Just when you wonder can things get any weirder, they do.
Today, we offer up a bizarre recruiting story that has been unfolding for the last two weeks in 140-character messages tweeted by a former Google engineer. Kelly Ellis started tweeting about feeling sexually harassed by her male colleagues during the years she worked at Google. She names names and calls out HR, saying it did nothing.
Why she decided to go public now, after leaving Google eight months ago, isn’t clear, but that also isn’t our story. It’s what happened after her tweets caught the attention of tech and news sites.
A tech recruiter sends her an email. Among it’s more remarkable declarations are these:
Any guy, unless he’s gay, who tells you he’s concerned about sexism in the workplace, wants to get in your pants…
As a startup recruiter, I’ve noticed how startup prefer men because they are more reliable in the long term … They won’t get pregnant or marry a partner more wealthy than they are and quit.
Since he signed his name (which you can find here), Ellis checks him out, confirms he is who he says he is, and then proceeds to tweet out the email, and provide a moment by moment account of the developing exchange with the guy. All this, of course, had the predictable effect of being read and retweeted multiple times, and getting written up in another round of online posts.
It’s so strange it reminds us of those long ago tweets by Justin Halpern that he turned into a book and eventually a TV show, $h*! My Dad Says. However, the moral of this story was best described by writer Holly Brockwell, “If you find yourself writing “sorry for being jackass” [sic] at the end of your email, don’t send the email.”
He’s Baaaackk
On a lighter note, is the PR announcement of the debut of EmployeeScreenIQ’s Partnership Newsletter. It also mentioned the firm had a new director of strategic alliances. His picture is there to the left.
He actually joined the company eight or nine months ago, but the title is new.
Sharp readers will notice we have not yet mentioned his name. That’s to give you a chance to guess. Those who have been around for a few years will have a better chance than any newcomers. Even better if you were looking for a Wisconsin score but Googled “cheezhead” ‘sted of “cheesehead.”
(Uh, folks, that was another hint.)
Give up? He’s the younger brother of Hank Hill.
OK, seriously, Joel Cheesman is EmployeeScreenIQ’s partnerships director, and for any recruiter alive and engaged for most of the last decade, his Cheezhead blog was must reading. His daily posts could be as acerbic as they were penetrating. A mixture of news and commentary, often in the same post, Cheezhead.com’s run came to an ironic end when it was sold to a job board that was part of the very industry that was most often the focus of its skewering.