As a blonde, I have had my share of embarrassing moments. One of my "favorites" happened while I was working as the Finance Recruiter for Southwest Airlines. On this particular day, I was interviewing candidates for the Supervisor of Corporate Accounting position, along with two of our Finance Managers, Vicki Evertson and Rani Bhandari. I stepped out into the lobby to greet my next interviewee, and there was one person sitting there waiting for an interview. "Brian?" I asked. He said "Yes." Little did I know it was the wrong Brian.
I continued upstairs, where Vicki and Rani were waiting for us in a Finance conference room. The entire time, I chatted with Brian about Southwest, the weather, and other idle chit-chat. We walked into the conference room, and I introduced Brian to Vicki and Rani. Unfortunately for me, I was still on a first-name-only basis with Brian. We then began the interview. The first questions were general ones, like: "Why are you interested in working for Southwest?"
It wasn't until I got to a specific question about Brian's resume that I felt something wasn't quite right. "Tell me about your experience at Company X." A puzzled look came across Brian's face, and I could feel the heat rising on mine.
Rani (catching on much more quickly than I did) then asked, "Are you Brian Carroll?" No, Brian said, his last name was not Carroll. And he was here to interview for a completely different job...not the Supervisor of Revenue Accounting. Oops!
After walking this Brian back to the People Department lobby, I found Brian Carroll patiently waiting for me (he had run to the restroom when I came to pick him up the first time). I apologized profusely to both Brians; introduced Brian #1 to the other Recruiter who was waiting to interview him; explained where he had been--and why--for the past 15 minutes; and hastily brought the "right" Brian up to the Finance conference room where Vicki and Rani were still laughing at my mistake.
When I called Brian Carroll back for a second interview, he said, "Are you sure you have the right guy?" I knew immediately that he would be a great addition to the Southwest Family. Brian will celebrate his fifth anniversary with Southwest in April, and we absolutely love having him (and his Fun-LUVing attitude!) on the Southwest Team...and I am no longer in Recruiting!
