As many of you know, Amanda has left Computing Science. Amanda was the manager of the recruitment, advising, and promotions team (and other stuff). Since I’m the undergrad director, and interested in recruiting, we always worked closely together.
She has moved on, and is now the Manager of International Recruitment and Partnerships. Good job. Leaves us with a big hole to fill. Unfortunately, it also causes a lot of work for me.
First of all, somebody has to lead the team while the position is vacant. This is one of those situations where I looked to the left, looked to the right, and realized everybody was looking at me. Annoyingly, I am unique in that (1) I know all the parts of our admissions/recruiting activities, (2) as undergrad director, I can do the strategic decision making, (3) I don’t want the job, so I’ll happily give up all of the responsibilities when a replacement is hired, and (4) it can be argued that I have the time to actually do it.
So, I suddenly find myself the unofficial supervisor of something like eight people. Fortunately, the team is pretty good, and doesn’t actually need much guidance. I’m hoping that their “supervision” will consist primarily of occasionally asking “is everything going okay?” and making sure nobody else meddles with the team dynamic.
Of course, we have to hire a replacement. Since I’m the one that dealt most closely with the position, I’m doing a bunch of legwork on that. The job description has to be revised, and the job’s pay grade reevaluated. HR is resistant to upping the pay grade for some reason, but we really need to bump the pay to get decent applicants. All of this is very bureaucratic and a little painful.
Basically, if I never have to talk to HR again, I’ll be fine with that. Overall, it’s probably good experience for me. Amanda still owes me, and revenge will be mine.