A personal narrative?

The email read: ” I need you to write a personal narrative about how you would manage the project not just by sitting on the top overseeing it.”

I called the recruiter when I read his request.  Only 8 minutes had passed between when he sent it and when I called.  I had a few questions:

  1. Didn’t I cover this in my detailed cover letter?  His answer was “hell yes”.  He was also perplexed given he too thought I did a good job calling out the key point of my experience that matched their key points.
  2. Are they looking for me to step in to other roles while doing my project management gig? Are they short staffed?  He assured me that he asked the same questions.  They are fully staffed except for the PM.
  3. So what is their real concern?  He wasn’t sure.  He knows the hiring manager, but it’s a 3-person hiring team evaluating all candidates.  Some people see “manager” all over my resume and worry that I’m just looking to manage.  Clearly they are not reading my details.

“Can you get it back to me soon? I’d like to send it today.”

Uhm. Ok.

I pinged a former cohort of mine.  When I sat there starting this process, I realized I had no one in my personal life anymore that I could bounce ideas off of and would understand what I am saying.  G often listens then says “I know you are speaking English, but I have no idea what you are saying.”  My former cohort concurred with my approach.  He also agreed with my concerns.

So I sat down and tried to write it.

I started out being all formal and all, then said screw it.  I have been told by people how much they like how I write – how I relay the story and information – that I decided to approach it as a blog post.  Complete with dialog.

It was about 600 words when I was done.  I read it to my 16 year old DJ who has taken a computer science course in college and understood it – so I saved it as a PDF and sent it to the recruiter.

“Please let me know your thoughts as I took a different approach than we both thought.  I edited it but please let me know if any parts are unclear. I look forward to hearing from you.”

His response back was “perfect – I forwarded it on.”

Hmm….I think I like this recruiter.

One thing I also stopped myself from doing? Worrying that I was being too arrogant.  Fuck that shit.  I have earned the wage I make.  I earned it because I am who I am.  Not because I try to be who I am not.

Oh, another story in my job hunt.  I actually had a recruiter who I suspected was young try to get me to take a job with almost half the hourly rate that I require.  “Is that OK,” he asked.  “Yeah, that is far from OK. 21 years experience – I earned this hourly rate.”  I felt like I was may dad talking when he was in the military when someone didn’t understand the stripes he had earned.  When I looked up the guy’s experience on LinkedIn, I found he was 2 years out of college.  Funny how my cynicism was dead on.

We shall see what happens.

All I know is that I’m too old for this shit.

What do you think?

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