Pulling Passions Together

By Amy Evans

We all hear things like, find your passion and work in that area, and you won’t ever work a day in your life!  It sounds great, but at the end of the day, work is work.  However, as I was preparing this website and trying to show parts of who I am, in addition to what I do professionally I realized how woven together my passions really are for the first time.

In the midst of candidate searches, pulling this website together and attending various author events; a thought begins to develop.  It occurs to me how intertwined my work and hobbies are, at least one of my hobbies. I have always enjoyed reading and have become more entrenched in the southern writers community here in the Atlanta area, particularly over the past several years, partly due to my book club.  I suddenly see how integrated reading and recruiting are for me.

My approach in recruitment is to get to know the company, the real needs of the client and the candidates I am working with. My questions and interests in the candidate, the company, the types of work the candidate likes to do and what success looks like are similar to getting engaged in a good novel. The setting, the plot and the character development are all critical in how you capture your audience and transcend them to another place and time.

I never really thought about the correlation of these two areas, but it makes sense that a life long learner and a recruiter who is really looking for the right fit for both the candidate and the client company have correlations. The ability to look at the culture of the company, the stage of the business lifecycle, the candidate’s personality and prior history are all aspects to evaluate.

Some candidates thrive in smaller more agile companies, while others have the patience for a larger company that moves at a different pace.  There are many pieces that need to fit together.  It is not about how many placements one makes, but making the right placement that benefits the candidate’s career goals and the companies’ longer-term view of success. The puzzles of finding the right person for the right role in the right position are as deep and rich as many of the characters I read in a wide array of genres.

I would be interested in hearing from you and how you are pulling your passions together. Have you ever thought about this? Is this something you are already doing, but it just came together or is something you hope to embark upon in the future?  

Have you thought of where and how your passions blend? Is there a way to bring them together that you are not doing today? As I reflect, it is no wonder that my book club is growing and thriving when many people think of book reading and discussion as a dying art. The good news, is as you really search out there, there are many readers, albeit in many forms print, kindle and audible.  However, the various forms allow more to enjoy the art.  I have books going in the car, by my bedside table and around my office.  Similar to the continual thoughts in my head around various candidates and client’s needs.