“She was great. Wasn’t she great?”
“She was really great. And Tim loved her, which is key for a position like this.”
“Do you want to light the match this time, or should I?”
“Oh, I’d love to.”
they burn every trace of her application and existence, dancing naked among the flames
***
“How’d the interview go?”
“Really well. He had a lot of interesting ideas for the new campaign, and he’s perfectly qualified.”
“Oh my God, I just had the best idea. Call him and tell him we’ll ‘get back to him’ in two or three days.”
“Karen, you are terrible.”
“I knoowwwwwwwww. Let’s go get drunk.”
“Oh my God, wait.”
“What?”
“Let’s also send him a request to connect on LinkedIn six months from now.”
“After never calling him to tell him we hired somebody else?”
“Exactly.”
“You bitch. I’m buying.”
***
“What are you doing right now?”
“Carving satanic symbols into my forearms. But that can wait. What’s up?”
“Want to go to a career fair and pass out business cards with slightly inaccurate phone numbers and made-up email addresses?”
“Yes.”
***
“What are you doing?”
“Putting that job posting up.”
“Aren’t we hiring Trish’s sister for that?”
“Oh, it’s done. I just took her over to HR to get an ID badge.”
“So why are you posting it?”
“To give them hope.”
“You sick fuck.”
they do intravenous drugs together until the walls melt into an orgy of time and space
Tags: employment, hiring managers, human resources, terrible yawning silence, the world is against you, work
I walked into an interview at Advertising Agency back in 2009, wearing a freaking suiting dress in New England’s humid summer, and got told before I even left the lobby on my way to the first of THREE interviews at the place that they were probably going to give the job to the intern who had been with them that summer.
And then the second person had the AUDACITY to quote Bobbie Barrett (from Season Two of Mad Men) to me as if he had come up with the words. “Pick a job and then become the person that does it.” Why don’t you go and do that?
Also please go write a check to Jennifer Getzinger.
I’m looking for a job right now (have been for like 6 months- SUPER FUN). I went on one interview that I had to drive ~5 hours to. The people who interviewed me took me out to lunch then showed me apartments (!!) and then I never heard anything from them ever again. I am imagining them in their office now having all of these conversations.
D:
Between this and the cover letter of desperation post from yesterday, I can’t decide if The Toast is trying to give me solace…or finally break me.
how long does it take to send an email notifying someone they haven’t gotten a job? MAYBE 2 minutes? BURN THESE FUCKERS TO THE GROUND, DAMMIT.
Ah, but getting that e-mail causes another crisis. Do you respond? Do you not? If you do, how? What do you say? What can you say without sounding sarcastic and bitter?
This process is bullshit.
what can I say, I prefer to have my hopes crushed swiftly.
Yeah, me too. I was just unprepared for the emotional crisis that “Do I need to reply to this rejection?” brought.
I never replied to rejections.
Why the hell would you, and what possible response would not confirm that they should never hire you
Exactly, there is 100% no reason to say anything to them after that.
I have replied with something concise like, “Thanks for letting me know!” Probably with a smiley. I like to think that it positively reinforces the act of actually letting people know…especially since you know there are people who respond poorly.
I had a response saying “you were a strong candidate, but we went with someone who’d been out of school longer. We would love for you to apply again in a couple of years.”
That felt like it warranted a thank you note.
In two years the moment had passed, but I think of them fondly.
If I’ve actually interviewed, I reply with a polite note thanking them for the opportunity. Who knows, you may work or interact with them in the future. Plus, writing polite notes while in a vengeful rage/crushing sadness is good practice for the job you do wind up getting.
I just had the second interview for a job and they wouldn’t even ballpark a guess as to when they would be getting back to me.
I send those emails, and I can tell you that if we didn’t do it a stupid way, it would take about five minutes of my time. Literally just copy & paste (“we’re hiring someone else, good luck in your search”), get the list together, send. Done.
Job hunting is weird. When I was last looking, I’d been applying for about 10 jobs a week for months and months, had nothing at all, then three interviews in the space of a week. The one I got – I’m still there – was meant to be an editing test and then calling back for second round interviews in a few weeks. I did my first test and then when my now-boss (then the deputy boss) came to get my second one, she said could I stay on now and do the interview. TOTAL UNPREPAREDNESS.
She told me later that her boss liked my hair, which was purple at the time, and wanted to talk to me about it, which was why they kept me back to do the interview that day. I sometimes wonder if I’d have got the job if I’d been prepared for the interview properly, or been blonde.
I had a similar experience — spent a full year after college applying to literally hundreds of jobs without any response, only to get offered two jobs in the same week.
One was at the place where I was interning (unpaid) at the time, AFTER I got offered a job somewhere else. Like, oh yeah, NOW you fuckers realize I’m worth paying actual money (I took the other job).
Uuuuuuugh I had a two-interview + work sample/test situation that resulted in a six-week wait to hear that they decided to go with someone who had more experience.
Because that is a decision that takes six weeks to make…
You at least got acknowledgement that all of that happened!!!!! 😛
It’s always darkly amusing to watch the machinations of HR and hiring managers with folks I recommend for jobs. Turns out, people are *not* treated well or given any information most of the time even if they are granted an interview.
