same? Was spanking appropriate? Lord help them. (No, seriously…Lord, help them.)

Fortunately, after about a week I realized these two fledglings had a pretty good understanding of recruiting and they were going to mature just fine. There were a few times where I had to help young Carl fly straight, but for the most part, he was dying to jump face first out of the nest and get recruiting. I even had the pleasure of being around for his first word, (“mythology” and his first sentence, “My name is Carl Dunn. You don’t know me but…”). Being a mother was definitely proving to be a very rewarding experience.

As time progressed, things got better and better. My two birdies grew stronger and wiser…until finally….

…the time came. I had to stop feeding them worms in the form of great candidates, contacts, and unknown technical knowledge and let them leave the nest.

That time was today, folks, at 2:34pm, when I left the Orlando Kforce office (after 3 years!) and hit the road for the airport…and San Francisco. Though I will miss my two feathered young, I know they will do great and will make their mama proud.

…Ok, enough weirdness.

In all seriousness, today was my last day in the Kforce Orlando office and I have turned over the recruiting reigns to Carl Dunn and Jordana Valle. Though both are new to the Kforce Technology team, they have been recruiting for years and anyone that works with them is in GREAT hands.

Carl Dunn joined Kforce about a month or so ago and can be reached at cdunn@kforce.com. He is a wealth of technical knowledge (just ask him...) and is equally as street savvy. He enjoys horseback riding, fly fishing, Indian food, Greek mythology, and classical music. Rumor has it that he is plays the harp in his spare time but that has yet to be verified.

Jordana Valle has been with Kforce for over three years and has experience recruiting everything under the sun. She can be reached at jvalle@kforce.com and is anxiously awaiting your correspondence. She has a great nose (for food…and BS) and is a great recruiter to have in your corner. In Jordana’s spare time, she enjoys classic literature (she is an old soul), day trips to Disney, hiking, children, and has a particular interest in telecom.

You’re going to wear WHAT? Carson Kressley hits Orlando…

I’m not the most coordinated person when it comes to dressing myself. In fact, it is a running joke in my office that I ALWAYS wear a dress to work…and not because I’m exceptionally girly. Instead, I am borderline lazy when it comes to clothing and dresses are easy. There is no matching involved (other than your shoes…and I almost wear the same pair everyday so that’s simple enough) and you only have to throw one thing on in the morning and you are ready to go…and look quite cute to boot. Dresses are my thing.

Recently a lot of my posts have been inspired by crazy stuff my candidates do…and this one is no different. I harp a lot on looking presentable for interviews (with a staffing firm and the “real” company), first day at work, etc. and there is a reason for that. When you dress the part, it makes a good first (second, third…seventh) impression. In my three years with Kforce, I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff. (And when I say “crazy”, that means plain freakin’, WTF were you thinking doing that/wearing that NUTS.)

Let me take you back to the beginning of my wild and crazy career with The Force.

It was a dark and stormy night…ok, not really, but a little added suspense never hurts.

I had been working with Kforce for a few months and I had recently recruited a killer candidate and he was going to come in and meet with me for an in-person interview. I was excited…very, very excited. Not only was his resume absolutely freakin’ awesome, he was articulate, and I was positive that he would present wonderfully in person.

WRONG.

I got a call from the front desk and she told me that Nameless Candidate #1 had arrived for his interview. I walked out, anxious to meet my .Net stunner and I was stopped dead in my tracks. For a split second, I thought I was being punked. As I looked at his outfit and tried to make sense of what was before me I couldn’t help but…laugh (terrible, nervous habit). Before me stood a pair of corduroy pants about six inches too short (almost capris, but not quite) riddled with holes, tube socks, (if I hadn’t known better I would have sworn he was sharing socks with my little brother), some rockin’ Velcro shoes…and a Guy Harvey shirt adorned with a big marlin. For the record, I love Guy Harvey and I was still turned off. To top off the look, he was sporting the Prince Charles all-the-way-to-the-ear part and some HUGE glasses. He looked hot. Immediately, my opinion of this candidate changed. Though I was very excited about his background and the way he presented verbally, I was terrified to put him in front of a client. I had been pretty clear that professional dress was required for in-person interviews and if this was his idea of professional dress…Dios Mio, I was in trouble. Against my better judgment, I took a chance on him anyway (after some serious wardrobe counseling)…and he showed up wearing the same freakin’ pants to his client interview. My client actually called me after and asked me if I had found him on the street. (For the record, no, I found him on Monster.com…the other street). My client did recognize that he had the skills to do the job but couldn’t get over his appearance. As a result, Nameless Candidate #1 remained unemployed.

