Send an email to your VP, copy your manager and the division head, and be PERFECTLY polite, factual, and professional – nothing more, nothing less – to the effect of, “I’m sorry you seem to have gotten the impression that I’ve made any hiring decisions yet. I haven’t at this point, and am still conducting interviews to have enough information to make sound judgements before making any such decisions. I just wanted to clear up any misunderstanding.”
You may or may not desire to close with acknowledging your VP’s glowing recommendation of the candidate, and expressing that it reflects favorably on his candidacy and/or you’re happy to hire him on the VP’s recommendation alone. Depends on if you feel the VP is someone who needs to be appeased to keep your job (if you still want it… consider that having a superior lie about you to another superior is a sign of a highly toxic environment, YMMV.)
I’ve only run across this kind of thing once (my manager lied about my performance to the manager of another department); but my lessons learned from that were that politely and privately responding to “correct the misunderstanding” will get you nowhere, and the lie was just the icing on the toxic cake. So when she refused to take responsibility for herself I quit.
This made the best sense. Either find another job posthaste, or welcome the little Ozzie turd with open arms, while giving him no real responsibility, and no real information. Trust him not at all, and carefully find out the nature of his relationship with the VP, while STILL discreetly (if it can be done without damaging your current job) shopping your resume around. Good luck.
That’s not a bad idea, but I would change the tone to make it less adversarial. Something like:
“Hey guys. I just wanted to see what the consensus was on filling the Underdrone role on my team. I’ve met Aussie Jim and my VP seems to like him. There is a significant relocation cost though, so before we move forward, I wanted to see if we are all ok with that or if I should continue interviewing other candidates.”
So what you are doing here is appearing to take a neutral position while doing your due diligence as a hiring manager. But in reality, you are making sure the Division Head is aware of what’s going on and also putting it back on senior management to make the decision.
Personally, I think the OP is making a mountain out of a molehill. I would assume the VP doesn’t need his permission to make a hire, as he is the VP. I mean why make an enemy of your boss’s boss?
Really changing jobs because of an uncomfortable political situation is silly. You don’t think they have office politics at your next job?
That’s not how H-1B visas work – there is generally no requirement to show that there are no qualified U.S. workers (you’re probably thinking of labor certification, which is the first step in the employment-based green card process for most professional jobs). However, there is an annual quota for H-1B visas; unless the employee is coming to work for a quota exempt organization (higher ed, certain nonprofit research organizations), that quota has been exhausted until the beginning of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1st. New H-1B petitions can be filed starting April 1 for start dates Oct. 1st or later, but the quota last year was oversubscribed by roughly a factor of 2 in the first week of filing.
There may be other available work visas, depending on the person’s qualifications, nationality, and whether they have been employed by a foreign related company for a year or more (E-3, L-1A/L-1B, E-2), but none of these are automatic or instantaneous and will likely cost a couple grand in legal fees alone. And a green card is also far from automatic. Not to mention U.S. employment for the girlfriend.
The other option is e-mailing just the VP and your manager, to correct any misinformation and make it clear you haven’t interviewed anyone else yet (or even finished interviewing Special Snowflake). Let the VP know you didn’t want to contradict him in front of the HOD, but didn’t want him to be caught with the wrong information either.
That way, you haven’t called out VP to his boss, but you’ve at least gone on record about what’s going on. Just in case that helps when things go south with Special Snowflake; when VP throws you under the bus for that you can at least point to the e-mail you’ve saved.
In fairness to OzGuy, you have no reason to believe that any of this actually happened. Your VP tells lies. You already know that. He could have made this whole thing up.
And you do need to make it clear to the division head where exactly you stand in all this. An email like the ones suggested would be good. ‘Just to clarify: while OzGuy seems like a good candidate, I haven’t had a chance to interview any others, and I don’t feel able to make a final judgment on OzGuy’s suitability for the job until we’ve interviewed him with the panel.’
Yeah… the last job I interviewed for went to seven interviews. Three phone, four in-person. Poor boo-boo… having to interview a second time for a job with a company he’s already working for…
Seriously, I don’t get why everyone is taking it for granted that OzGuy actually went over the OP’s head and that he’s actually a precious princess who can’t handle the stress of interviews. The OP only has the VP’s word for that. The VP lies. For all we know, OzGuy never did any such thing; the VP wants to impress his protege with how big his balls are, so he rang OzGuy and told him he could deliver the job just like that. Or whatever.
The OP’s manager has told him to hire the guy. The VP wants the new guy to be hired. The OP no longer has the option of making a final judgment. It’s a done deal.
The only question for the OP is how to live with the new situation.
In this situation, I would not put my objections to this process in writing, and would be very careful who I talked to about it. No matter how you chose to phrase it, the VP can chose to believe that you are publically calling him a liar, and retaliate as he sees fit.
You could make the new guy your new bestest buddy and maybe he’ll take you up the corporate ladder with him. Or not. At least until the VP gets canned, in which case, the new guy’s clout is gone and he may be out as well.
Here’s a thought - tie this guy to the VP. If he’s brilliant, the VP deserves credit. If not so brilliant, the VP deserves that also.
Get a copy of the email that claimed you love him.
Then add something like the following
I’d love to claim credit for this sterling candidate, but I must acknowledge that Bob the VP is really the person who found him and evaluated him. I accept his recommendation and am looking forward to working with him.
Make sure the division head gets a copy. The VP can’t object to this, since you are buttering him up, it connects the guy to the VP, and those who can read between the lines will see that the VP lied.
If you want to strengthen it you can say that you don’t really have an opinion about him yet, but since the VP has more background with the candidate you will accept his.
The reaction to this mail will depend strongly on the politics between the high level muckety mucks. If the division head and the VP will get along, nothing will happen. If the division head is pissed at the VP, this might cause a reaction.
But be positive.
Disagree with sending an email that refutes what VP said to head of dept. It comes off to me as OP positioning to distance himself from the new hire.
If this were me I would share exactly the OP’s concerns. I would request a sit-down with manager and VP and communicate those concerns.
The person will work with OP, not VP. He’s one interview deep in the hiring process and already going over your head. Speaking of the that, does your company define an interview process? If so, and your proposal follows it, call that to VP’s attention. If there is no formal interview process policy, they need one.
If manager and VP are aligned and adamant about hiring this person, is it a big enough deal to take it up with dept. head? Will he take you seriously? If not, then maybe a note to dept. head similar to above would be a last resort.
Cause he did it over email. Which my VP helpfully left on the string, when he sent it along to me, telling me to hire.
Ozguy is individual contributor. He may well be crawling up my ass looking for my job in a year or two, but he’s got a ways to go before he gets there.
VP is the dept head. Only place to go from there is the head of division, then the CEO.
I have a meeting with the VP later this week. I will be expressing my concerns about the hiring process, and about this candidate using his “mentor/mentee” relationship to circumvent the normal management process. This may or may not be career limiting. I intend to be up front and candid, but non-emotional about it. It will hard for my team to succeed if we don’t have “A” players, we all want the best for the company, etc. The revenue number on my team is only slightly south of half a billion (with a B). We all want this to work.
And I’ll start networking just to be practical about things.