OMG HR IS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE
So I was living for a while in Australia, and while my permanent residency application is being processed I hold a bridging visa. The bridging visa allows me to work unrestricted and live in Australia for as long as the application is being processed.
NOBODY WANTS TO HIRE SOMEONE WITH A BRIDGING VISA. Why? Partly because they’ve never heard of the damn thing and don’t realise (or care) that I am legally allowed to work, and partly because the ones that do know don’t want to hire a “visa risk” – “oh what if they deny your PR application? then we would have wasted all that time and money training you for nothing!”
And so many jobs (and other funding opportunities) restrict the applicant pool to PRs and citizens only. Some require you to have been a PR for at least two years.
I’ve been waiting five years for my PR app. Five years of hell that I attempted to mitigate by going to San Francisco for 2 years. Now I have to return in a couple of months and I feel like I’m returning to prison.
A couple of HR horror stories:
1. The Brisbane City Council had a job opening for someone to update the website and send out newsletters with opportunities and events for Brisbane youth. It was something I was already doing for free anyway, and I knew the guy that was leaving – he suggested I apply for it.
BCC HR doesn’t even *interview* me: they say I need to have a social work degree (not stated in their job description). Then they turn around and hire a journalist who wasn’t even *there* half the time.
2. Applying for a job with my old alma mater in Brisbane. Sent an app to both HR and the specific team hiring. On the SAME DAY, HR tells me that they supposedly have a policy against hiring bridging visa holders (which is bullshit – I checked, AND I’ve worked on short contracts with them before and since), while the team invited me in for an interview. I didn’t get the job, but I did see just how full of shit HR was.
3. This isn’t really about HR, but it does involve hiring. Applied for a job with a local youth arts company, and the head of the company turned me down for an interview saying that my interests were both in performing and production and he wanted someone who was purely a producer. Then he hires an actor.
4. not really hiring, but related: I was fired from an internship with another youth arts org because they thought I was “spending too much time online” – never mind that I had successfully worked on a big strategic plan and did a lot of research for their resources and did a lot of outreach for the org. They saw me trying to troubleshoot an Excel problem by talking to my techie boyfriend on Gchat and assumed I was slacking off. A few months later 90% of their staff changed and they were CONSTANTLY on social media talking about how awesome it was that they were constantly on social media. (Any attempt I made to get a job there multiple times didn’t work.)
RE #4: I once got a scolding at a temp job because I was listening to internet radio (a precursor to Pandora, something you set and don’t fuss with) while combing through phone records and that apparently counted as “being online.” I produced the IMMENSE STACK OF WORK I’d done while allegedly “goofing off” but it didn’t matter. I had to cross reference phone records IN SILENCE because REASONS. The woman they hired to fill my position, btw, consistently came in late, left early, and took extra long lunches. But I got a talking to for not working (unpaid) over my lunch break to pick up her slack. HA HA FUNNNNNNN.
Your #3, hiring an actor, aaaagh!
It reminded me of when I applied for a short term 6 month job (after applying for it many years in a row and being told each time that I was great but just needed to go away and add a little bit of this or that experience, which I did, at great personal expense), finally to be told that I had the wrong personality because I was too nice, and would probably never get the job. My friend got to work with the people hired that season (her second time), and she said they were drunk and hateful killjoys, and she never wants to go back. I guess that’s better than being too nice, right?
I think I want to work in a place filled with drunken hateful killjoys. Like Black Books? That would be my ideal team to work with. No fake happiness, no BS greetings, just snark and booze. Slacking off all the time would be optional. I’m fine with doing work I just get exhausted by trying to fake “team spirit.”
PS – I only just realized your comment was from 102 weeks ago. TOAST, don’t confuse me with these vintage posts!
Trish’s sister was hired for an HR position. She was put in charge of sending out the emails explaining that they’ve hired someone else. Trish’s sister is afraid to tell anyone she’s illiterate.
“Hey, you got those rejection letters sent out, right?”
“Yup, sure did. That’s a thing I do all the time because it’s my job. Those people know for sure they haven’t been hired or even shortlisted. That’s what I do. With words and letters. On this computer box.”
“Cool. I’m going to Skype you a list of this week’s applicants who need to be rejected gently.”
“Swell. That’s a thing I can do.”
I took a break from editing my CV to check The Toast. Apparently that was a terrible idea.
*runs to the corner and cries*
……I knew it.
I am a hiring manager and this is 100% accurate. If you’ll excuse me, I have some resumes to burn.
I will be for ever and ever and always grateful to Ask A Manager for her excellent blog, but MOSTLY for her absolute hardline stance that there is no excuse–NONE–not to email candidates with a note saying that they are going in a different direction/whatever. Do a mail merge. Create a template. Copy and friggin paste if you must. NO EXCUSE.
HR where I work now sends out a letter, like IN THE MAIL letter. Before I got this job, I was temping in another department and also applying for full-time openings, and after a couple of interviews one spring, I never heard anything. I worked down the hall from HR, so I popped my head in a couple of weeks later just to confirm my assumption that they’d hired someone else. Later that week I finally got the rejection letter in the mail, postmarked the day after I’d talked to HR. Suuuuper classy, guys!
