bunny tales

I am an arrogant racist classist pig! There, I got it out of my system. I know it is an embarrassment and a possible disappointment to my professors and mentors. Even I would give myself a good spanking.

This would be my second emotional outburst (if I can put it that way) I had in current job. I am thankful for every opportunity to learn and meet people, but I am very afraid that I have become evil being moved by the culture of corporate world.

Maybe I am just used to being exposed to a generally better off race and class of people. I was dealing with the placement of Japanese speaking and Korean Speaking candidates, in which the Japanese-speaking candidates are all graduates of local and Japanese universities, and the latter are mostly Korean natives. The candidates I dealt with (although a small fragment are a little lost and less impressive than others) are generally smart and skillful in their own way.

Although the use of English language during my interviews plays a role in my impression of the candidate, I would still say that my opinion of a candidate generally rests in their personality and attitude shown during our hour’s meeting.

(OK, I admit that bearing an opinion about someone based on their language skills place me at the shallow place, but due to my job, English IS the main language where my clients interview and communicate with the candidates. Even if they do not speak the Queen’s English or Classical Japanese, if their job requires that of them, having just good qualities and personality might not be sufficient.)

Generally, an educated person will be someone who is able to communicate themselves (in whatever form) showing their sincerity and interest to (in my job example) the job they are applying for. Even if they do not speak a language beautifully, actions such as being punctual, friendly, professional, well groomed and neatly dressed do tend to reflect the whole image (inside and out) of a person. The willingness to cooperate, learn, be humble, inquisitive can be reflected on the outside in forms of presentation, action, and speech. Maybe I am just asking too much.

Here comes my problem, I have been handling foreign language speaking positions of late and they include Thai, Indonesian, and Vietnamese speaking. Although it is not towards the majority of these candidates, but I do admit that I find it challenging to handle a small fraction of their cases. As a local who speak the mentioned language, they should be fluent to handle the job. As a foreigner on the other hand, looking for a job in a country apart from home means that what you offer should be at least compatible or more than what the locals of the host country can. Therefore, not only they should be fluent in their mother tongue (that should be natural) but having strengths in the lingua franca is important. This applies to their skills to. It is my ideal to be able to assist every candidate I encounter. However, it is not easy at all when there is nothing about the candidate that stands out or recommendable. All I can do is to deliberate with myself on searching for the good points that may interest the clients and try to give some suggestions to the candidate for better chances at interviews.

But who am I to say what works and what should be done? I want to be able to place as many candidates as possible, hoping that they would find the best job, develop and soar with achievements. However, I have a job to do where I have to ensure that my clients are satisfied and the honor of my company is not jeopardized. The reason why companies use recruitment agencies is because they do not want to waste their time and resources on candidates who are nothing close to what they have in mind. They are paying us to weed out the unsuitable and pre-screen the candidates before they interview them. We are paid to provide suitable and quality candidates. That is business.

Thus my mind and heart are tearing apart as I fret on what I should do. Staring at the forms and at our system, I really do not know on how to comment these candidates that will be used as references for consultants including myself to get a picture of the candidates in order to recommend them to our clients. Doing my job for now means that I have to be a nasty and mean person in the eyes of others, being discriminative and even arrogant… well, I would just have to be that pain in the neck.

Please, if any of you have any suggestions on what I should treat the situation, kindly advice. There is just so much I do not know.