Shit, I’ve Had To Hire Someone. What Am I Supposed To Do?

At work, I have a lot of responsibilities as the one man IT department—both in terms of what the office expects of me and what I see needs to be done. Given that I have to do all of this, the office has a bus factor of one meaning that if something were to happen to me, they’d be in big trouble. To fix this, they’re letting me hire a graduate trainee (intern) to help with IT stuff. Here’s how it went.

Disorganized Pieces of Advice on Hiring

• Please proofread your resume. I wasn’t swamped with resumes so I didn’t decide based on this, but the odd misspelling or mentioning the wrong company in the objective can aggravate the wrong recruiter.
• Do read about the company before the interview and be prepared to ask questions about it. Yes, we like to be flattered, but curiosity about a company looks good in an interview. It’s also good for you to see if it’s a sector if worth it.
• Some red flags have reasonable explanations. For some reason they put college transcripts on their CVs, and they featured some trash grades. I’d ask about getting two Fs in a semester and I’d be told that they were sick. Fair enough, don’t be too quick to assume.
• If it’s on your resume, I’ll as you about it. Don’t be shocked that I’m asking about the stuff you mentioned in your CV. If you don’t want me to bring it up, don’t put it in your CV.
• Hire quickly. There’s no need to drag the process longer than it should be. Get your shit together and make sure the process is done quickly. I get that things get busy, but try to make time for it, ok?

That’s Our Hitler!

We were really impressed with the final candidate we interviewed. Though they came late, they were articulate and showed a lot of initiative to learn having listed many courses outside their studies.

As the interview was over and they walked out, we pretty much went that’s our Hitler, much like how Wilson in House M.D reacted to a job candidate who could match House’s banter¹. I was willing to let them start the very next day even.

Sadly, the HR director had to ruin the fun. Yes, the candidate was really good. Thing is, hiring is a two way street so they could refuse our “generous” offer. If that happened, it was important that we had a second choice. Honestly, I wanted more candidates but ultimately they’re students so they’ll be learning on the job anyway. After spending more time that we should have, the candidate eventually started at the begining of February.

Shit, How Do I Manage?

It’s been about a week and it’s okay I guess. There’s a lot of other shit to do so I couldn’t do much with them, but we have a year so no rush. So far I’ve had them shadow other people in the office to get an appreciation of what they do. I also made them do things that I was supposed to do but never got around to. I did do some system’s training however and we had an interesting discussion on security. I’m also making them write up what they did in a particular day so I can give it back to them so they can build a good CV once we’re done. Maybe I should do it too?

I just have two issues so far:

1. The expectation is that the assistant should be a 2IC―a second in command who can take over where something to happen to me. Given all I do, that’s a lot to teach. On top of that, I’m wondering if it isn’t too much responsibility for a university student. Then again, it’s a good time to document all the things I do. Also, they can legitimatley lighten my load which is a plus. I hope to reach a point where I spend half my days fucking around instead of being all hands on deck.
2. The student is really into cybersecurity which isn’t my stong suite. They mentioned it a lot on their resume but once they started working, I discovered that they play around with hack boxes and does capture-the-flag events. I’m worried that I won’t be able to give them the cybersecurity experience they really need. Maybe it’s a good time to take it seriously?

All the same, I’m glad to have them and I hope to use this as an oppurtunity to improve my processes as well as leadership skills.