The letter in the mail is my favorite move when rejecting people. You don’t have to talk to them on the phone (though I do call people I actually interviewed in person on the phone, that just seems like Manners) and if you email them you can get a hot-blooded reply from someone. Send it in the mail, you know they got it and if they want to say something they’ll have to pick up the phone and call you, which they aren’t going to do.
I once worked at a place as a contractor– but treated by all basically as a staff member, because it was a small organization– for 4 years until a position was finally created for the work that I was doing. I of course interviewed for it, got to the final round, and for what were definitely bullshit reasons was not hired for the job that was ALREADY DOING, and demonstrably doing very well. NO ONE EVEN TOLD EMAILED ME TO LET ME KNOW I DIDN’T GET THE JOB. AFTER 4 YEARS AT THIS PLACE. Needless to say, it took about 1 day of the rage to work itself into extreme gratefulness that fate did not place me permanently at a place so unprofessional.
Noooooo I just had an interview today and they said they’d call me shut up shut UP
but i just quit my job why would you
I worked for a small nonprofit that employed young hourly workers and as such regularly held big rounds of hiring (roughly semesterly). My excuse for being slow to respond is that if we are hiring, we are likely shortstaffed and BUSY.
That said, there is literally ZERO excuse for not sending a “we hired someone else” email. That shit is sadistic.
oh god I have always known this is what happened
In this past year, I’ve had two interviewers just fall off the face of the earth after I sent in edit tests, and one saying “we chose someone else for the position but I’d love to talk to you about contract work!” and then never responded to any follow ups.
Do I smell bad or something?
Probably the opposite. They are probably like “She smells too good if people come here and smell her good smell they will expect good work from us we can’t have that.”
Well, didn’t this just all work out for the best?!
(I like these “Classic Toast” posts because we can see from the comments how much has changed in the Toast community in 102 weeks)
Okay plus, anyone who gets past the first round of interviews or whatever deserves a phone call. Basically it should go like this: the hundreds of people who replied to your Craigslist ad who are clearly just sending out resume spam without even cover letters probably won’t even remember they applied to your office by the time you send an email, so no worries. The people who send a cover letter and resume (regardless of how they heard about the job) that are clearly tailored for the position and show that they bothered to learn a little about the position, but who don’t make it past the resume submission part of the process, get a form email. Anyone to whom you gave the impression that they might have a shot at the job (interviews, meetings, etc.) should get AT LEAST a personalized email, if not a phone call, and anyone who was really close to getting the job should definitely get a phone call (and a case of wine/other beverage of their choice. And a spa day. And a guarantee of a better job anyway so I didn’t even need your crappy receptionist position so there.).
Case of wine and spa day. Exactly.
I’m fine with hearing nothing if I applied for a job (even a job for which I’m qualified and put in effort) but they never contacted or interviewed me. In fact, I’ve been a little bemused to receive form emails months after I applied and heard nothing. Oh, you went with another candidate? No shit.
However, the case of alcohol and spa day for near-misses is an IDEA PAR EXCELLENCE and should be instituted immediately!
I found out I didn’t get a job once when one of my senior coworkers gave her notice because she *did* get it, 3 months after I’d interviewed. (I mean, I had figured by then. but still.)
Switch out “hiring managers” for “search commitees,” and “LinkedIn” for “Academia.edu” and, voila! True and tragic stories of my life on the academic job market.
See this is super terrifying for me, because I interviewed for a job last week that I have literally been doing for the last 2 years (trying to move from contractual to permanent) and I know that a week and a half is not a long time, but there is literally one other candidate, and I’m like… … … … … …
It takes basically all of my will power to not go up to my big boss and be like SO WHAT IS THE DEAL HERE WHAT IS GOING ON WHY HAS NOBODY SAID ANYTHING please just tell me ohmygod
“This is abuse and aggression, the only way it can be solved is with a glorious workers uprising.”
“That’s your solution to everything”
“IT IS THE SOLUTION TO EVERYTHING!”
I went on an interview once and was told specifically that they were not the kind of place that would just leave me hanging after the interview. They would let me know one way or the other! Never heard from them again.
ok, they absolutely HAD to be fucking with you on purpose. there’s just no other possible interpretation!
Oh yes there is another interpretation: incompetence. It’s amazing how incompetent most employers are when it comes to recruiting and hiring. Supporting evidence here, in this entire comment thread.
truth
I got that once. The interviewers were obviously inexperienced and kept asking each other what questions they should ask next.
Noooo, but it is such a paaaainnnnn to contact people after I hire someone else. I don’t liiiiiiiike rejecting people. It makes me feel mean! Plus, sometimes I hire someone, and she’s not going to start for 2 weeks, and I’m afraid to tell the rejected people ‘no’ in case the hired one fails to show up and then I can’t call them and say ‘hey want a job?’
Fine. I’ve actually learned to suck it up and notify the rejected applicants.
The thing I can’t seem to stop myself from doing, though, is saying “we should be making a decision in the next couple of days” when it’s NEVER just a couple of days. It’s always a week, and yet I never say ‘a week’ and that makes me the worst person in the universe.
Sorry, everyone. I suck. Heap your scorn here.
If it makes you feel better about it, I feel 10,000 times better about the people who notify me than the fuckers who just ignore you. For real.
