Operation Hire Reina

On the eve of Rosh Hashana, I am feeling particularly grateful. I am alive. I have some fantastic friends and a really loving family. My red shoe collection is growing and I know how to manage my very curly hair. Olivia has two teeth! It is tomato season. I love living on my block. And in about 28 hours, I will have 10 people gathered around my dining room table for brisket and round challah. The new year is upon us...

Alas, the last three weeks have been very challenging. For a variety of reasons (some I have blogged about), I am feeling low on any sort of reserves for dealing with difficult situations, having trouble sleeping, and generally on edge (and uninspired to blog). But given this rough patch, there have been so many delightful things to keep me smiling (some of which I blogged about in my last post), and one of the main motivations is Operation Hire Reina.

I alluded to the staff cuts at my organization on W and CP, but knew I needed to devote a pretty significant chunk of airspace to this mega networking campaign. Here is a copy of the e-mail I sent to the SYRF network last week:

I am writing with some important staffing news from the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, and to ask for your help.

Due to substantial cuts in foundation funding, several positions have been eliminated from our national staff including the newly hired SYRF Program Coordinator. Although Reina Arai was only part of the SYRF team for six weeks, she made a significant impression and thoroughly proved herself as an excellent organizer, advocate, and savvy communicator. Reina is handling this very unfortunate news with her usual grace and professionalism.

I am writing to ask for your help as I assist Reina in her job search. If you know of openings in your office or at a partner agency, or, have suggestions of colleagues Reina can contact for informational interviews I hope you’ll pass them directly onto her by e-mail at AraiReina@gmail.com.

To download a copy of Reina’s resume, please click here. Please share this information with colleagues in the reproductive justice, youth advocacy, and progressive non-profit communities.

Thanks, in advance, for assisting this young leader in her search for a new professional home.

All the best,

Emily

So that's the story. In a very unfortunate turn of events, the new program coordinator I just hired to work in my department has been laid off. After the initial delivery of this news, some fried chicken at Georgia Browns, and a little crying, Reina and I teamed up to get her a new job. My Washington roots kicked in and I went into full networking mode.

We created a hash tag and tried to make #OperationHireReina a trending topic on Twitter. We put up a new page on the SYRF website and linked to it from the SYRF home page. We picked up the phone and called through our collective address books.

I thought I would illustrate our little campaign by the numbers. All are current as of this morning:

• 6,000: e-mails that went out launching Operation Hire Reina
• 347: downloads of Reina's resume from the SYRF website
• 14: networking meetings Reina has been on or scheduled in the last two weeks
• 9: jobs Reina has applied for since the campaign has launched
• 8: pieces of chart paper hanging in my office mapping out the campaign
• 3: times my Outlook crashed after trying to send the mail merge
• 1: e-mail from Reina's boyfriend thanking me for my help with the job search
• 1: call from our director of IT telling me I had also crashed the server

I didn't think twice about going out on a limb for Reina. I interviewed over 50 candidates for the SYRF Program Coordinator position and knew Reina was who we needed on our team as soon as we met. When many people would have been angry or resentful in the same situation, Reina has been grateful and graceful at every turn.

The silver lining to this whole situation? I’ve had the opportunity to meet Reina and can speak to all she will bring to her next job. When we talk about nurturing new leaders in the progressive community, this is the type of work we should be doing.

I am not worried about Reina finding a job. She is too qualified, positive, and fantastic not to be hired in the near future. I know this is so cheesy, but I really do feel honored that we've met and I can help her with her search. It is just unfortunate that our paths had to cross in such unfortunate circumstances.

To hear about this whole situation from Reina's perspective (and be wowed by her outlook on everything), visit her blog, Semper Gumby.

...and don't forget to participate in Operation Hire Reina! Now that my readership has grown to over 100 people, I hope we'll at least get a few offers for networking meetings in the comments section of this post.