Heroism is all in the eye of the beholder. But when you consider that the Fed still predicts a jobless rate of 9 percent next year and 7.5 percent in 2012, taking someone out of the jobless ranks feels pretty good.

The opening, in my marketing agency's Planning department, became available
suddenly. Our existing Planner and her husband both landed jobs in Gotham, he
at one of the world's top branding firms, she at a VLA (very large agency). As
a medium-sized agency of fewer than 70, we’ve learned that arguing against
someone leaving for a VLA is often futile. Eventually, the person always says,
“But they’re offering me X,” and you try not to shake your head in wonder. How
can they possibly pay double what we can? But they always can, and X is very
hard to argue with.

So, no hard feelings on either side, although given how much people are tasked to do
if they are among the lucky 83% or so of Americans who want and have fulltime employment, all the
work my former Planner was doing came sliding onto my desk within a couple of
days. No time to lose if I didn’t want to see my hiring budget evaporate.

We kept our advertising fairly limited in scope: LinkedIn and CraigsList, both as close
to free as you can get these days. (This decision in itself caused a twinge of
guilt, since a former colleague’s husband was recently cut from Monster.com,
but then again she left us for a VLA.)  Also, based on a vague connection from a friend of a LinkedIn
connection of a friend, we retained an excellent recruiter in Chicago who found
some great candidates in about two hours.

Within minutes of the job being posted, the resumes started pouring in. In a few days there
were dozens. Within a week, 100, which is a lot considering that we are a
business-to-business agency specializing in life science and technology. That
is, we don't have the milk or Dior accounts and have no plans in that
direction.

The
applicants fell into three groups:

1. Recent college graduates, as well as a smaller subset of college graduates who received
diplomas before the recent ones were born. These candidates had little to no
experience in Planning — indeed, many applicants from the fashion industry had
an entirely different idea of what Planning is —­ but all had plenty of
gumption and a keen desire to leave their current jobs practicing law, working
the floor at Bed, Bath & Beyond, etc.

2. Less recent college graduates who wanted to get into Planning from research-related
jobs. Most of these didn’t inspire confidence that they would go after an
audience insight like a pig after a truffle, but they were unfailingly polite
and mildly amazed to find a job opening and be called back a human.

3. Genuinely qualified candidates. This crew knew Planning, were even trained in it at
specialty programs and in agencies, and could talk about experiences that
clearly weren’t cribbed from books. It was strangely disheartening to meet
them, though. They were the 5 percent of candidates who instantly render the
other 95 percent out of the question. So many people out there applying for
jobs they have no chance to land. Six applicants for every open position, in
fact.

Unlike recent job searches I've done in other roles at this agency, for copywriters, graphic
designers, even a creative director to replace me, the quality of the dozen
semi-finalists I spoke to was very high. Say what you will about the demise of
American education, but there are some smart, savvy people out there.

I literally lost sleep making the final decision, and here's what the decision
came down to: choose someone already employed at a VLA or choose someone who
was shadowing at another agency for no pay and picking up freelance assignments
here and there.

That for me was the deciding factor. Would I take someone off the unemployment
lines? Pull them out of the contractor-permalance economy? You bet I would. I
can hardly describe the sense of euphoria in making that call, and the excited
appreciation on the other end of the phone. “You’re our choice!” I remember
getting my first job at this agency, in the dungeon-darkness of the 1992
recession, the sense of relief and the self-esteem atta-boy that charged me up
for the rest of the week. The year, really.

Happily, all the other finalists were employed already, and to a person they were
extremely gracious. So not everyone in America who's disgruntled with their
employer rants into their computer and then flies their plane into a building.

No, digging our way out of the Great Recession has no shortcuts. I’ve sat through extended
economist briefings on the topic in chilly hotel conference rooms. We're in the
soup for a long time. And we can only get out bird-by-bird, person-by-person.
But we can do it.

Andy Warhol once said, "Success is a job in New York." I'd like to revise
that. In 2010, success is a job. And true success — or at least real happiness
— is being able to extend a job to someone who needs and deserves one.