I had two very different interactions recently, and, juxtaposed, they point to something I felt the need to share because it's been on my mind:
In my job hunt, I've been working with a handful of recruiters - a sort of middleman between a company and a potential employee. [Surprisingly, all four of them are women.] Friday, after playing phone tag for a week, I finally got in touch with a recruiter I hadn't been working with yet but applied to a job he'd listed. He talked my ear off for 20 minutes, a miserable 20 minutes at that! At the end of the call, I felt this sense of exhaustion and disgust. When I went to sleep later that night, I couldn't escape the feeling I should cancel my in-person meeting with the guy scheduled for today. I finally sent an email last night, forwarning him apologetically that I would not be working with him further. No response yet today...
However, I got the nicest reply from one of the creative staffing recruiters I've been working with. I'd sent her my updated resume and a simple email saying if anything jumped out based on it, she should let me know. She replied, with lots of exclamation marks, a thank you and that she absolutely would. She also added that things will pick up after the holiday, and wished me an "awesome" one. Her reply was nice, genuine, and kind. I thought about our first phone call, she was my favorite of all the recruiters I'm working with from the get-go.
Her email got me thinking about these two professional interactions, trying to figure out why they struck me so. The juxtaposition led me to note a disparity in genuineness between the two people. The guy I spoke with was cocky, and smarmy, and just plain annoying. I immediately didn't trust him or feel like he would work to get me in the best fit for me, in spite of his claiming he would. The woman on the other hand (no emphasis on gender, just for differentiation's sake) was genuine in all of my interactions with her, and that makes me absolutely want to work with her.
I recently wrote some thoughts on the influence and ubiquity of social media on our ability to be real, or rather our tendency toward the contrived. It's been on my mind a lot lately. I've never seen the point in letting others' expectations or really any sense of pride determine how I live. There are obvious exceptions, but I think too often we all fall prey to living the way someone else wants us to, instead of authentically. I think the male recruiter might not actually be an annoying, egotistical person. He seemed concerned with proving himself, though I don't know to who because that's not even close to the point of being a recruiter. Granted, I can be the queen of a big talk - if you've ever driven with me, you already know that - but I have to keep myself in check. I don't want that to influence whether someone can trust me. I don't want to so filter my words or alter my portrayal of myself that I'm seen as untrustworthy.
I think that's the reason being genuine is important to me: it affects trust and speaks to integrity. The level of trustworthiness sets the limit for how deep the relationship can go. In twenty minutes of talking to someone, their disingenuousness could lead another to distrust them and their inauthenticity imply a lack of integrity. Or in a simple email, someone can make you feel completely at ease.
To some extent, vulnerability plays in, too. The person who isn't perfect but isn't afraid of that fact will more often earn my trust. Yes there's wisdom in discretion, but also value in honesty. Maybe the more we lead with our true selves, the more our opportunities for connection and all else will be successful.