And there is also nothing wrong with notifying second-choice people “Our first hire didn’t work out. Would you be interested in another interview for the position?” or whatever.
I know. I was super-shitty about notifying people when I first started to do a lot of hiring (this was pre email days, cause I’m old and have been at this job for 20+ years.) But gradually my damn guilt (and the ease of just emailing people) got the better of me and I almost always (tugs nervously at collar) notify people now.
EMAIL THEM ALWAYS. EMAIL THEM ABOUT EVERYTHING.
Love,
Someone who got a rejection email on Tuesday and was simultaneously crushed and super appreciative. Trust me, hearing is much better than not hearing, no matter if it is a rejection.
I hereby hire every one of you as penance for every time I never notified.
GET OFF MY WEBSITE
self-immolates
I mean, finance, so whatever, but I had, last year, nine interviews with senior people at a fund for a role as a partner each lasting for an hour or two. This was over three months. They tell me that they are down to only two candidates, I’m their front-runner, but would I mind cutting my hair before meeting their CEO, because their CEO is old-school. Fine. Cut very long hair (which by the way, was weird at my current fund – “are you interviewing or do you have lice?”). They tell me that post CEO, they just want me to meet the other partners, but no more interviews.
Came in for the last interview with the, literally, detached billionaire who runs the show; and after a somewhat courteous, but bizarre 20 minutes, in which it seems he has no idea who I am or why his COO wants me to work there, they walk me out.
No contact for two weeks, after which they tell me they are going with the other candidate because their CEO thought that I was too young, a fact that was apparent, of course, before wasting 20 hours of my time over three months and making me cut my hair.
Even better – the other candidate told them no, so they offered me a shittier version of the position a month and a half later.
Lesson — everyone sucks in hiring and has bad hiring practices. At least Nicole’s hubby Industrious was helpful during the process.
When we hired Maria as our glorious Goth Intern I called or emailed EVERYONE who had applied because A) we were a baby website who could not afford to offend any of our readers and B) I REMEMBER THAT PAIN IT WAS NOT LONG AGO THAT THAT PAIN WAS MY LIFE
There is a fourth wheel to The Toast? Must I add another figure to my Toast shrine and offer more sacrifices?
Personally, I’m a big fan of rejection e-mails received months after I submitted my application. When I first started my current job, I hated it and started putting in fresh applications basically everywhere else I could find for about three weeks. Fast forward three months and I’m still getting periodic e-mails going ‘sorry, we decided to go with someone else!’ from companies I don’t even remember applying to (since obviously they didn’t give me an interview in the first place). After a certain point, why even bother? Yup, I was really holding out on that minimum-wage receptionist job that I applied for in February, thanks.
I have received those rejection emails literally YEARS later. It kind of feels like an xbf popping up just to insult you at that point.
I don’t even understand how that HAPPENS
I once actually got an invitation to a second interview months later. They did a phone interview, we clicked, they were like “can’t wait to meet you in person!” Then…silence.
Months later, they were like “hey our hiring freeze has ended, come on down!” I had already accepted another position at this point and they had NEVER TOLD ME ABOUT THE HIRING FREEZE.
i graduated from law school a year ago and am still looking for a permanent job (sobs quietly) and my best rejection thus far was the email i got THREE MONTHS AGO from a firm i applied to for a first year summer associate position in 2010. yeah guys. i sort of guessed you went another direction.
I got a call saying I’d been hired at one of the Big 5 companies in the Silicon Valley as the assistant to an AMAZING person. They’d send me my offer letter on Monday, as it was Friday and my recruiter was home sick.
On Monday, nothing. On Tuesday, nothing. On Wednesday they called and told me there’d been a reorganization in another dept. and said dept. had come up with an extra admin.
No job for me.
D: D: D:
I’m still bitter. AND JOB HUNTING. /sigh
that is HORRIFYING. Just…. the stuff of nightmares. ::EMPATHY:: ::HUGS::
Guess that “AMAZING” person and co. aren’t so amazing. Piss on em. So little professionalism these days, people too busy “social networking” that they’ve never learned real social skills.
The best is when the recruiters are on twitter or have a public facebook, and tell you they were too busy to call you, while you see their check-ins on foursquare at a bar/updates about going to a party. Thanks asshole for making me wait around 3 hours, obsessively checking my email and phone and making sure I don’t lose service/have full battery/don’t receive any other calls from anyone else. (This happened 2 years ago, I’m still bitter).
A good story: I applied for my temp job a few years back to go permanent. I interviewed with the people I had been working with for many months, everything was going swell, my really nice manager assured me that I had the position, it was only a formality… I waited and waited for it to be formalized only to show up to work to find an AUTOMATED EMAIL from HR that said the position had been filled and thank you for applying. I found out they were waiting to tell me and didn’t know the HR site would do that. The job was so, so bad for a lot of reasons, but I still burst into tears because, duh? Now that I’m looking for jobs again I try and think of that in order to stay sane because really, if I lived through that rejection what could be worse?
wait I thought you said this was a good story?!?!?!!
THAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF A GOOD STORY
It’s “good” in the sense of the wonderful feeling I get imagining that office being cleansed by fire??? but YEP NOPE. :(:(:(
🙁 sometimes I’m really glad to work in government. This nonsense does not happen.
But government work has its own special kind of nonsense.
