SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This whole thing is giving me a mighty ick feeling after this morning. Allow me to get it off my chest and I think this group can understand the whole thing better than most.

As I've shared before, I'm quite fortunate to be in a senior level leadership position where I work. I've also mentioned before that I managed a team that is predominantly women and women from different backgrounds, countries and ages. It is a group that I would go to the mat for ad infinitum. Any who, one of the things that managing this many women, plus a lot of the work I've done here and through IC on empathy, I now see things a bit differently than I once did.

Long story short, I served as the interim head of a division from Sep 2022 to Mar 2023, when a boss was hired for me. I've only got to spend the last two months getting to know this guy and I really like him. He is close to retirement age, already coming in to this role in his mid 60s and has stepped in to be a great mentor and help. No complaints really, as my mentor with this company, who prior to this was my direct boss, he went out and hired someone who could in the short term be my mentor and get me ready when the day to go back and not be interim, but the long term head of the division comes around.

Recently, one of my managers came to me to tell me that her right hand gal in the department is moving back to Puerto Rico as her husband's Federal Government Job is sending them back there. Now, I was asked if I support her working remotely from PR, and knowing what I know about this woman and her work, I was all for it. We worked through the situation with legal and human resources and end of the story, this woman will be resigning from her job and we will convert her to a contractor doing the same job on a temporary basis, but we will be looking for a full-time replacement, as her job has a lot of remote elements, but not all of them can be done remotely, so we need to have someone local in the role.

So, why I'm feeling so ick today, since we had the meetings about this with Legal and HR last Friday, I didn't get a chance to talk to my boss and bring him up to speed on this situation until this morning. Later in the morning, he forwards me a resume, asking me to consider someone that he worked with previously. I open the resume and this is the same resume that he sent to myself and two other colleagues about a week or so ago. One colleague of mine with whom I'm close, he and I chuckled that this resume was A) in one of the default MS Word templates which itself is not an issue, but it does indicate we have an inexperienced job seeker and B) the candidate is a younger woman from Colombia originally (that isn't atypical in Miami/South Florida), but the thing we were laughing at was how she wrote English as a skill and had four words misspelled on her resume...Again, a person being bilingual is not uncommon and in fact, is really the standard for hiring around here. The role that we are hiring requires a number of years of technical expertise and preferably some relevant experience in doing the job as well as a lot of technical writing, so spelling errors on your resume isn't a good look and C) Looking at the dates on the resume, this young woman graduated college in 2022, so again, not a lot of experience. Suffice to say, this woman wouldn't qualify for the job, but I did as a courtesy, pass the resume along to my hiring manager. It wasn't 10 minutes before she came to my office and asked me if my boss was serious with this resume.

I explained to her manager that my boss shared this resume and was helping. She was the one who threw this out there, "I bet he was sleeping with her at his last job and wants to find a way to help her out!" I have to admit, this was a possibility that I had not considered at all. For context, my manager has been with the company for years, she is closer to my mother's age than mine, she has taught me a lot about being a leader, even though I'm almost 25 years her junior and her boss. She then proceeded to look up this candidates name on LinkedIn and later Instagram. Yep. My boss isn't recommending her to work here because of her years of experience and skills...that much is 100% sure.

I feel ick because this is a guy that I have really come to admire in the short couple of months I've known him. He seems to check off a lot of the boxes that I think are relevant for a mentor and as we've gotten to know each other, he has spoken quite highly about his plans to retire and of course his wife, whom is also Colombian. Not sure that is relevant, but I don't know how old his wife is, as there are strangely no photos of his wife in his office, but this really ick feeling came over me that if nothing else, a guy in his mid 60s shouldn't be looking to hire someone who is in her early 20s. Given that this is the second time in less that two weeks that he shared this resume with us as someone he highly recommends. He has shared other resumes of folks who have a lot of experience and would fit in our company, but this is the first one where it feels like ick, and it took a female colleague pointing out the "old boy club" and how "men" hire that forced me to look at this more critically. I think that ick feeling is because I now suspect that he has a wife that he has spoken to me about a number of times and how much he admires and loves her....and I can't help but get that thought out of my head with him sharing the resume of this young lady a couple of times now.

but this really ick feeling came over me that if nothing else, a guy in his mid 60s shouldn't be looking to hire someone who is in her early 20s.

