For the past two or three months, I’ve been trying to get Ted into the office to interview him correctly. But, with Ted, it’s always that he is just too busy to come. He has made three appointments with me and missed all three of them.

I placed Ted 10 years ago with, what was then, an up-and-coming software firm. It is now one of the country’s largest software firms. Ted’s performance has been really good on average and spectacular for a few years. For the past two years Ted has been calling every three or four months telling me how his commissions have gotten less and less and less for a higher and higher and higher quota. Every time he calls we make an appointment and every time, so far, he’s called to cancel. For two of the appointments, he called an hour or half hour before and said that he was just too busy and he couldn’t make it. The third time, he just plain missed the appointment. It’s no big deal to me, I deal with a couple hundred “active” candidates at a time and as many others as I have to recruit who are not actively looking.

About 18 months ago, Ted was committed to leaving the firm I placed him with. He did the same thing back then. He was always too busy to come in an interview with me. On top of that, since I had placed him before and he is an excellent performer, I did try to get him a number of interviews with different clients. We set an interview with one of my clients and at least 50% of the time, Ted would have to rearrange the interview because of his “busy” schedule. Sometimes I was able to do it, and sometimes I wasn’t. Ted turned out to be one of those people that every time you to speak with him, the sky is falling. He would call, and with a panic in his voice, he would claim, “Oh, my God… Something has come up… I have to talk to my boss… one of my clients called and I have to take care of it… I’m sick and I have to go to the doctor… my dog died… today is Tuesday and I’m in a panic, I just can’t interview.”

This kind of thing would go on to the point where I just quit trying to get Ted interviews. No big deal. Well, eventually Ted found a job. Sure enough, one year later Ted is calling me and telling me that he made a terrible mistake. The company he went to work for turned out to be a disaster for all kinds of reasons. He said that when he went to work for them they only interviewed him twice and he made a knee-jerk decision to go to work there. He claimed that he moved too fast without doing even reasonable due diligence. My first reaction was to think, “right…sure… I’m really sorry for him but that’s what happens to people like Ted, where everything is helter-skelter, every moment is a tragedy or an emergency. They then make quick, knee-jerk reactions and take a bad job.”

Well, I have a lot of empathy for Ted and, after all, he has been a performer so I enter the Twilight Zone (If you’re not old enough to remember this TV program, Google it) of “Lucy and the Football” and I decide that I’m going to try to help Ted find a job again. I overlooked the fact that he still can’t take the time to come see me even though we set up two more interviews that he misses. The first he missed because of a conference call he needed to be on and the second because he had an emergency at home.

So, we get lucky. A great opportunity comes along that fits Ted perfectly. Because the hiring managers are all over the country, we proceed to set up a number of telephone interviews. Before we begin the first one though, I explained to Ted what the problem has been for the last 18 months. I explained that he seems to be one of those people where everything in their life is a major ordeal. “Ted, you’re a drama queen! Every time we go to do this you come up with all kinds of excuses as to why you can’t make an interview. Everything in your life seems to be a mess. I have no idea how you are a top performer in what you do but working with you and for you is a train wreck. You miss appointments and everything seems to be an emergency. I can’t work this way. Now, Ted, I have a job and it doesn’t matter to me which candidate (from me) my client hires. If it’s you, great. But if it isn’t, I got lots of folks that would kill for this deal.” And Ted’s response, “Tony, you just don’t understand how difficult my life is blah… blah…blah.” It is a litany of all of the things going on in his life highlighted by the fact that he’s got a crummy job, working for people that just don’t understand. But he agrees to talk to the client. Great!

To streamline matters, I convince my client, the executive VP of sales, to bypass the initial screening interviews that the company normally requires with candidates and move to what is usually the third interview with him. Ted’s track record is so good, the EVP agrees. I get with Ted, find the times it would be good for him and set a telephone conversation with the EVP and Ted. “Dear Lord, please help Ted and the EVP hit it off.”

Well, guess what? Five minutes before the interview was to take place, Ted calls the EVP and leaves the message that an emergency has come up and that he needs to postpone the interview. Yes, being a rookie recruiter is really hard. The lessons don’t seem to come quickly enough. I feel like such a fool.

The EVP wanted to reschedule. I told him to forget it. I feel sorry for Ted. I can understand how he made the mistake of going to work for the folks he is now working for. He needs to find another recruiter.

Ted’s life is a mess because Ted is a mess. Pray for him. We all need to learn from him.

P.S. I’m sure that none of you reading this are like Ted. But you know someone who is, so please, feel free to pass it on to them.