Office 2010 Code blog i-love-this-company-i-really

I;ve been contemplating a lot tonight about why I really like my work and why I adore working for Microsoft. Yeah, call me cheesy, ########, or PR-ish … whatever you want, but at the end of the day, I genuinely do enjoy this company. Brainwashed? Maybe. But happy? Definitely.


As you can read from my biography, when I first joined Microsoft, I didn;t actually know what I wanted to be when I grew up. In fact, I still don;t. I sort of fell into recruiting as the result of a liberal arts education and the lack of clear direction in my career aspirations. That;s not to say I was aimless,Windows 7 Enterprise Key, but quite honestly, there aren;t of options for an English lit major not interested in teaching or grad school. In fact, I feel lucky to have gotten the employment I did.



There are a whole lot of reasons recruiters will tell you they delight in their jobs. Some really enjoy the senior account management aspect. I have to admit it;s very neat that I;ve had more exposure to executives at Microsoft than most employees ever will in their careers. Others appreciate the business skills it gives them … you get to play lots of roles as a recruiter: researcher, marketer, presenter, salesman, evaluator, mediator, negotiator, closer, etc. Many others delight in it for the broader Human Resources experience they can gain. A recruiter role can be an awesome springboard into other HR functions.



But those aren;t the reasons why I really like the profession. I love it because I get a chance to make a difference in people;s lives. I get no greater pleasure than matching the right person to the right occupation. If it were up to me, I;d sit in a room all day and just find the smartest people in the world and then do my darnest to find an open placement that matches their skills.



In recruiting, as with any service oriented organization, we talk a whole lot of about the customer. We have to make the customer happy. We have to improve the quality of service we provide to the customer. While we have two clear customer sets (the internal which is the hiring manager and the external which is the applicant), most of our energy seems focused on making the internal customer happy. And that;s something I;ve never completely understood.



True, without our internal customers, we;d have no business model. No one to provide a service to means no perform. But without our external customer, we have no product, no commodity,Office 2007 Standard, no value. I think a great deal of people get very wrapped up in the “we are Microsoft; of course, everyone wants to operate here” mentality. “If we post the occupation, they will come.” That;s complete BS. While less people probably need to be convinced of the value proposition in functioning for Microsoft than for some other companies, we can;t treat our external customers with any less respect than our internal customers. If we do, everything falls apart, and we have no “high quality” product to deliver.



So that;s where my passion lies. Sure, I care about what my internal customers want and need, but I guess I;ve always felt like someone needs to stick up for the external customer, and that;s why I;m here. That;s why a great deal of us are here.



Sometimes I get actually down about the operate I do. I have to admit – that;s happened to me recently. When you operate for such a large corporation that is reliant on many tedious processes to run, it;s hard not to feel beat down occasionally. I sometimes think I need to function somewhere where I can make a bigger difference.



Today, as I walked through the hallways of my building, I saw a poster (an MS recruiting advertisement, nonetheless) that said something to the effect of: “Want to make a difference? Try reaching a billion customers a day.” (Ok – that;s not verbatim,Office 2010 Code, so MS Staffing Marketing Managers,Office Professional Plus 2010, please correct me.) Yeah, I often feel defeated by the bureaucracy of the company and the fact I;m frequently fighting a losing battle, but heck, if I didn;t work for Microsoft, would anyone even have cared about this weblog in the first place? Probably not.



What I like about Microsoft is that I can make a profession here, although I have to admit it;s much, much harder to gain the proper career development skills you need when you are in a support role (me) as a opposed to a revenue role (product groups). That;s a broad generalization, but I see it play out everyday. Other Microsofties see my title and say, “Oh, she;s just a recruiter. All she knows how to do is search employment boards and interview candidates.” People forget about the range of exposure recruiters get across disciplines and across the company. But I;m not going to get on my soap box tonight … that;s another story.



So what I;m saying is that I sometimes don;t know if I;m in recruiting for the long-haul, but one thing I sincerely hope is that I;m with Microsoft for the long-haul. When I finally affect proper change in how my organization treats our external customers, then I know it will be time for me to move on, just like any very good super hero. I don;t know what I want to do next, but I;m comforted that there is another career for me within the walls of this same company when I;m ready to make that change.



Until then,Office Home And Business 2010 Key, I;ll just keep on blogging; keep on recruiting; keep on standing up for what I believe. Somebody has got to look out for the little guy.



gretchen