Kimberly Roden is a senior level HR generalist with 20 years of experience.  Kimberly is looking for a new opportunity – it doesn’t necessarily need to be a full blown HR generalist role – it just needs to be a role that can solve problems and work with humans.  Kimberly will be on HR Happy Hour on Thursday April 8 talking about best practices when you’re a one-person HR shop.

Kimberly, tell us a little about your favorite job you’ve ever had.

The best position I ever had was with an entrepreneurial organization called AND1.  It was a young company that moved fast.  There weren’t formal training programs; it was a “sink or swim” environment.  Everyone who was hired knew what they were hired for and what the mission was:  “To be the #1 Basketball Company in the World.”  It was defined every single day from the attitudes of the team and the leaders. The down side to that is that I have no hard metrics of my work (in print) on my resume because we were too busy!

It did come with challenges – due to the lack of real life corporate experience from the employees as well as some of the leadership.  For many of the employees, it was their first job out of school.  It made it great for them but not so great because it wasn’t the real world.  You can’t have a “first job” like that and not have high expectations of Corporate America.  <sigh> As for me, I knew it was Nirvana and enjoyed every minute of it.  The company sold and I’ve never been the same.  I even took a break from Corporate America and started my own pet sitting & dog walking gig for a few years.  I was grieving.

When we spoke, I loved that you had so many examples of real-life experience that you can only get with front-line HR. Can you tell us a few of your most vivid work experiences?

Oh wow… there are so many, really.  HRCI, eat your heart out… you can’t teach this stuff in a book!  A few of the ones that really stand out throughout the years are when I administered CPR for what was thought to be a potential drug overdose or drug reaction by an employee.  Another early morning, I walked into a senior executive’s office only to find him and his “date” sleeping under his desk – from the previous night.  By far, the most memorable one was being in a termination meeting and during the explanation of the termination, the distraught employee pulled out a firearm.  Yes, I AM employee relations!

I also really liked that you are much more focused on doing the work than on theory. Tell us a little about that.

I’m a real person.  I don’t hide behind fancy words or consultant-speak.  I can walk the walk and do it professionally.  I’m an uber-professional!  I get along with everyone but I’m not loud about it – I have a saying that I believe in, “You don’t have to explain what others can see for themselves.”  You see it’s all about what folks observe when they’re watching you work – how you work and how you treat others.  What managers and leaders don’t get is that you can’t preach the way you want others to be treated and then not do it yourself.  People aren’t stupid, they don’t miss that.  But, it happens every single day and no one tells them.

If you want to talk about employee engagement and why it isn’t happening, start at the top.  The real challenge is TELLING the person at the top that they’re the problem.  That rarely occurs, so the cycle continues.  So for the folks who call themselves experts, gurus, ninjas and whatever other term du jour they call themselves – you can analyze until the cows come home but action is the only thing that makes change.  I know change – it’s the only thing that stays the same.

You are on Twitter and Facebook and you have a pretty thorough LinkedIn presence. Has any of that helped you with your search?

I’ve met some great recruiters on Twitter and have learned a lot.  LinkedIn has been the strongest source of job leads – the posted jobs.  I’m getting the feeling that recruiters are under a lot of pressure and they’re busy.  Yea, that’s it – it must be.  I’ve had phone screens by at least a dozen recruiters for real positions.  The problem is after the screen, they fall off the planet.

Locally, what has been the best source of leads for your search?

I belong to an HR networking group in Princeton, NJ.  There are requirements to belong in that group and one of them is that the members must have at least 10 years of experience.  So, when we share leads, they’re good ones.  Some of them may be redundant since we’re located in the same geographical area, but still good leads.

What have you learned during this search that you might use when you get back to work?

Well, it has really reinforced how I will continue to treat humans and how I will continue to practice empathy – in every way.  It’s no secret that being in a job search and being “in transition” is stressful.  Empathy is a powerful trait that many professionals don’t have.  Recently, I’m convinced that not everyone is even capable of being empathic.  It’s not wrong, just different.  When you have empathy, you don’t judge and you don’t pity – you understand. When you have that ability, you can be far more useful to every human being you come across in life.

Anything else you’d care to share?

Yes, actually!  As I mentioned, I’ve had my share of phone interviews during my search.  Of the two face to face interviews I had, one resulted in an offer to which I turned down for many reasons.  The other would have been an offer but the job level was restructured to a junior level position due to budget restraints.  It is difficult to “shine” over the phone and I’m not an online “rock star.”  When you meet me, you’ll love me!