Not at all what is seems

After only two weeks on the job at Google, I gladly terminated my contract assignment. Like most people, I was drawn to Google by the hype. The never ending saturation in the media, the aggressive approach to recruiting and the "we are the best and brightest" hoopla that permeates from the Mountain View headquarters like Microsoft of old. Walking into the lobby on my first day was akin to boarding the starship Enterprise. My feelings of having joined the hottest company in the world quickly fizzled.

I joined Google to lead staffing programs as part of the Recruiting Recruiters Team. This was a very small group faced with the daunting task of bringing on board every recruiter they could find that had a credit score of 750, an MBA and the intestinal fortitude to be subservient to a process that defies logic. On my first day I was introduced to the team, given my Google bag of goodies, walked to my cube and given the task of reviewing the competitions career pages for ideas. Mindless work, but this gave me the opportunity to settle in and get comfortable with the balls in my cube and the lava lamps.

Around the middle of my first week the Recruiter that had brought me on board approached me to say there was a problem. The background investigation revealed an issue with a title on my resume. Simple enough I explained, my working title was different than the HRIS classification. For the sake of clarity about my role, at said company, I chose to use a working title on my resume. However, I did not give myself a promotion and was not misleading about my responsibilities. The Recruiter confirmed that this was the case as verified by my references. The issue, as the Recruiter described, was that the Team was concerned about the discrepancy. The Team had all reviewed the background check and raised a flag of concern holding the Recruiter accountable to approach me for an explanation. I was stunned at first. I very quickly grew offended and violated. To think that the team of people that I would be working with everyday, leading in some cases, had openly passed around my most personal of information was mind numbing. The Recruiter let me know that this had a dulling effect on my reputation and would be viewed very badly by the senior staffing leadership. That said, I scheduled time to speak with senior leadership and was told that it would not have an effect on potential opportunities for me. I walked away feeling like my days were numbered. In hindsight they were.