2017 HBCU Careers Magazine

HBCU Careers Magazine

If the Culture Doesn’t Fit You Must Not Commit By: Keirsten A. Greggs

Everything and everyone told me NOT to accept the offer. One friend and previous employee of the company called to caution that I wouldn’t fit in there. Another friend called with a message from a recent escapee telling me that I was better off unemployed than working for those, and I quote, “bunch of b!%c*#@s”. I tucked the warnings away and decided that, if offered the position it would only be for a short time period until I could find something better. After all, I had two weeks before my current contract position ended and Christmas was right around the corner.

The phone screen with the hiring manager went so well that I started to give the opportunity some serious consideration. Maybe my experience with the B.O.Bs would be different from that of the seemingly disgruntled former employees. So I pressed on to the final step in the pre-offer process…meeting with the “Queen B”. They were “nice” enough to schedule my face to face interview at the butt-crack-of-dawn so that I could still make it to my current job at a reasonable time. Too bad the interview started 45 minutes late and the Queen didn’t even bother to talk to me. She did pop her head in the interview room to summon her minion though. During the year I joined the organization, the Turnover Rate for Talent Acquisition held steady at an alarming 100%. A select few lasted a year or more but the majority of recruiters only survived a few months to a year before calling it quits. One of my coworkers had a personal policy to not even speak to a new hire until they had worked at least 3 months. At “Going Away Happy Hours” the recently departed would welcome the newest member into the Escaped to Greener Pastures Club. Those of us who were still current employees who be met with pep talks to hang in there, or get out before you’re sucked in too deep. Stories were shared about how various people left the organization in a blaze of glory in an effort to get the rest of us to leave the dark side as well. The one who made a phone call, left for “lunch” and never returned. The one who burned sage in the office to expel the “evil forces” then quit when it didn’t work. The one who packed their personal belongings and left their badge in their workspace after everyone left the office. During a skip level meeting, the HR Leader compared us to factory workers and thought it was a compliment. In his defense, we were churning and burning offers, getting those butts in seats. Nothing against factory workers, but I didn’t sign up to work on an assembly line doing mind- numbing repetitive tasks…except, that’s exactly what I did. There was no respect for the TA function as a whole.

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