Frustrating job (non)interview

Parent Cafe
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<p>2011 graduate Son is still looking for FT employment. He spends hours each day on different job boards, is listed with recruiters, has been trying to network on the social media sites, and is working with his college’s career services department. He has gotten a couple of promising nibbles that haven’t resulted in much. </p>

<p>On Tuesday he found a job in NYC he was interested in and submitted his resume. They responded within an hour and a half with an offer of an interview either Wednesday or Thursday. Son chose Thursday. They responded with a time of 3 p.m. Son accepted.</p>

<p>Since Thursday is my day off, Son asked if I wanted ride in with him (we take mass transit to NYC). Sure, I’d go along (I was not going to be anywhere near the building for the interview, though).</p>

<p>At 12:30, we were about 20 minutes outside the city and Son gets a call from the company. “So sorry. We decided to hire the person we interviewed yesterday. We made the decision yesterday.” Great. You couldn’t contact him yesterday? Or even at 9:00 this morning? You wait until 2 1/2 hours before his appointment time? We just spent $42.00 on two mass transit tix to get to the city. To say nothing of the fact that he is really disappointed. Whatever. We made the best of it and had a blast going down to the World Trade Center area, walking along the river, going back uptown to Central Park area and Times Square. It was a beautiful day and we enjoyed seeing some new things. </p>

<p>I understand it’s an employer’s market, but can’t they at least be a little respectful of the
applicants? Just frustrating.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, there frequently seems to be little consideration of the applicants. I have seen this in my own job searches. There are many exceptions, of course, but all too frequently common courtesy seems to be ignored.</p>

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<p>DD lost an opportunity because she submitted close to the deadline. However, they cut off and did not read any more applications after they filed the open interview spots. Did not tell anyone just rejected the applications. We found out through other channels what happened. </p>

<p>In this market all looking need to 1 - submit as soon as something is posted. 2 - Take the first open interview spot, 3 - arrive early and 4 - be ready for anything.</p>

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<p>kitty, I am so sorry that this happened to him and to you. </p>

<p>My brother had this type of thing happen so many times to him that he just stopped going on very inconvenient/expensive interviews as a young man. In those days he was open to relocating anywhere and he left no stones unturned. He has many stories to tell. After several experiences like the one in your post, he decided to calculate what it would cost him in money and wear and tear and then decide if he would attempt an interview.</p>

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<p>My son had a job interview scheduled for the very day he was to leave for Europe for an international competition. </p>

<p>He got down to their office – and was told they had an “emergency” and could he reschedule for the next day. Well … he would be in England. They offered a phone interview. He/We decided to reschedule an in-person interview for the next day – since the job seemed like such a perfect fit. I say WE because as his parental unit, I was responsible for the <strong>extremely expensive</strong> change in airfare. If he’d gotten the job it would have been worth the airfare. He had a great, wonderful interview and it sounded like he had the job. The company was very pleased that he changed his flight, but didn’t offer so much as car fare to the airport. Upon returning from Europe, the firm had not made a decision, but they kept saying he was their top candidate. Ten weeks after his first interview (and I believe there was even a second interview) he received another job offer from a different firm which he accepted. To the best of our collective knowledge, the first company has never hired anyone for the spot my son interviewed for.</p>

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<p>cnp, as a new grad I had several interviews where the business did not hire anyone! Looking back, I think that they interviewed to see what employees are currently available, learn something about latest in technology and skills from new grads, and how much they would need to pay them (a type of window shopping).</p>

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<p>nem ~ Son would very much like to work in the city. He has some friends who live there now, so he visits them as much as he can. I wouldn’t have minded the cost if he had at least gotten the interview experience (to hopefully make future interviews even better). But as I said, we made the best of it and had a great time. And he got to walk off the frustration which was probably a good thing.</p>

<p>Singersmom ~ He applied for it the day it posted. They offered him the days to interview. I could understand it if he said “I can’t make it Wednesday, would Thursday be ok?”. But he didn’t. They offered him Wed. or Thurs. He picked Thursday and spent Wednesday reading up on information they might ask him about. We were already on our way to the city to be sure he was early enough (didn’t want to get held up in any mass transit snafus or traffic jams). So he had everything down except accepting the later interview day. Oh well. </p>

<p>He came back home, started searching today’s postings and sent out more resumes. Sigh.</p>

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<p>Sorry it happened to your kid. He is lucky to have you around for support.</p>

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<p>kitty I can totally understand your frustration…and your son’s disappointment. I would have been so upset for him! Whatever happened to common courtesy and professionalism? ugh</p>

