We have our first guest writer on Crastinate.com. Due to the sensitivity of the information being provided all names, including that of the post author, have been changed. Or as the guest author, Brad, put it, “names have been changed to protect the innocent…and the stupid.”

As one of the VP’s in a small company, I wear a few hats. One of which is human resources – I don’t always do the hiring, but I’m responsible for getting the job description into the right place and whittling the onslaught of resumes down to a manageable number.

Meet the players
“Arthur” is a sales manager who’s being replaced. He likes to travel and eat out on the company’s dime, and blame everyone else when the deal falls through.

“Nick” is the former VP of sales – he’s been demoted due to poor performance, some of which probably isn’t his fault and is a symptom of the economy.

“Anne” is the new VP of Sales – she’s a former sales manager who has an incredible work ethic and kept her numbers up even in a down economy. She’s also divorced, practically lives in the office, and probably hasn’t dated in years.

So it was my duty to draft a job description for Arthur’s replacement, and place it where it will get maximum exposure but not anywhere where Arthur might see it (how am I supposed to know where that is?). Once we find New Arthur, he can seemlessly take over Old Arthur’s few but lucrative accounts, and the transition will be perfect.

I decided to post the job on a specific industry group’s page on LinkedIn.  I knew that Arthur wasn’t on LinkedIn, so I was pretty safe. Within 5 minutes I had a response from John, who was geographically undesirable but otherwise perfect.

John worked until recently as the director of sales for one of our biggest competitors. He had the experience, knew the industry, and most importantly, had a network of buyers.   John emailed me his resume and cover letter, and suggested that we “speak immediately.”

I replied to John that the job was not in my department, but that I would give his resume to the VP of Sales and that if he did not hear from someone in a few days, feel free to follow up.

John apparently couldn’t wait – he searched LinkedIn for other employees of the company, and found Nick, who was still listed on the site as VP of Sales.  He emailed Nick his resume and shpiel – “please consider me for the position, here’s my resume, let’s talk immediately.”

Nick got into a panic and started accusing everyone of trying to replace him – remember, he just got demoted and he’s kind of paranoid already. Thank goodness Arthur was out of the office, or he definitely would have gotten wind of what was going on.

John’s aggressiveness cost him the interview, and potentially the job. We had no other prospects for the position and it very well could have been his. I understand that it’s tempting to use social networks to go direct to the source, but here’s a case where it had the exact opposite of the desired result.

“Brad”

Well, I think we can all learn a valuable lesson from Brad’s story. The new world of social networking doesn’t give you permission to be rude, inconsiderate, or annoying. If anything, you have to be even more careful not to bother people. Aggressiveness is fine but this guy took it a bit too far and potentially lost a good job because of it.

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