Yeah, you do NOT want to get me started on the stupid government hiring bullshit. I can go for HOURS.
Trust me it happens at local government levels.
Also federal govt, as I can attest.
That’s right, because Government is not hiring, actually they’ve phased the position out, there’s no longer funding for that department. Didn’t you know? It’s being wrapped up…actually, it’s merging with all of the other functions, so that there will be only one function. I regret to advise you that you don’t fit within the mandate of the One Function, due to downsizing you’ve been strategically eliminated. Agents have been dispatched to dismantle you and divide up your assets to priority bidding partners.
Oh, it happens in government.
Let me tell you the story of what it means to become a librarian and rejection. At this point I have now spent 3 years looking for a full time position in librarianship. That sort of rejection is worth something (in the sense that it not even unheard of). But I feel I need to share the one that pisses me off the most, the one that still is brutal to me.
Last year I get to the final rounds, which involves an on campus site interview, as far as public library’s go they will not be paying for travel expenses, this I know. Still I am super excited this is the final round, I had made it to a few final round interviews, in fact I keep on doing it which may be the worst part. I pay for everything to get up there. They know this. I have what I felt was an excellent interview and good report with them. I am told by next week they will contact me. The week passes absolutely nothing. I give it another week, just utterly shocked by the disrespect, and then I email them. I ended up getting a 2 sentence response. I mean just utterly crap. Every single candidate had to pay their way to that interview, the least you could do was be prompt in who you had hired.
The worst is how many final round interviews end this way with saying we’ll contact you in two days and like a month passes by. Do they not realize we are not robots?
Yup. I’ve had several interviews (academic) where I haven’t heard anything for MONTHS. Having been on a search committee, I know the process takes a while, but once you start interviewing people, you should do your best to keep the ball rolling. For one job, it’s been 9 months, and nothing since an on-campus interview. The position has probably been cancelled or they’ve had to freeze hiring, but they can’t pick up the phone or compose an email to let me know that after I took two days of my life to interview with them? It’s so unbelievably frustrating. Other places, I’ve had to wait two or three months to hear back.
Yeah, I have now gotten to the point where I will email them. If they don’t respond I know it is a major sign obviously, but I guess in some ways I am just trying to force the courtesy, and not have “What if?” in the back of my mind. I heard a really frustrating story from a colleague who is in the same situation. Where once again they said they would respond in a few days. Well the few days pass and she emails them. She then gets a response from one of the hiring managers that is so absurdly positive. It literally included a smiley face and exclamation points that she was positive she was getting the job (she showed many people the email just to make sure she was not seeing or reading to much into it). A month passes and then a rejection notice.
That is awful. I work at a public library and I am in charge of rejection emails and letters (most of the time). We send emails to people we considered but didn’t interview. We send personalized letters to people we interviewed but didn’t hire as soon as a decision is made (1-2 weeks or occasionally longer – in interviews I have attended, we made sure to give the person a realistic estimate of the time it would take). The only people who never hear from us are people who obviously sent the same generic cover letter (or no cover letter) to many employers.
A few years ago, I interviewed for a library assistant job at a college. I got a generic “thanks but no thanks” email from them NINE MONTHS later, long after I had accepted another job. Why?!
I once had to use my meager student loan money to FLY ACROSS THE COUNTRY to interview w a Judge the 1st week back in classes. The interview was held in a large room with a cartoonishly long rectangular table. The Judge sat at one end; two clerks on either side. I attempted to take a seat about 2-3 seats down and was sharply directed to instead sit at the opposite side of the ridiculously enormous table. The interview was 2 hours long. She said she liked my bag. I flew home across country. I sent thank you cards in mail. I NEVER HEARD BACK FROM THEM. I called 2 months later, and the person they hired answered the phone.
Burn everything with fire. Then salt the Earth.
Setting everything on fire sounds like an excellent idea, how about a tar and feathering too?
oh you guys i think im going to stop reading the employment-related posts and also maybe crawl under a blanket for a while
just huck some RingDings down here once in a while okay?
This is ~really~ not helping my “I will never find gainful employment” anxiety AT ALL.
TIL that all Toast readers are unemployed.
Unprofessional interviewers are the worst.
Back in 2008 (before I had a smartphone), I was severely underemployed (working all kinds of random odd gigs, basically). I got a reply from a new tutoring company looking for someone available full-time for far less than full-time hours. Desperate, I applied. They said to meet them at a place about 20 minutes from me. I got ready and left my house half an hour before the slated time. They never showed; I waited around for 45 minutes before giving up. When I got home, I checked my email to find an email from them sent 10 minutes before our interview time cancelling the interview.
When I asked them why they hadn’t just called me (since they had my number but I didn’t have theirs), they said, “Oh, we thought everyone had Blackberrys/iPhones these days.” When they knew I was desperate enough for work to be on-call full-time for part-time money.
Guys! I have a good story with a happy ending! After no shit YEARS of applying and interviewing and never hearing anything, my little brother had a phone interview with a company and it was good, and then he heard they hired someone else, or maybe he just saw the job posting was gone, I don’t remember, and he was sad but soldiered on in his shitty underemployed job. And then months later, they called him and asked if he could fly out in like 2 days for an interview, and he did and he got the job and now he loves it and is happy forever and ever and also now he has to start paying on his student loans, so maybe it’s only a mostly happy ending.
