A "job" as an administrator at a university

I've often wondered what some people actually do, in their jobs. Take, for example, someone with a title a title of "vice president of marketing and strategy" at a university. When this public university declares a financial crisis and announces they are $300 million in debt, what exactly was the "strategy?" Run the school into the ground? It's like these colleges are being run by crew members of the Exxon Valdez. College administrators wax poetic about their "strategies" and "visions." If they spend all their time being "thought leaders" how does a college end up being dissolved and taken over by another university? Whenever they talk about their "strategies," "missions," and other jargon, they are just covering up the fact that they don't do jack-squat in their jobs. They never taught a class or worked in student services. Then when there's a financial crisis, they say, "these things happen in business" - even when a university isn't a business - and they pretend that the people in charge had nothing to with the crisis. They should be ashamed of themselves.

College Administrators have B.S. jobs

Funny how when colleges and universities hire professors and staff the folks in charge of the hiring want candidates with degrees, credentials, experience, intangibles...the list goes one. Yet, these college administrator jobs don't require any real expertise in a certain area, and are often filled by the friend of another administrator, or for some sort of political or social reason. Like a Dean of the College of Professional Studies. at a university. That's a job you could have landed without any relevant experience or skills. Then when there's a financial emergency you could be involved in personnel decisions like layoffs of professors and staff, without any real knowledge of the situation. Basically you can be involved in ruining an organization and treating people like disposable objects without being qualified to make those decisions. You don't even have to be man enough to tell employees to their faces about the layoffs and why they're being done; just have HR send an email after hours.. Then a year later you can quit the job and move on. You get paid a lot of money to do nothing, other than mess up the lives of people who actually make a career out of helping students. But hey, that's the life of a college administrator.

** FREE TIPS FOR ORGANIZATIONS CONDUCTING LAYOFFS ***

** FREE TIPS FOR ORGANIZATIONS CONDUCTING LAYOFFS *** If you have a fancy title like "Acting President," "Vice President of Marketing & Strategy," "Vice President of Administration & Finance" or "Chief of Staff & University Counsel," before sending a layoff notice by email, be a man and tell employees to their faces what you are doing and why. Don't be a coward. This is also for women who have titles like "Acting Provost," and "Associate Vice President for Human Resources." To hide behind an email is cowardly. You call yourselves "leaders" - try behaving like one. Also, you might want to tell the directors of your offices if you're laying off their staff, instead of letting the affected employees tell them after the fact. If you have a title like Associate Vice President of Human Resources you should know better. If you're a Provost and overseeing that area, to not tell directors what you're doing, I guess that's just laziness.

A job interview at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken

I once went on an interview for a job at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey. For the first 30 minutes I sat in a chair in front of the practically empty desk of the Human Resources Director, an overweight middle aged man named James Nast.

I still wonder how weirdos like this James Nast guy get the top jobs, like director of human resources. Must have been close friends some other wacko higher in the food chain.

So I sit there and he rambles on about Stevens for a while, then gazes out the window in silence for a while.  Then he asks me if I have any questions. Um, what about asking me questions first?  Silly me, I thought they wanted to interview candidates for a job.

Then the Dean of Students walks in and sits down. He crosses his legs, and his pants slide up one of his legs, revealing a long ugly scar on his calf.  Maybe he’s trying to throw me off somehow, I think. Or maybe he’s just another weirdo.

Now the Dean rambles on about nonsense for a half hour. I’m thinking he may have dementia; he seems like his in his 60’s.  I’m just sitting there, wondering if there will ever be any questions on this interview.

When the old man stops talking and mumbling, Nast leans across his desk and asks me, “So how tall are you?”  I laugh and say, what is there is a height requirement for this job.  A few minutes later they say thanks for coming in. I don’t thank them, just say bye, and leave.

In retrospect I could have filed some sort of complaint with someone higher up, but didn’t want to waste the time or energy on a crappy college like Stevens Institute. Besides, it would not have accomplished anything. I’m sure the higher ups didn’t really care about me and my concerns.

Obviously it’s better that I didn’t get that job at Stevens.  People are small-minded..…never work with jerks!

A job interview at Goldman Sachs

I’m sure lots of people have had strange experiences while searching for and interviewing for jobs. People who do the recruiting and interviewing of job candidates often have funny stories to tell.

 

Sometimes I wonder though, if other people looking for a job have had anything similar to mine.

Once I went on an interview for a job as a college recruiter, with Goldman Sachs. This particular office was in lower Manhattan. The director of college recruiting was a guy named Mike. At the start of the interview he mused, “There’s mostly women working in college recruiting.” Hmm, maybe this gives me an edge, I thought. He didn’t ask me any questions though. He just rambled on for a couple of minutes about Goldman Sachs. Suddenly, he looked past me (his office was surrounded by windows). He stood up, grabbed a stack of what look to be like tickets to a game or concert wrapped with elastic bands, and raced out the door. I turned around, but he had already fled down one of the hallways, disappearing from sight.

So I sat there for a few minutes, wondering what I should do. Wait until he comes back? Leave now? It started to dawn on me that I wasn’t going to get this job even if I stayed, so I was about to go when a girl named Kim walked in.

“Mike had to go, but I’ll finish the interview,” she said brightly. Then she proceeded to talk a little about the job. She didn’t ask me any questions, or ask if I had any questions about th position. She did talk at length about the bars in the area and how everyone in the department liked to go out for drinks after work.

After a few minutes she stood up and held out her hand. “It was nice to meet you,” she said. For some reason I said thank you, nice to meet you too, instead of saying what I really felt, which was, why did you even bother to call me in….

I’ve thought that maybe they didn’t like the way I looked. If that’s the case, and I’m sure some interviewers consider that above all else (although they would never admit it), why not ask for a picture? A photograph with the resume on the back. It would save us all a lot of time and money. By looks, I mean beyond the blue suit/white shirt/red tie/polished shoes/clean shaven appearance.

Who knows. Maybe this isn’t as ridiculous as some others’ experiences. It feels like it was a waste of time and energy. On the other hand it’s given me something to write about, so maybe it wasn’t a total loss. Stay tuned for upcoming stories about job search…