Once upon a time I interviewed with Bloomberg. I had been sent in by a recruiter and was in the middle of being transferred from one interview room to another when low and behold I ran into a former colleague.
She was so excited to see me she ran up and gave me a hug (professionalism rules!) before a rather stunned HR person and the HR person's shadow-for-the-day. "What you are doing here?" my former colleague asked. "Interviewing," I said, completely unable to keep the grin from my face.
Come on. How can you keep a straight face when someone comes up and hugs you during an interview.
My former colleague turned to the HR person and exclaimed, "You've GOT to hire, Wayne. He's great!" It is one of the topmost, unexpected recommendations I have ever gotten.
Fast forward to nine years later. Nine years. That is a long time. Excuse me while I wrap my brain around that. Okay, brain wrapped around that.
I was coming up the escalator when I saw two familiar faces. My former physical therapists Rob and Rick (not their real names). Having a former physical therapist is GREAT, since they are not exactly people you really want to spend too much time with.
"What the heck are you doing here?" I couldn't help but smile at seeing two. Rob and Rick had put me through a tremendous amount of pain rehabbing me after my labrum surgery and has also rehabbed Danielle through a nasty ankle sprain.
That is correct. I like them so much I referred my wife to them.
"Trying to become a preferred specialist to you guys," Rob said. The company I work for offers a tremendous amount of preferred specialists - which is a fancy way of saying, People that have been vetted and recommended.
We caught up quickly. Rob had his third kid. He congratulated myself on the arrival of Sienna. As quickly as we talked the HR person receiving Rob and Rick arrived, so I took my leave.
Not before I jotted off a quick email to her (it can be awkward sometimes to do it in person as some HR reps can be prickly) that I give Rob and Rick my highest recommendations and that if I had know ahead of time I would have given her a heads up about them.
One never really knows if these comments or emails ever REALLY matter. Though the HR person thanked me for taking the time to email her, and later I emailed Rick and Rob to let them know. Rick got back to me and apparently it DID make a difference.
There is no reward in it for me. Rick and Rob are good guys - they were recommended to me and I passed the recommendation along. They do their job well. Though it certainly didn't hurt that I spoke up, err emailed them.
It might have been awesome if I hugged them good bye though. A least as far as a conversation piece went.
Wayne
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