🙂
I have another happy story: I applied for a job at Institution A that I considered rather above my abilities but what the heck, and they seriously considered me before going for someone way more experienced, and were really nice about the rejection call.
Some months later I interviewed at Institution B and am pretty sure I’d have hated it there but still, they could have given me a call or email to let me know they’d hired someone else. But no, the way I found out was… getting a phone call from Institution A to ask if I’d be interested in applying for the job left vacant by the person who Institution B was hiring. Best rejection-by-proxy ever, or best rejection-by-proxy ever?
(I got the job. And it’s awesome.)
I had an interview for a job I was not only uniquely qualified for, but I knew the manager I would be working under having worked with her before. She specifically wanted me for this position, so it should have been a shoe-in. Never the less, I came in prepared. I nailed the first interview which comprised of 3 managers, two in house and one on the phone. The second interview went well in most respects. I met with the two agents I would be working with. One was very insightful, alert, and interviewed well. The other clearly didn’t want to be in an interview, and in fact had a doctor’s appointment and was going to leave early anyway. This guy felt that a better use of his paid time was to trace his cell phone onto his paper of questions he never asked. The third interview was nailed and it was over the phone with my bosses, boss. There was really no reason for them NOT to give me the job. A month goes by and I hear nothing. I reach out to the manager and she says I am still in the running and hat these things take time. Another month goes by and I asked the firm management who had this little gem to say, “The interviews were just a formality, there was never a job available. Since you have been per-screened we’ll let you know when a job is available.” Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure you will. In my 24 years of work experience, I have never been disrespected in that manner.
Something like that happened to me too. Except there was a job but they probably couldn’t pay me more than I already got. 2 years later, they get back, saying they can offer me a job now 😮
I was unintentionally part of a bad follow-up interview process. I was office manager, and the business owner and I interviewed a girl (just out of high school, had far less experience than we wanted, but her mom was a patient and one of the doctors really wanted to give the daughter a chance). So the owner decided a day or two later she was too inexperienced and we’d go with someone else. I get ready to sent her an email, and find out that the doctor had already told the girl’s mother we weren’t hiring her. WTF doctor! The girl deserves better than to find out that way. I was so upset, it was just so unprofessional. I still sent the email, but by then she had already heard from her mom.
Your writing touches my soul. Never stop.
I laughed when I started reading this, but my laughter quickly turned to tears.
I worked with my provincial government, on contract, for 5 years. One day my manager told me that due to budget stuff, they weren’t able to renew my contract again. So I started looking for a permanent job in the government and found a perfect one in another ministry, doing pretty much same thing I had been doing for the last 3 years. I even had insider knowledge on one of the big projects they were about to take on, since I had been involved in the planning of it. So I applied for the job, and a few weeks later, got invited to an interview. I had to prepare a presentation, answer questions from 3 different managers and write a written test. I thought it went well.
A week goes by, nothing. A second week, nothing. I email the admin assistant who had set up the interview, no response. I call them, they tell me they’ll get back to me later. I never heard anything from the hiring manager. I know that only 2, maybe 3 candidates were interviewed. Is it so difficult to send a bloody email? Later on I heard through the grapevine that the person who had been doing the job on contract was given the full-time position. Why even have interviews (yeah, it’s a government, thing, but still… rage!)
I laughed when I started reading this, but my laughter quickly turned to tears.
I worked with my provincial government, on contract, for 5 years. One day my manager told me that due to budget stuff, they weren't able to renew my contract again. So I started looking for a permanent job in the government and found a perfect one in another ministry, doing pretty much same thing I had been doing for the last 3 years. I even had insider knowledge on one of the big projects they were about to take on, since I had been involved in the planning of it. So I applied for the job, and a few weeks later, got invited to an interview. I had to prepare a presentation, answer questions from 3 different managers and write a written test. I thought it went well.
A week goes by, nothing. A second week, nothing. I email the admin assistant who had set up the interview, no response. I call them, they tell me they'll get back to me later. I never heard anything from the hiring manager. I know that only 2, maybe 3 candidates were interviewed. Is it so difficult to send a bloody email? Later on I heard through the grapevine that the person who had been doing the job on contract was given the full-time position. Why even have interviews (yeah, it's a government, thing, but still… rage!)
Don't shop there anymore. Sounds like a terrible group of human beings.
On the other hand, I recently interviewed for, and did not get, a job that I really, really, really, really wanted. They emailed literally the afternoon after the interview to let me know they’d chosen someone else after deliberating all morning, and the email was so prompt and nice that I just felt EVEN MORE SAD about not getting hired by them. At least if they’d waited six weeks or never let me know, I could have rested easy in my seething resentment of the company!
Oh, it happens in government.
The one time I’ve been in the room when resumes were being reviewed, it honestly went something similar to this.
“Woah, BIG words – trash! That’s a fancy font Mr. Fancy Pants – TRASH. TOO LONG – Trash! *Managers laughing as resumes are literally thrown on the floor*”
My stomach went into a knot and I literally had to leave the room. These were all reasonably qualified people who had made an effort to present themselves in a humble but confident way, and these managers were on an unabashed 6th grade power trip.
