I need to vent.

I need to vent.

I got to make my first hire a few months ago. It was also the first time my organization implemented a more formal hiring process (hooray, start-up culture). When I discussed the process with my boss, he was emphatic that I would be leading it, and when I asked for specifics as to what he would like to see as part of this process, he offered no concrete suggestions beyond having me interview people, create a list of finalists, and then have my colleagues review their resumes and work samples and offer their feedback on the candidates. My boss implied that while my colleagues would review the resumes, I would get to make the final call as I'm the only person with my background and who has done the job I was hiring for. During this time, I made sure to share email updates with my colleagues (two other department heads) about how the interviews were going and the like, and each time invited my colleagues (my boss was copied on these emails) to share their thoughts about the process, and ask questions. At no time in the process did my colleagues respond with anything more than questions regarding when I would have a list of finalists to review.

On the day that the team met in person to review the resumes, my colleagues suddenly expressed their desire to want to be able to interview these candidates themselves. I had asked my boss before this meeting if he thought we would be making an offer to someone at the end of the meeting, and he had told me yes. When I said at the meeting, "You told me we'd be making an offer to someone today", he told me that I needed to let that go. In the end, they met virtually with my top pick, and we made an offer, and the person came on board.

Then like, three weeks later, I received a multi-paragraph email about how I'd acted inappropriately during the hiring process because I had been openly taken aback when my colleagues suddenly shared that they wanted to interview the finalists, etc.

I had a clean-up conversation with my boss where I expressed that I felt that communication and expectations around the process hadn't been clear and that I felt I had asked both him and my colleagues for their input along the way and that nobody had offered anything until the end. I went on to say that I felt that better communication was essential when implementing new processes like this to avoid these kinds of misunderstandings, and my boss asked, "What, so, this is my fault?". I went on to say that I felt that many people were at fault in this process (myself included) because we all could have communicated our expectations and ideas better.

Fast forward, the company is in the process of making another new hire in a new department. My boss has asked for my input several times on how to source candidates, share with my various networks, etc., but I was never asked to join the hiring committee. The committee is comprised of my boss and my two colleagues who participated in my hiring process. The updates that have been shared with the rest of the team regarding this new hire have been all about how well this group is collaborating in this process, etc.

Suffice it to say, rightly or wrongly, I'm annoyed by how things have played out. I feel kind of like I was the sacrificial lamb in implementing this new process when it wasn' t well defined, and now my colleagues are being celebrated for navigating a path that I helped to smooth through my blunder. I would be less bothered if my boss didn't send me an email reading me the riot act for essentially acting surprised when I was surprised.