With the context from the rest of your post I understand what you’re trying to say here, but on its face, if every older-middle-aged man had this mindset, no female recent college graduate would ever get hired at a company where the personnel in charge would fit that middle-aged married man profile, no?

Again, I get it within the context of the entire post. But that standalone statement, particularly the "if nothing else" part of the statement, sounds quite sexist and gives the impression of ALL young working women as little more than potential OW for a cheater.

It could also be a friend connection type thing maybe? (eg my friend's daughter needs a job - we had at least 3 rather crappy fresh out of law school hires in my otherwise extremely competitive/difficult to get a job law firm - who were relatives of a friend of one of the partners). In the case of two of them we would have NEVER hired them otherwise (and neither worked out particularly well). The other ended up doing fine even though severely under qualified initially.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 10:54 PM, Monday, June 5th]

Nothing should surprise me, but it would be a minority of 60 year + male cheaters with AP’s in their 20’s. A favour for a friend is more likely if the guy seems otherwise okay. Still not a good way to run a business, unless perhaps you are the owner.

[This message edited by straightup at 11:14 PM, Monday, June 5th]

If you have a decent working relationship with this guy, then let him know that you think she's not suited for the role but that you were interested in his reasons for putting her forward more than once (without insinuating any suspicions). Maybe she does have skills or qualifications that could be suitable for a different position. Or maybe she just happens to be someone's daughter or someone he knows through his wife that he's trying to help out.

If both the wife and the resume lady are Columbian, could it be possible they are trying to do a favor for a relative of his wife?

Hmmmm…….what strikes me is if they were close and personal, he would have fixed the mistakes on her resume.

A small update, him and I did meet and we talked about it. I expressed my concerns that he is asking us to consider her for a technical writing position that usually requires at least 5 years experience to even get an interview and yet she is practically fresh out of school and her resume has 4 words misspelled. He understood my concerns and told me that he was going to speak with her about revising her resume, because she apparently worked with him at the company he was with before coming here and she did all sorts of technical writing in English, but it is hard for me believe that given the nature of that type of work and the fact that this person couldn't spell "business" correctly on their resume.

I'm also glad to notice that I'm not alone in questioning this a bit, my peer who runs our engineering group also expressed similar concerns about this potential candidate, because as far a we can tell based on the resume, this candidate doesn't have any of the qualifications needed for a role with our teams.

I think if this were a family friend situation who is trying to help he wouldn't be trying to get her a job she's not qualified for. He would recognize she needs experience and send the resume for a job she might actually be able to get. Imo anyway....that being said I think it's more likely he's sending it for jobs she's under qualified for precisely for the reasons that OP had the ick.

I wonder how she got her first job at his prior company? She's 23... not a long time for anything. I was pretty clueless as a 23 year old doing technical reporting.

I get the impulse to help out former co-workers and taking your "A Team" with you when you move- it happens a lot. HOWEVER, she's only likely worked with him 2 years MAX.

And reworking a resume with spelling errors? Sheesh. If you're not capable of running a basic spell check in Word (especially on something as important as your RESUME), then you're not capable of quality technical writing. This kind of thing is learned at MINIMUM in HIGH SCHOOL. I understand there may be a language barrier, but there really isn't a culture barrier in the professional world. Professionals take resumes seriously and every college student knows how to run a spell checker.

I would not hire her. Shame on your boss.

I think if this were a family friend situation who is trying to help he wouldn't be trying to get her a job she's not qualified for. He would recognize she needs experience and send the resume for a job she might actually be able to get. Imo anyway....that being said I think it's more likely he's sending it for jobs she's under qualified for precisely for the reasons that OP had the ick.