<p>Your son sounds like a great kid…too good for the kind of place that would have so little regard for people. It’s just a road bump til he connects with a job that’s right for him where he’ll be appreciated. Best of luck!</p>

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<p>I guess sometimes, “the early bird catches the worm.” Slightly OT, this was the advice my SIL gave S when he was shopping for a place to rent. She said, get the 1st appointment on the 1st day you can. If you like the place & the landlord likes you, you can get it before anyone else sets eyes on it & the others can be cancelled. That was exactly how it played out.</p>

<p>I admit, I often hire whomever is convenient and I believe can do the job I have at hand rather than wanting to put myself through the grueling process of interviewing a slew of people for one or just a few openings. I think there are a lot of employers like me out there. Trying for the 1st slot you can make it to can pay off so that they don’t hire someone else before you even get your interview.</p>

<p>There is no excuse to not notify other candidates scheduled for interviews in a timely manner if the position is no longer available. Sorry your S had to walk off this disappointment but good that you were there to make the best of things.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the kind words everyone. Yes, I am glad I was there, too. When he suggested I go along with him, I was thinking about how many other things I was planning to do with my day off. But that thought only lasted a moment! How many more times might he ask me to go along for something like that, lol! I have learned to grab the opportunities when they are there! Everything else will wait.</p>

<p>A little OT, but the other issue he is finding is that in his field “entry level” is 1-2 years relevant experience. During college he had a PT job in his field (but not the area in which he wants to work) and a summer internship with a federal military facility which although the job title was great, it was a TOTAL waste except that he got paid very well to do literally nothing (our tax dollars at work). Not helpful when you need hands on experience. </p>

<p>So the search continues …</p>

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<p>The timing was unfortunate but I’m guessing what happened is they liked someone from Day 1 and by the time the hiring manager gave HR the thumbs up and they notified that candidate, made an offer and had an acceptance it was the morning…and then they started cancelling the interviewers. It’s unfortunate but yes, take the first appointment you can when you get the call. If you are currently working full time they know they have to work around your schedule alittle bit, but if you are a new graduate and you are not working and looking for a job better to be enthused and ready to drop everything.</p>

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<p>kitty56, sorry, I did not mean to imply your S did all of those. It is hard supporting those looking with no results when they seem to be doing the right things. What I was listing was more of consolidated notes for those of us trying to help our kids, or anyone else looking for work. I was a hiring manager for a Fortune 100 company. There are a lot of qualified people out there. Sometimes the deciding factor is just showing you want it more than the others. </p>

<p>S3 was unemployed for a year before he took my advice. When he finally decided to do so for a job he really wanted, he submitted the on line info the first time it opened, took the earliest spot available, showed up early and was interviewed before his time slot. They hired him on the spot and sent everyone else waiting for interviews home. </p>

<p>Was he more qualified than others in line? Probably not. But hiring managers hate extended interviewing. They just want to hire someone and get back to work. Hiring good enough gets them out of having to do the rest. Then they turn the notifications, etc over to HR as momofthreeboys indicated.</p>

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<p>Just chiming in here that the lack of courtesy in regards to informing applicants is very galling.</p>

<p>My husband had a phone interview, spent four hours at the firm interviewing with half a dozen people, then went in for an additional visit where he had to make a presentation.</p>

<p>Despite many encouraging remarks by the hiring manager, he did not find out that they were not hiring for the position until he sent an e-mail to HR two weeks later – presumably they never would have followed up if he hadn’t inquired.</p>

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<p>Similar happened to me during an interview process last year. I went through no less than 5 telephone interviews. Made myself available to the interviewers at all sorts of unusual times, and provided duplicate paperwork to numerous people. During the last 2 interviews, received very positive remarks, and was basically told on the phone I was going to be offered the position. I cancelled other interviews out of courtesy to those employers. After not hearing, I contacted the hiring manager for an update. I was told “give me one or two more days to get the paperwork together, I will contact you then.”. 4 days later received an email stating they decided to go in another direction and I was not being offered the position. It was a cut and paste form email. </p>

<p>To make matters worse, they hired a person that I was currently working with that had a personal relationship with one of the employees. And they obtained her contact information from me, as part of my references. </p>

<p>I did feel vindicated when that person quit a few months into the job. When they contacted me after that, I did not return the calls. I had other opportunities at that time.</p>

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<p>I am so sorry that happened, Kitty. Maybe your s can do a follow-up call just to see if they anticipate any future openings?</p>

