Like OP, I like being around technology, and I'm pretty socially ept, and here, I make a case for my chosen calling -- technical recruiting. Unlike many others in recruiting, I didn't fall into it because I didn't have other options. It was a conscious choice. I left engineering to do this, and I haven't looked back.
I spent almost 5 years working as a software engineer. I knew, when I started, that this wasn't really going to be a lifelong thing. I'm pretty good at programming, but I don't love it. I even do it in my spare time sometimes, but only stuff where there's an immediate positive feedback -- I hate struggling with problems or figuring out the most efficient approach. When I went to bed at night, I'd berate myself for not hacking on the weekends or becoming an expert in my field. I'd read Hacker News and feel guilty for not being one of those people who builds crazy data visualizations in their spare time. I'd worry that one day the jig would be up, and everyone at work would figure out that I just wasn't one of them.
Over time, I organically fell into a role where I was filtering resumes, interviewing people, and so on. I was enjoying it, but I didn't really let myself think about that too much -- the idea that this could be a job didn't really jive with my sense of self, so I ignored the signals. One day, my lead told me that if he were to start a company, he'd want me to do this for him. I laughed in his face.
But the idea wouldn't go away. It kept resurfacing and then retreating under the weight of cognitive dissonance. If I weren't an engineer, how would I introduce myself at parties? I didn't want to be one of many HR girls because then I wouldn't be special anymore -- we all know that girl engineers enjoy a certain status, and I didn't want to let that go.
And then I saw this Einstein quote somewhere in my Facebook news feed: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." And it stuck and the pesky fucker wouldn't go away. And then I realized that, shit, I could plod along and be a decent engineer for my whole life and always feel guilty and avoid reading Hacker News. Or I could be what I actually was, fill a niche that not many people other than me could fill, and actually be happy and self-actualized, not in the hippy dippy bullshit sense but in the way where your actions are consistent with your insides.
So I gave it a shot. I got to meet a lot of smart people and have good conversations with them, I got to make snap judgements about people, I got to have to quickly learn about new topics so I could discuss them at some depth (wtf is this on this guy's github? I guess I'll have to learn a bit about it before we talk), I would be pretty unique in that there aren't many recruiters with a strong technical background, and I could run my own business eventually (for now I'm running tech recruiting at a startup, though I'll be going off on my own at the start of 2013).
And, you know what? For the first time in my life, I'm happy professionally. So there's that.
I spent almost 5 years working as a software engineer. I knew, when I started, that this wasn't really going to be a lifelong thing. I'm pretty good at programming, but I don't love it. I even do it in my spare time sometimes, but only stuff where there's an immediate positive feedback -- I hate struggling with problems or figuring out the most efficient approach. When I went to bed at night, I'd berate myself for not hacking on the weekends or becoming an expert in my field. I'd read Hacker News and feel guilty for not being one of those people who builds crazy data visualizations in their spare time. I'd worry that one day the jig would be up, and everyone at work would figure out that I just wasn't one of them.
Over time, I organically fell into a role where I was filtering resumes, interviewing people, and so on. I was enjoying it, but I didn't really let myself think about that too much -- the idea that this could be a job didn't really jive with my sense of self, so I ignored the signals. One day, my lead told me that if he were to start a company, he'd want me to do this for him. I laughed in his face.
But the idea wouldn't go away. It kept resurfacing and then retreating under the weight of cognitive dissonance. If I weren't an engineer, how would I introduce myself at parties? I didn't want to be one of many HR girls because then I wouldn't be special anymore -- we all know that girl engineers enjoy a certain status, and I didn't want to let that go.
And then I saw this Einstein quote somewhere in my Facebook news feed: "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." And it stuck and the pesky fucker wouldn't go away. And then I realized that, shit, I could plod along and be a decent engineer for my whole life and always feel guilty and avoid reading Hacker News. Or I could be what I actually was, fill a niche that not many people other than me could fill, and actually be happy and self-actualized, not in the hippy dippy bullshit sense but in the way where your actions are consistent with your insides.
So I gave it a shot. I got to meet a lot of smart people and have good conversations with them, I got to make snap judgements about people, I got to have to quickly learn about new topics so I could discuss them at some depth (wtf is this on this guy's github? I guess I'll have to learn a bit about it before we talk), I would be pretty unique in that there aren't many recruiters with a strong technical background, and I could run my own business eventually (for now I'm running tech recruiting at a startup, though I'll be going off on my own at the start of 2013).
And, you know what? For the first time in my life, I'm happy professionally. So there's that.