Katherine D.

I'M DOING ANOTHER CRAZY THING.
A lot of you guys are starting LinkedIn coffee chats in your city and tagging me in the posts. I love it. Connect with people! I promise you won't regret it. In 2018, I'm taking it a step further and I've been inspired by a sophomore at UW.

While I'm no longer in university recruiting, I naturally have a heart for helping students. Mostly because I remember being there, I had no idea what I was doing, I accepted the first place that would take me in Seattle, and didn't realize the impact my job would have on all aspects of my life.

As a student, it's hard to connect, reach out, be taken seriously, and feel like you are bringing some sort of value to the scary corporate world. The corporate world isn't that scary and I'm here to prove that it's filled with amazing people who would love to share about what they do, their day to day, their life experiences, their company culture and so on. You can learn a lot by just listening to others experiences. SO, if you are in the Seattle area and you are interested in a company, a certain field, want to meet someone, don't know how to strike up the conversation, LET ME CONNECT YOU. I'm up for grabbing coffee and am up for equipping you with the knowledge I didn't have. Tag people who might benefit.

Positivity of the day - my fiance stopped to help a random lady in the parking lot change her tire. No one was around to witness it. The woman came over to our house today because she’s into canning, has a garden, and wanted to say thank you. She brought over all of this delicious food and it completely made my day. It’s interesting to see what happens when you do something for someone else with absolutely no expectation of anything in return. The world has a way of giving you more than you could ever need or desire. I’m so excited to try out these jams, fresh produce, fresh dips, and think it’s a reminder small acts of kindness matter to people.

I was my biological parents 3rd unwanted pregnancy. The first 2 didn’t happen, I did. Selfishly, I am glad they didn’t have access to an abortion clinic because I don’t think I’d be here right now. I spent a few months in an orphanage and was eventually adopted by a family in the US that wanted a child. Going through with the pregnancy, giving me up, and giving me a chance at life - was the right choice in this instance.

With that being said … there are so many other scenarios that aren’t like mine. There are health risks with pregnancies, abortions aren’t always about whether you want a baby or not. Sometimes it’s literally life or death for the mother. I also can’t imagine carrying a child for 9 months if I was a victim of sexual assault. One thing I like is that the company I work for … supports BOTH sides. They provide adoption assistance, insane IVF benefits for those trying to conceive, AND will be providing assistance for those in states where access to an abortion isn’t an option.

At the end of the day, what a woman does with her body is HER choice. The choice isn’t always an easy one to make. It’s not black and white. It’s not something anyone else can decide. There’s also no way of knowing what could happen to you, someone you love, someone you know during a pregnancy. Having access to information, resources, and safe medical procedures is necessary.

I came out to my mom in a text message at 11pm after attending a Bible study. I was scared to wake up the next day, I wasn’t sure what she’d say, but I wanted her opinion. I didn’t want to live a double life, didn’t want to lie, and wanted to hear from her. When I think of someone who embodies Christ and is loving .. I think of my mom. \n\nI lucked out because I grew up in a split household where religion was never forced on me. I had a parent who attended church regularly, wanted me to be exposed to Christianity and another who wasn’t into organized religion. This made it easier for me to CHOOSE what I wanted for my life, what my faith looked like, and made coming out easier. Growing up in the south though .. I really had no idea. I grew up dating men, had a bf in hs, had a long term one in college and then stopped seriously dating men after that. I’d go on dates, but something was off. I wanted to be best friends, hike, hang out, talk but never wanted to go home at the end of the night. I saw my friends marry guys, obsess over them, and realized … I couldnt ever get there personally. When I visited Seattle, it was the first time I realized … you don’t have to marry a man if you don’t want to. You can explore and so I did that for 3 years. \n\nI dated women. Tried to date some men and made friends out of that. The best thing that came from trying to date men was getting really solid hiking buddies (I did The Enchantments / 23 miles in a day with a guy from Tinder - will never forget that😂) Most people assume that because I prefer women, am marrying a woman, I must be a lesbian. I never correct anyone, I don’t really care, but I self identify as bi-sexual. I feel like it’s almost worse to be bi because you’re over sexualized by the straight community, not quite accepted by the gay community. People assume that you’re not comfortable with yourself. Also .. why would you CHOOSE a harder life?!\n\nI personally see sexuality as a spectrum. Straight and Gay are the two extremes. I believe more people fall in the middle than are aware or open to admit to themselves / others. You can also lean more towards one gender, your preferences can change throughout your lifetime, and ultimately only you know what’s right for you. Who you spend your life with is no one else’s decision to make. For me personally, I never get offended when people assume I’m straight, assume I have a husband, assume I’m a lesbian, stereotype, or think they have me all figured out. Sometimes it’s just easier to let people make their assumptions and move on. \n\nWho you marry is the single most important decision in your life. You can always quit a job, move, back out of commitments, but the person you spend every day with will impact all those other areas. I’m proud to be spending my life with someone who is honest, trustworthy, kind, silly, low maintenance, loves the outdoors as much as me, encourages my faith, and believes in me. Lifes gets more fun when you’re honest. \n\n#pridemonth

One of my least favorite responses is when someone says “Katherine don’t you think it’s cheating to help prep candidates prior to their interview?” No. It’s called lazy to not prep a candidate prior.

I dare you to approach someone at the grocery store and ask them one of the behavioral based questions top tech companies ask in their onsite interviews. I’d even argue to go ask someone on your current team on the spot one of those questions. It takes PRACTICE, it takes REFLECTION, and because you can’t answer on the spot right away does not mean you’re not capable of performing the job.

