One Year In

I’ve been at this for twelve whole months now (how did that happen? I just started yesterday!) and I’ll level with you: this is the hardest job I’ve ever had.

Coming from a developer background, I was used to there being a solution for every problem. If you google the right thing, or you read the documentation one more time, or you raise an issue and get the underlying cause fixed – hell, even if you rip out a week’s work and start over – eventually you get it.

In case of showstopping bug, beat head here.

Humans are a whole different kind of challenge. They’re unpredictable, their circumstances change, they don’t necessarily tell you the whole story. In short, they’re outside your control. The fact that things can (and do) happen that you can’t have any influence on has been the hardest thing to get used to.

It’s not just humans, either. Time is not on your side – they say a week is a long time in politics, but in recruitment it’s more like a day. You’re gambling on the right role and the right person being available at the same time, and that’s incredibly rare.

Unless you have one of these, I guess.

You don’t succeed in this job without patience and resilience, and a lot of support. Even then, things won’t go your way at least – at least – as often as they do.

Luckily, it’s also the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. I get to change people’s lives for a living and that’s a huge privilege. I also get to work with some amazing people, whether that’s my colleagues at Lookahead, our clients (some of the most incredible companies around) or the developers, designers and leaders who trust us with the next step in their careers.

It’s pretty exciting at times. You can have nothing going on when you get to the office and be swamped by mid-afternoon. When things happen, they happen fast. And there’s not much like the rush of that first placement, but the second one comes pretty close.

Actual footage

Through this job I’ve also had the chance to become part of the Ruby community in Australia, an amazingly diverse, inclusive and fun group of people. Over the past ten years there have been 20 RailsCamps (#21 is coming up soon), and it’s a testament to the organisers and attendees that they (and RubyConf AU) have been so successful. Being welcomed into the community has been an unforeseen (but very cool) fringe benefit.

So, after a year of being a technical recruiter, what do I know? Mostly, it’s just how much more there is to know. But I also know how proud I am to be part of a team that contributes to the developer community, one that shows it’s possible to have a good reputation and success at the same time.

It’s the best job I’ve ever had.

Reposted from https://medium.com/@tcn33/one-year-in-b915ee54e7