I’ve not heard a peep back now on half a dozen jobs I should have been a shoe-in for. It makes me terrified this exact thing may have happened to me and I’ll never know it.
Thank you for letting us know. 0_0
I’ve literally just got back from a job interview. And it’s lucky I didn’t take my jacket off because I’ve just discovered I hadn’t done my blouse up.
😵😳😭
Too real, says jobsearching me.
I had three interviews last week and now I REALLY want to curl into a ball like a pangolin.
Mallory, how did you know I needed this????
I just got a rejection email which cruelly got my hopes up by beginning with ‘We were pleased…’ only for them to be pleased about the number of applications they got, but not at all pleased enough to put my application through to the next round.
Earlier today I googled ‘I HATE THE JOB SEARCH’ because I’m in a library and couldn’t yell it and jump around in frustration.
Good luck, and I am sorry for you.
I was job searching last year (woohoo! Also: tears), and, in addition to the many just non responses, here is my nightmare story: I had an interview in early February. Then in March I had a second interview with the head of the office, which I thought had gone well. She told me they were only interviewing five or six other people, I’d definitely hear back in a few weeks. Of course, I hear nothing. I assume I didn’t get the job, I apply and interview for other stuff, I get a job. In OCTOBER, I get a call – am I still interested in the first job? Uh, no, I have accepted and started a different position. I assumed initially that they had hired someone, but then another spot opened up, but a friend who works there confirmed, nope, they just never did hire anybody and had an open position sitting around for seven months.
Too real. Way too real, although I wouldn’t have realized at the time when this tragicomic gem was originally published. I was still a wee babby on the academic job market, little lamb with wide and hopeful eyes. Fast forward, downgrade from academic to secondary education, find it remarkably even worse. Too exhausted for rage, downgraded to a low burn of despair and reluctance to put myself out there again. Thanks, terrible economy. Thanks a whole steaming turd.
Oof. I’m so sorry. You deserve better.
Everyone does, truly.
I had three years of unsuccessful job searching before finally giving in and applying to Ph.D. programs (upon completion of which, this bullshit will certainly start all over again, because job hunting in academia is just as bad), and this is why I unequivocally hate HR people. Just, all of them. I have a few friends who do it and I have to overlook it the way I’d overlook bad politics or a missing sense of humor or excessive religiosity. The way companies treat job applicants now–and the general public, if leaving key positions unfilled and advertising for openings that don’t exist are anything to go by–is reprehensible. We are not fucking around; we need jobs for food and housing and transportation and supporting families. It’s the meanest meanness not to treat people humanely in a job search. I know someone’s liable to jump in and tell me that hating HR people is not fair or a good solution, but sometimes the smugness of people in power is too much to take, even, or especially, if they don’t know they’re being smug.
I work in a HR adjacent industry and our clients are HR directors and such. There is such a massive disconnect between them and the people applying for the job. One of the largest complaints is that they are getting too many unsuitable (‘low quality’) applications, but one of the largest complaints of applicants is that they don’t hear anything back, even if its a rejection.
ATS systems are hellish and I hate them both as a candidate and as someone who has to deal with integrating them into website. But they’re efficient so clients like them (THEY ARE NOT EFFICIENT IN ANY WAY.)
Outgoing employee: Wow, you sound like you’d be perfect to take over my position! Be sure to apply, they’re going to love you and you’re going to love them. Good luck! You’ll be great!
*Applies, waits, nothing*
*emails* Looking forward to hearing from you all! Outgoing Employee told me good things about working here!
Them: Sorry, can’t talk about it, deal with the computer system.
Computer system: I determined that your resume sucks and did not bother giving it to any humans.
Love, the government.
Previously on Computer System: What is this, studying in another country?? Other countries don’t exist, moron. Please go spend $100 to get your fake postgrad degree verified by some organization to prove that your university exists.
Me: But, my career field is so small, EVERYBODY knows that university. Just ask the Outgoing Employee, just ask her department. Just look at their university website, it is obviously real.
Computer system: Sorry, no talking to humans.
(So yes, I paid for it, and the computer still found me wanting.)
I despise Applicant Tracking Systems. I know I’m a good person, and I’m pretty good in interviews, but I cannot for the life of me get past the automated systems. It nearly gave me a nervous breakdown when I was finishing Uni because I could not get ANYWHERE. And then I found an internship application where an actual person read every application and what do you know i got the job (eventually).
So I’ve just given up and now I only apply for jobs through a recruiter or are at a small enough company that emailing a cover letter and CV counts as an application.
I could not figure out what on earth the computer system wanted! I work in a small and highly specialized field that requires one very specific degree. So my CV was full of “studied That Degree at university, received Degree In That Field, worked as That Career at This Specific Job Place, title was The Specific Job You Are Hiring For, my duties included Doing What We Do In This Field, including Specialty This, Specialty That, and Specialty Career Field Job Work.” ALL the key words it could possibly have wanted. UGH. All I can think is that the computer system decided against my foreign postgrad degree: “Oh, our country would never want someone who has studied at this career’s version of Oxford University, probably a made-up university, even though it comes with this expensive authentication that I asked for. Into the trash it goes.”
(Glad you finally got a job! I did too.)
