Eight Months in IT Recruitment
Feelings into words
It is hard to believe that more than eight months have passed since I kicked off the first job in my career as an IT recruiter. After devoting tons of my time to reading academic papers, doing breakeven analysis, and dealing with statistics, becoming a recruiter was not the “ideal” I had imagined in my perfect little world. My mind was encrypted in a way that “The more I deal with the numbers, the better; The thicker the books I read, the fancier”. I always talked about how important it was to question my beliefs and update them. However, I was sneakily hanging onto the fundamentals that I had created myself and my family had crafted in my mind. There is a long story behind why I decided on this path which will not be the focus of this story.
The feeling of walking into the office fresh out of the university lecture hall was so embracing for me that I wanted to keep it in my mind as clear as possible. Because that is, one of the few precious “firsts” in one’s life. Many of my friends have started their first job at the same time, all working for major international companies in Japan. We had the luxury to compare various industries, business objectives, and most importantly company cultures. The one thing I have seen in my job was a great deal of freedom!
I was provided all the training and resources to do my job, which was “Changing people’s lives in a great way”. Every day, by literally crossing into their life path without a knock, with just one click of a mouse, I was impacting individuals, couples, and families. Throughout the journey, I have made 999 calls 263 meetings with many wonderful, intelligent, kind, and inspiring individuals. It is my great pleasure to talk with men and women who are literally creating the future ahead of us. Most importantly, I got to hear their stories, career progressions, and sometimes their private life as well. There are several big takeaways I can’t help but share with others.
What you accept, will continue
Our mindset and our happiness are all about acceptance. In a perfect world, we are satisfied with who we are today, what we have, and what we do every day. But, we are greedy creatures always seeking changes and improvements, something to light spark in our chests. To discontinue our imperfections, there is no way but to make alterations. Alterations that come with courage, hard work, and discipline.
I met many great individuals who have found spark and joy in their work. Already successful, well-known, healthy, family-settled, reached financial freedom; all the boxes checked. Especially, in this rapidly evolving industry of IT, stagnation starts to close doors for future options. I was amazed to see how every single person I met was keen on exploring, learning, and expanding their world. No one was ready to accept who they are today, their ideals were in the future where they imagine themselves as more educated, experienced, and upgraded. My workday is like a TEDx event full of motivational speeches.
One of my candidates, quit a great job at a huge company two weeks after joining, because he did not like the attitude of the manager. I got motivated by these opinionated individuals who know themselves, know what is good and what is bad for them, and take action to alter the situation that can never be accepted and continued. ( Surely, we found him x100 times better job). It made me question myself “ What is there in my life that I can not accept now? What is there in my life which is the root cause of something that I can not accept in the future?”.
Side Hustle
The most efficient escape with such a great pleasure.
Recently, I am realizing the worth and necessity of side-hustle in our life. The most efficient escape with such a great pleasure. Among the IT engineers I met, there is a book writer, rock artist, photographer, painter, bodybuilder, world-traveler and you can not even imagine! Having a side-hustle or just a great hobby is such a great escape from reality when life is not sweet like honey. I recognized the difference between doing things and mastering things. Mastery requires devotion and effort which do not always come with ease. Fitting just an hour block of time in between the tight work schedules seems easy, but it hits hard after a 10–12 hour workday. It may be just 60 minutes but giving it a “high priority” really changed people’s lives. That priority is the discriminating factor between people who master things and who do things.
Not only the candidates, many people I have met in the past eight months, were so attractive and so sexy just because their life was so rich and neutralized with so many passions and sources of satisfaction they created for themselves. I always wonder what was the deciding moment or turning point in their life to pick up an additional activity that widens their whole world, maybe throughout their whole life.
The Power of Thank You!
During my university years, I worked in a convenience store for 4 years. Considering the culture of Japanese customer service, I used to say “thank you” at least 1000 times in one day with a slight bow. I thanked children, students, my own friends, drunk guys, and rude racist people.
My job now allows me to be on the receiver side. I don’t receive just a “Thank you” word, I receive sincere appreciation from people I genuinely wanted to support. People who were missing just a piece of information to bloom their career. Mothers who were struggling to come back to work being punished by giving birth to a beautiful baby girl. Passionate new graduates who could not even imagine that their first job would be an Apple employee. Extremely skilled developers who have a passion to make diabetes curable using IT. Ukrainian people who are mentally suffering and need support to keep their careers stable regardless of mental and political challenges. I am thankful to receive appreciation from these people. What is better in this life to have an impact on others’ lives in such a great way.
Wrapping up
I was mistaken and short-sighted. I was limiting my ideal life in such a tiny box made of biases toward academia giving such less value to human interactions, ability to impact people and bring value to the society just by building connections and being a career partner for the most awesome people in the world. It has been my sincere pleasure to learn about the life stories of hundreds of great individuals and to listen to their ambitious goals. I am looking forward to connecting with more people and crossing paths with many other great individuals.
Yours truly,
Nomin-Erdene Bayarmagnai
/2022.05.17/