I think you did a better job of explaining my issue with it than I did! Challenged maybe isn't the right word, but when I challenged him a bit on it, that is when he backtracked and said he was going to share the resume feedback with her, but the fact that she is practically fresh out of college, couldn't have worked with him very long and he is trying to get her a job kind of anywhere within our organization just is making my gut scream. If my manager, who would be the one hiring this position for her team, hadn't pointed out that from where she sits (the manager), this gal's top qualification is looking good in her Instagram bikini pictures, I don't think I would've even noticed, because I saw the spelling issues on the resume and mentally disqualified the candidate, it was her who went to LinkedIn and Instagram. There is something to be said for my complaints manager having 20+ years experience doing her job and as she said "I've worked with men who are pigs my whole career, so nothing surprises me and it wouldn't be the first time they tried that here."

I wonder how she got her first job at his prior company? She's 23... not a long time for anything. I was pretty clueless as a 23 year old doing technical reporting.

Without giving too much away, to work in my line of work, a college degree in the sciences is a minimum requirement and to be fair to the candidate, their resume and work experience (including an internship) does reflect experience in analytical laboratories, which from my years of experience is more than sufficient for hiring at an entry level role. So I guess I don't see it as a huge mystery that someone could hire her and she can work her way up, because honestly I started my career as a humble temporary chemist in a laboratory fresh out of college.

A little t/j:

Be careful looking at IG. LinkedIn is a business social app, but IG is her personal life. People have gotten in trouble, and I think it has some ethical issues, to look at her personal IG account. Yes it is public (and she should probably lock it down to friends) but what if you saw something about her political or religious views? Or her race or gender identity? Or just found her unattractive?

Her lack of appropriate skills and experience are totally legit reasons to pass on hiring her, but a young woman should be able to post bikini pics on her IG without worrying that it will hurt her chances at a job.

End of t/j.

A long time ago when I was in my early 30s a friend recommended a young woman for employment. She was a 19yo unwed mother who had dropped out of high school and was doing child care. As Project Manager had some latitude in hiring and had a clerical position that required a high school diploma or equivalent so I hired her and said she had to get her GED in 6 months or I would let her go.

She got her GED. She turned out to be very intelligent and very hard working. When I changed companies I hired her into another position and then when I changed employers again I arranged to hire her there as well. I was her mentor and knew she always had my back on anything.

We never slept together or anything remotely close to that and today she is very successful and living in a foreign country.

While the circumstances you describe do seem suspicious and are worth maintaining awareness on they are not definitive.

I was the recipient of a job offer I probably wasn't initially qualified for, in nearly the same way. In my mid 20's I worked for an older guy at a public institution on a grant basis. Before the grant ended, he found another permanent job. When the grant ended and I was out of a job, he re-wrote a position at his new job to include skills that I had gained in the previous position, even though those skills didn't really fall in line with SOP at the new institution (was an SSMS shop, not Oracle). I got the job and was there for 15+ years - 13 years longer than he was (he ended up being a sexist asshole who scared off all the good programmers.) I have since moved to another institution (thanks to the OW taking a position there many years later) and am the go-to for data/programming/etc.

I proved in my first job that I wasn't just a young, pretty face. I can learn anything, exhibit great communication skills, am personable, and a team player. I graduated with a BA in BS (AKA an English Literature degree) and have been a sought-after programmer/analyst for my entire career. Don't sell her short just because men* are ick. Yeah, sometimes looks get you in the door, but you still have to prove you have the skills to stay there.

I hope, for everyone's sake, he's only being typical old-man* skeezy, and not full-on cheater scum.

* "not all men"

While the circumstances you describe do seem suspicious and are worth maintaining awareness on they are not definitive.