I did not know keyword searches were a thing in online applications until very recently (as in months.). Some how I made it through college and university, both very practical employment focused courses, without anyone mentioning that using their keywords was important. I’ve also worked with ATS systems for 2 years now and never heard of it. So I always thought my tests were letting me down or something, but no I wrote working in a team instead of team working or some bullshit.
I was doing a marketing degree and applying for marketing grad schemes, I thought I’d have an advantage! But turns out that for most businesses graduate jobs they don’t care what degree you have, just that you check the box that’s says 2:1 degree.
I don’t even know what 2:1 degree means.
It’s the UK degree classification system, sort of like a GPA in the US. A 1st class honours means you got over 70% average in your degree, 2nd class honours (2:1) is over 60% and 50-60% is just a 2nd class degree (2:2) and below that is 3rd class and you might as well repeat your degree if you get a 3rd. A 1st is pretty tough to get, so most people who at least try get a 2:1.
Most employers specify at least a 2:1 degree (so over 60% average) as a kill question, so getting it is pretty important (I got a 61% average. But since no one ever checks your percentage, or even if your degree is real, it’s worth the same as a 69%), but after that it’s pretty much useless. I’ve been told that a lot of employers prefer a 2:1 with experience/activities over a 1st, essentially because having a 1st means you’re a boring nerd. I also know of a lot of people who got a 2:2 and lie on their CV since no one ever checks (or cares once you’ve had a grad job after uni)
Federal job applications are their own special ring of hell. USAJOBS is the worst. You have to literally copy and paste the wording from the application if you want to clear the computer system, which of course makes your resume look ridiculous to actual human beings. And that’s if you can even manage to get past the veterans. Which, I’m not against doing things to help veterans, but my husband works for an agency where they haven’t been able to fill certain vacancies with very particular skill sets because their shortlists are entirely comprised of veterans, none of whom are actually qualified for the job.
That’s probably my problem! It was through USAJOBS, and it was a very specific skillset (which is why I studied in a foreign country, because there are only THREE universities in the USA that offer that degree, and each one only takes about 6-10 students.) Aaaagh!
Also, I only just discovered that all the other comments are from 102 weeks ago because this is a vintage post. Toast, stop confusing me like this!
I hate the systems that require people to paste their CV into a tiny box. There’s usually a way to see what it will look like on the other end, and they always come out looking totally gibbled. Then I have to spend the night formatting what i pasted it to make it look presentable.
I’m convinced that a lot of automated Applicant Tracking Systems were designed by Satan.
I graduated recently and a professor spent a whole lecture training us on how to modify our resumes with the keywords needed to help it get through those horrible systems.
I know some people started adding keywords they hoped would be helpful in white font on their resume, so the system sees it and sends it through, but a human would just see their resume. Anything to get to a human, right?
Good idea! It’s so stupid that it’s necessary.
Duties include: Job work, jobbing, working, work jobbing, worked, jobbed, jobworked, workjobbed. Studied job career field, field job, field work, work job, job study, career field, and career work. Specialized in working, careering, fielding, jobbing.
The ATS at a local tech school rejected me as not meeting the qualifications to do a job that I have been doing at a school literally down the road for the LAST TEN YEARS.
I have two job interviews this week AND THIS IS NOT HELPING.
One of the jobs is my dream job and I desperately want it. But I have to pretend to be a normal, not desperate, person in an interview for a job I have almost no experience for. Transferable skills are the name of the game!! (Its a producer job, I am a producer, I just currently produce websites instead of videos. PLEASE GIVE ME A JOB.)
Literally just got a rejection email less than a week after the 1st interview. They were a nice company and now I shall always think well of them.
Here’s a story:
Them: “OK, here’s an Excel spreadsheet with our sales data, can you create a pivot chart out of it, along with a summary table, and etc. etc.?”
Me: “Does this mean I get the job…?”
Them: “No, we want to test your XLS proficiency.”
Me: “But this is a real document, right? Like, this data is REAL?”
Them: “Yes…”
Me: “So you want me to do this work for you that you’ll actually use, but do it for free, and then I MAY get the job?”
Them: “I don’t see the problem.”
Me: *does the work, never physically hears from them again, but mentally hears their cackles for months.
I don’t miss 2008.
I repped my company at a career fair recently and got a couple of resumes that I needed to get to HR… and I found them still in my car 3 months later.
I’m part of the problem and I’M SORRY
It’s all so clear now.
This explains a lot.
Seriously, I once booked an interview in Dallas, TX when I lived in Austin. I was recently out of college and so desperate for decent work I was willing to relocate. I bought an interview suit, called the day before to reconfirm the interview, then got up at the crack of dawn and spent the gas money to drive the 3+ hours to Dallas, only to be told when I got there (early! and beautifully suited!) that the manager could not see me that day. They knew I lived in Austin and had driven up, and they blew me off anyway, probably to go drink margaritas at lunch. I went through McDonald’s drive thru because it was all I could afford , turned around, drove home and never tried that again.
I have been teaching for 23 years. The first 8 in high school. I took some time to be part-time when my children were little. 4 years ago, I started actively looking for a college job–I have the experience, positive observations, great references. I get the interviews and never the jobs. I continue to try to learn how to interview better, but I am feeling defeated. I don’t know what to do.