Im 31 years old and was promoted from an individual contributor role to manager earlier this year within the same department. Not a normal promotion as most managers already have experience or come from a more skilled role. I’m also a lot younger than most managers. I work for a global insurance carrier although most of our business is US based.

This is my first time acting as a hiring manager for a role. A seasonal remote data entry role.

First, the vice president over our area decided to refer several candidates, all young adults fresh out of college and their resumes were fucking atrocious. I hired one just to keep her off my back but apparently that wasn’t good enough. They decided to give one of the candidates I hired a FT role and I was “strongly encouraged” by my leader to hire the VPs other referral since it’s her friends son, as if I gaf. Ok, whatever

We had a non referral that interviewed well but something came up on her background check. A higher up HR guy initially said no but ran it by our legal dept. Legal said they don’t think it’d be a problem to hire her based on the crime. They wouldn’t share what the crime is though.

HR guy said he’d leave it up to us and then changed his mind shortly after and said no, you’re not allowed to hire her. All the managers in my dept were fine with giving her a chance.

I spent my teen/young adult years working at a restaurant where you were the odd man out if you didn’t have a felony. My dads’s been in prison twice. Served time just a few years ago for a year. I don’t mind giving a felon a chance. It’s a fucking seasonal data entry role and she’s had 3 call center jobs prior to this on her resume.

Then to top it off, one of the seasonals that I hired just because our VP referred her saw a FT opening we have in our dept, and I guess she thought she was entitled to it because she applied and is now asking when she’s gonna start. She didn’t even interview ffs and she was initially declined. But the VP “strongly encouraged” the other hiring manager to interview and consider her even though her resume shows “babysitter and barista” as her past experience so she’s not even qualified. I’m not hiring for the FT role so I won’t have to deal with that BS, but im going to lose someone that literally just started this week. How fun.

It’s like I have the responsibility of a manager without the authority because people above just want to call the shots when I’m the one that’s supposed to be handling it.

What the hell happened to the sovereignty of the manager.