Absolutely. This is why I will continue to monitor the situation, see if he shares with us an updated resume from this person.
The bottom line for me is that at least for the things that my organization handles (I have 8 direct reports and all told 33 people are in my reporting structure) and based off work history and educations, there is not a single job in my organization for which this candidate is even remotely close to meeting the bare minimum qualifications. This is also why after having the conversation with him that I'm curious to see if she sends him a different resume, because I can only go off what a person puts on their resume and my experience has told me that sometimes candidates don't do a good job of selling themselves, I should know, I've done it myself and it cost me opportunities. However, the reality of the situation is with any company, hiring managers can only go off resumes, because it is impossible to interview every candidate who applies for a job, so your resume has to make the right impression and I think it is 100% fair to say that this resume left me with the impression of "thanks, but no thanks".

Believe me, I get that not every job description has to be religiously followed and as someone who has hired/fired plenty of people through the years, I trust my gut and now as a senior director level leader I also trust my team on these sorts of matters. I've hired what I feel to be the best candidate for many jobs, regardless of the different demographics, and the track record I have speaks for itself on that front.

Thank you all for your perspectives and letting me vent this out. I mean, we are all here because infidelity brought us together, and sometimes we can see infidelity or possible infidelity when there is none, something I'm aware of, but can be forgotten sometimes in the moment. I genuinely hope that gut on this one was jumping the gun and that there is nothing there, because at the end of the day, the last thing the world needs are more Waywards and more importantly, Betrayeds.

there is not a single job in my organization for which this candidate is even remotely close to meeting the bare minimum qualifications

As someone who has done a lot of hiring, that would be enough for me.

I find this assumption very disappointing and misogynistic . We don’t need to catch the fancy of a perverted 60 yr old to get a job. I work with men that are truly professional and have gone above and beyond to recommend me solely on the basis of my capabilities. I got a ick feeling reading this post.

Hi Bor:

So I guess I don't see it as a huge mystery that someone could hire her and she can work her way up, because honestly I started my career as a humble temporary chemist in a laboratory fresh out of college.

This is clearly a possibility. I'd still question her abilities closely if the revised resume comes back and is still a bit lacking. I'm particularly sensitive to poor writing and communication skills as I do a lot of that for a living. In addition to being raised by an English Lit major who went into teaching kids how to read, I also have experience writing technical publications and quality documentation for a living. So... all that to say, I have high standards in my own work and may unfairly pass those on to others. Filters are everything, right? The lenses we see the world can often inaccurately color the way we perceive things.

AvoidanceIssues:

When I changed companies I hired her into another position and then when I changed employers again I arranged to hire her there as well. I was her mentor and knew she always had my back on anything.

I've experienced this too. When I was a quality manager over a plant, I had to hire a metallurgical tech to help run the lab. Our front desk lady recommended a young woman (19yo too) from her church. We interviewed her, and although she was very nervous and required a bit of reassurance before warming up in the interview, proved to be eager to learn and desirous of challenging work. I had the privilege of training her personally in metallurgical techniques and she proved to be the most reliable employee in our lab. Since then, I've sent her job postings, served as a letter of recommendation for her and in general, been cheering her on. And, the kicker was, she was 4 months pregnant with her 2nd child AND took maternity leave AND came back roaring on all cylinders. She's really quite remarkable person, overcoming all the challenges she's had to at such a young age and making a life for herself and being a single teenage mother. She's now married, has 4 kids (last I checked) and is still working in metallurgical labs.

TLDR: yes, taking a chance on a person can change their life and often I've learned that a rough exterior can hide a gem. HOWEVER, I had to trust my gut in all these cases (there were more I've encountered and encouraged).

So, Bor, IF her resume gets cleaned up, and IF she interviews well, maybe it's a case of a mild nostalgic attraction to a woman who reminds him of his wife as a younger woman and NOT a creepy old fart creeping on a young woman. You'll know when you meet her whether the capability, potential and substance is there. If it's not, then perhaps your original instinct was the correct one.