So no, it’s not cheating. If it was cheating then 100% of people would get offers and that’s not the case. It’s important to give people a heads up of potential topics that might be addressed. It’s important to go into depth in regards to culture at a company and mentality your company expects. Telling someone to add data or metrics or focus on specific results in their answers isn’t cheating ... it’s showing their ability to take constructive feedback. Some people take the advice, others choose to move forward and just wing it.

Equipping people with tools isn’t cheating, it’s setting someone up for success and when they don’t get the offer ... they aren’t trash talking.

Whoever made the call on the Microsoft merch …. did good. A HAMMOCK????😍😍😍😍

Looks like I’ll be recruiting for Microsoft’s Data Centers all across the US😝 Here are the locations:

-Bothell, WA
-Quincy, WA
-Wenatchee, WA
-Dulles, VA
-Blu Ridge, VA
-Boydton, VA
-San Antonio, TX
-Santa Clara, CA
-Phoenix, AZ
-Cheyenne, WY
-Chicago, IL
-Des Moines, IA

Feel free to share my contact if you know of anyone interested in working at our Data Centers!

Last year my manager asked me if I wanted to go to Amazecon, it was an Amazon diversity conference with workshops. I ended up choosing a workshop around identity ... mostly because at the time I was very closeted / unsure especially since faith has always been a big part of my life. I ended up seeing KR Liu speak and it really moved me because I’d never seen someone so successful be that open about guilt, shame, trying to blend in, etc. After that workshop I ended up asking her if she’d chat with me because I was just getting into a relationship. I knew I didn’t want to lie, I didn’t want to hide things from people - I just wanted to be myself.

After that, I ended up opening up. It started with me bringing my girlfriend to the Amazon holiday party instead of a guy friend as a date. Everyone embraced us, didn’t care, didn’t make us feel weird... in fact we got invited to go rock climbing a week later. I wound up sharing with friends and family a few months later and those conversations were a lot easier than I had assumed. It’s our official 1 year anniversary today and it’s making me reflect on the last 365 days. It’s been a journey, a process, not always comfortable, but it was honestly my company and KR that gave me that initial push and feeling of acceptance.

Got this message from a Microsoft employee on our internal chat and it made my day. Inadvertently recruiting for Microsoft even when I'm not. Firm believer in updating your LinkedIn profile and letting people come to you. That’s how I got my job.. and it’s been the best one so far!

✌🏼

Every student I move forward with, I am paying 30/hr during our initial intro call. It's what I can afford right now. I am taking up your time by interviewing you, learning about your background, and what your desired next step is. From there, I hope to introduce everyone. My goal is to have a student or two for each kind of role we might need and then it'd be nice to have a mentor for each. If you are strong in building websites, marketing, logo design, running small businesses, anything that you think could be helpful to udabathbomb.com please email me with what you'd like to contribute.

My goal is employ students who need hands on experience through this venture, provide them with a mentor, help with some of the mental health issues that are coming from scrambling for a job, showcase we can do this with ANY product, promote relaxation and kindness at scale, and have transparency by sharing all financials and paying the people doing the work. If this works out, I will multiply this with 3 other ideas I'd like to build out. I will have an umbrella of businesses that employ first gen students, people companies overlook, people who crave experience, and products that are simple solutions to common problems. I will prove anyone can create their own experiences if they want them!

MY FIRST INTERVIEW DAY OF 2024 IS FULL!! I’m realizing with high demand roles - it really comes down to timing. If 58392992 qualified people apply, it comes down to who responds faster, is able to make the time to get on the phone for a recruiter screen and available for the interview date. I have candidates who apply first, but take 3 weeks to respond or require multiple email follow ups. The people who apply after them end up going to the interview simply because they were faster, checked their email accounts, were great on the phone, and ready to go. I don’t wait around. If someone applies I’m on the phone within 24 hrs with them if I can help it (unless it’s a weekend, I don’t do weekend candidate calls. This is how I personally operate, but not the same for every recruiter)

So if you are out there applying.. BE READY! If you’re just putting feelers out that’s fine, but just know speed has a lot to do with landing a job. On a positive note: 100% accept rate last month meaning EVERY PERSON WITH AN OFFER IS ACTUALLY JOINING AND STARTING SOON🥳😝

EXCITING NEWS!!!! The other week I asked my manager if I could take on recruiting for extra roles. I found out today, they’re letting me take on FOUR additional specialty CIA roles as one of my teammates transitions into a new role.

Do I have any idea what they are? Not really. Supposedly outpost consulting roles, compute and storage. I kind of like the fact that I don’t have to be a subject matter expert, but I am trusted to help various different teams and learn as I go.

This will be a new challenge on top of my 4+ CIA hires a month and I’m determined to just figure it out. It’ll give me an opportunity to grow my network, bring more people to Amazon, build new relationships and I’m getting to work on changing how we prep candidates too. July will be an exciting month and I’m happy to finally have some stretch projects! 😝

I was asked in an interview yesterday: What's something I won't find on your resume? What makes you, you?

This question completely threw me off, but I loved it & here's what I said: I love to throw myself in uncomfortable situations. I've traveled half of the states solo, taking greyhound busses, couch surfing, and having no agenda. I'm probably one of the few people who can go anywhere in the world with just a backpack. I'm resourceful, don't get scared easily, and believe in human kind. I've also probably encountered more bears in my life than any human probably should. Not having a plan is okay with me, I'm a huge believer & a Christian first. In college, I wasn't focused on internships. Instead, I was involved in campus ministry and university recruiting. I worked as a counselor in the summer and all of my volunteering now revolves around mentoring the youth. I have a huge heart for helping underprivileged youth and providing resources/ opportunities to all. I want to be a recruiter for a company I believe in.

Truth is, people hire PEOPLE. You're more than just stats on a resume. Have hobbies, have passions, don't let your role consume your entire identity. I'm a recruiting coordinator, but I'm a cool human too.

Be yourself, someone will love it.