<p>It really is unfortunate, but who knows when the other candidate accepted their offer. Am suspecting they made the offer Weds, but maybe didnt hear back from the candidate til Thurs. They wouldn’t cancel upcoming interviews until the candidate accepted the position.</p>

<p>Having gone through hiring for our front office position, it is very time consuming, and if we extended an offer to a candidate we interviewed and it was accepted, we did cancel upcoming interviews. </p>

<p>I am so sorry this happened to your DS. Hopefully the perfect job will come along soon!</p>

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<p>It’s nice to hear from so many people involved in hiring these days! I will definitely advise him to take the earliest interview appointment from now on. Funny thing is I used to do the hiring for one of our state universities about 30 years ago. Many of the positions required working off a civil service list, so we had to follow those guidelines. But even when there was no list, if we scheduled an interviews for several people, all would be interviewed. I realize times have changed.</p>

<p>Singersmom ~ That’s ok. I just wanted to note that he did everything correctly except choosing the earlier day. As I mentioned, I will take this advice and tell him to take the first appt. offered. </p>

<p>I am amazed at the other stories here about companies leading people on and not communicating. How hard is it in this time of electronic communications? </p>

<p>vlines ~ your story takes the cake! How awful!</p>

<p>jym ~ He said in the voicemail (and email he sent) that they would keep his resume on file. Of course at that point, son was not particularly interested. But I’m sure he was just disappointed and annoyed. We will see what happens. I live by the words - “everything happens for a reason.”</p>

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<p>Public & larger orgs are sometimes subject to different rules and may be more careful to interview everyone who was scheduled to avoid possible litigation from people who weren’t hired. I think these days it’s hard for companies to make accurate projections without knowing what will happen with tax changes, medical insurance coverage changes and other issues. Those of us in the non-profit industry have NO idea how things will go either, since many of us live by grants & some of that depends on investment income.</p>

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<p>Personally I’d rather know sooner than later and not get my hopes up…I guess that’s the half-full theory for the OP. Nothing to do with the original thread, but I used to betch and betch about interviewing a couple years ago when I was looking for a new job. I interviewed over and over and over for four months with one company all to have decided they wanted to rewrite the job description…they never called me and finally after I left a couple voicemails the hiring manager managed to call me back and tell me exactly what happened, of course he blamed it on “his boss” but it certainly left me a bad taste about that particular organization and if I ever need another job again they will not be on my target list. I just feel so sorry for the kids these days. Companies are clearly in the driver’s seat whether you are an experienced and highly regarded candidate or a untried and untested young person.</p>

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<p>As a hiring manager, I know how frustrating the whole process is, and unfortunately a lot of companies expect all kinds of things from interviewees, but forget about common courtesy and the like. I have been on the other hand with jobs like that, where they keep you waiting, can’t decide, etc, or where suddenly a job isn’t available any more. These days, you can be interviewing people for a job opening, one that has been approved, you interview, find someone, then suddenly you get word from management "you can’t hire, we decided to freeze hiring’ …(and often, the hiring manager doesn’t know why, could be the CEO decided he wanted more stock options, and if they hire people analysts won’t like it on Wall St, stock price declines, and suddenly he can’t get that villa in the south fo France he wanted…)</p>

<p>I have also been in the infamous “we really liked you, going to make you an offer”, they dithered, and another job came along and I took it, which turned out to be a good thing. About 2 months into my new job, the HH called me up to tell me the firm really wanted to talk to me still, they apparently hired someone internally who turned out to be a clunk, etc…what disturbed me was something the HH told me, that they were ****ed off I had another job, that they really needed someone with my skills and I wouldn’t even talk to them…they left me hanging for two months, I didn’t know they had hired even (nor did the HH), and then I was supposed to be happy? Thing employers forget is eventually they may be faced with a sellers market, and word gets out about things like this, and suddenly they have a hard time finding good employees…</p>

<p>In defense of hiring, the problem is there is often a bureaucracy involved. If we decide to hire Harry on a Tuesday, we tell HR, they are supposed to tell the HH (if there is one). The HR person has a date that night, so they forget, don’t call until the next day, and the people that day, well, are going to be upset. What I do is try to separate out the days, so if I find a candidate we want to hire, We have time to let the other ones know we are done. Often, we will interview all the candidates we have, because it is possible the person we like won’t accept the offer, so now we have others we potentially could hire as a fallback. Where I work, this isn’t likely to happen, since we don’t ‘hire on the spot’, and our process takes time. In a hot job market where good people are really hard to find, we might, but in an environment like now it is hard to find good candidates even with the bad economy, and we want to make sure that if we find someone good they really will fit.</p>