About a year later, I met Nameless Candidate #2 and unlike Nameless Candidate #1, he looked awesome when he came in for his in-person interview with me. This guy was sharp and to top it off, was a technical wizard. I was extremely excited to get him presented to some of my clients. I presented him to a few things that didn’t pan out and finally to a job that he eventually got. The only crappy part was this job wasn’t slated to start for over a month from the time of the interview. Fortunately, it was a big love fest between Nameless Candidate #2 and my client so my candidate agreed to wait and start the job in about five weeks when it opened up. Everything was perfect.

Or so I thought.

The five weeks passed pretty quickly and I went to walk Nameless Candidate #2 on for his first day (and give him his brown bag lunch…or not). As soon as I walked up, I noticed something was off but I couldn’t quite place it. He looked different.

And then it hit me.

Nameless Candidate #2 thought it was a stellar idea to put gauges in his ears.

Awesome.

So Awesome, in fact, his manager called me about an hour or so later and told me that HR had big issues with the gauges (shocker!) and I needed to counsel my candidate. Again with the damn counseling! Perhaps he could wear Band-Aids over the large holes in his ears? In any event, I gave him a ring, informed him that gauges didn’t scream “Hello, I’m a professional” and told him that he would have to wear Band-Aids over his ears during the workday. Very awkward situation...

…but certainly not the most awkward one I’ve been in. No, no…that honor is reserved for Nameless Candidate #3 that decided to dye her hair bright red (Lucille Ball has nothing on this lady) after I advised her to groom herself a little.

I met Nameless Candidate #3 much like the others and while she didn’t come dressed like a frump to her interview with me, she wasn’t overly put together. She was average and a little bit of a hippie…and that was f-i-n-e with me. I love hippies…I am moving to San Francisco, after all. She interviewed telephonically with a client of mine and he liked her enough to bring her in. She went in for her first in-person with the client and did reasonably well. His only criticism was that she was a bit of a “naturalist” and she might need to clean up a little before the final round of interviews (panel). Though I was not thrilled about advising someone to brush their hair etc. (should be common sense, but who am I to judge?), I told her to spruce it up a little and she should be good to go.

And thus began the breakdown in communication. Apparently, when I said, “Spruce it up and brush your hair.” she took that as, “Dye your hair the most obnoxious and unnatural color you can find…oh, and don’t use gloves…and pay no attention to your hairline.”

You see where I’m going with this, right? Yeah….

The day of the final interview rolls around and I meet Nameless Candidate #3 onsite at my client’s. She is dressed appropriately (kind of)…but wait a second…what is all of that red stuff all over her???? Has she been sacrificing animals in her spare time? (She is a proud PETA advocate so I quickly ruled that out…and noticed her flaming red hair.)

Instead, it seemed that she thought it was a wise idea to sex it up a little and color her hair and take no care to wash her hands…face…neck, forearms…etc. It was awful. No, it was beyond awful it was a train wreck…and a half.

I was inclined to spit on my finger (mommy style) and start rubbing the stuff off of her but I had no time. Mr. Client came out and escorted my little hair dye warrior into the interview room. To her credit, she held her own in the interview…but did not get the job. Before I received any technical feedback I was asked, “Was she in an accident?”

“Define accident”, I thought. If you mean she covered herself head to toe in dye because she wanted to spice it up, then yes, she was in a terrible, terrible accident.

Sadly, this stuff seems to happen all of the time and I guess channeling my inner “Queer Eye” is part of my job description. While I think it is common sense to dress appropriately (translation: wear a freakin’ suit) and not make any drastic alterations to your appearance before interviewing or starting a job, it isn’t as obvious to a lot of the people on the job market. I sincerely wish that candidates could get a job solely based on their technical prowess but there are so many other factors that are considered, namely team fit, environment fit, and appearance (and when I say appearance, I just mean look normal). So, for what it is worth (and I know I sound like a broken record), always remember to dress appropriately and maintain a “normal” and professional appearance.

Corduroy, red hair dye, gauges, and Guy Harvey (especially Guy Harvey) are hot…but save it for your house…on the weekend…when you are all alone…in the dark.

...But Now I can NEVER be President of the United States!

I consider myself a pretty fortunate person. I have a great job, a freakin’ stellar boyfriend, a roof over my head, food on my table…and three of the most awesome little brothers a girl could ask for. Other than being their mentor (who wouldn’t want to be like me?), punching bag, maid, alibi, and co-conspirator, my job description also requires me to be a little rat. Sometimes. (Oh come on, who doesn’t like to get their brothers in trouble…on occasion?) Of course, I like to think that I only rat my brothers out when it is absolutely necessary…or when I am bored. For example, it was imperative for me to tell my mom that Ryan was trying to teach Kevin how to smoke at the age of 14, or that it was Ryan that broke my doll bed (when, in fact, it was actually me…oops), or that I was pretty certain that Ryan was the one sneaking the bottles of wine out of the cabinet. So naturally, when I saw my youngest brother, Casey, using some rather foul language on his Facebook posts, I had to step in and show him the error of his ways. Before I reported him to Big Brother (aka MOM), I tried to have a nice little sisterly chat with him. I told him that while he thought his naughty posts were funny (and I have to admit it…they were hysterical), it was possible for someone to find them and while he was trying to get into college, find a job, etc. it probably wasn’t the wisest idea to have F bombs flying left and right for the world to see. I wish I could say that he immediately recognized that his all knowing big sister was right but such was not the case. Instead, Casey, the magical wordsmith, fought back. I believe he even mentioned the First Amendment. (Our parents are lawyers so falling back on the Constitution and Bill of Rights is natural.) In any event, after bickering back and forth, I decided that it was time I released my secret weapon...so I picked up the phone and called my mom. She put a stop to Casey’s antics very quickly. Within an hour, he was off of Facebook (on a temporary basis), grounded, and without his beloved Fender guitar for an entire week. I felt bad about his temporary separation from his guitar, but sometimes, you have to hit em’ where it hurts to get the point across.

While I’m pretty sure not much harm would have come to Casey because of his posts (I don’t think the UCF Gestapo even knows who he is) , I thought it was important to point out that small things like that could (and do!) hurt a person’s college/job search.

A few days ago, one of my dev buddies sent me an email about a candidate he was thinking of hiring. In this email I did not find a resume or dynamic executive summary. Instead, I was presented with a listed of inappropriate sites this candidate was on, crude blog posts, and trashy tweets overrun with obscenities. Though this candidate’s technical background was beyond reproach, his extra curricular activities and posts quickly took him out of the running for a job. As soon as my buddy found this information (and it took all of ten minutes), he put everything in an email, forwarded to the interviewing committee, and the candidate’s final interview was cancelled.

I wish I could say this was a rare occurrence, but this kind of thing happens all of the time. About a year ago, we have someone interviewing for an internal position with Kforce. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but because I am a quasi stalker, I decided to do a little research anyway. I typed his name into Google (this was before Bing, so please don’t judge me) and the first three hits were inappropriate adult sites. Way below that (like at the very, very bottom of the results page) was his LinkedIn profile. I forwarded this to the person doing the interviewing, and he was eliminated from consideration. Now, I know some of you might think I am terrible for doing that, but frankly, I’m not jazzed about having a XXX model as my sales partner, since we rely on our reputation a lot in this industry. Correct me if I’m wrong, but naked internet pictures do not scream, “Hi, I’m very professional. Let me be in charge of staffing your team.”

Whenever I work with candidates, I always, always, ALWAYS tell them to make sure to do a little research…on themselves. Bing is your friend and you should use it whenever you are thinking of making a job change. I stalk myself (almost obsessively) because I like to know what other people are seeing when they look me up. While I’m not sure other firms do (since I’ve only worked at The Force), but I imagine pretty much recruiter would advise their candidate’s to do the same thing…and even if they don’t, you can bet your butt that the end client is doing their research. I’ve had a few clients come back and cancel interviews because of some questionable material they found. Losing out on a job always sucks (particularly in this economy), but it sucks twice as much when you lose it because of a mistake that could have been prevented. Just like in any thing else you do, doing your due diligence always pays off…and if you insist on posting naked pictures, tweeting foul word followed by foul word, or doing something else just as stupid, do it AFTER you got the job. Kidding.