I’m in the process of trying to change jobs which means
going on the dreaded interviews. As an
interviewee I am tired of the runaround, lack of consideration and general
bullshit that people think they are allowed to subject you to because you are
looking for a job. I have a damn
job. I just want a different job. I don’t have to put up with some crazy person’s
power trip. Here is a classic example of the shit I’ve had to endure:
A very large social networking site was in hot pursuit of me
for a Director-level position and a recruiter called me for a phone interview
with a VP. I was told the VP was headed
to London for a
meeting, but that she would call me the next day at 9:00 Pacific time to
conduct the interview. The next morning
I called into work that I would be in late and waited for the VP’s call. The call never came. I called the recruiter to let him know that I
had never heard from the VP. He apologized
profusely and told me that he would figure out what happened. Later that day I heard from him that she wasn’t
able to call and that they would reschedule the call for the following week
when she was back in town. A few days
later, I came home to find that there was a voicemail from the VP. She had called at 9:00 that morning thinking
that we had a call scheduled. Turns out
that she had asked the “scheduler” to book the appointment, but the scheduler
hadn’t bothered to call me to confirm. I
called the VP back to explain to her that I had missed our call because I had
never been contacted to set it up. I
then called the recruiter to let him know of the latest fuck up. He said that he would handle the scheduling
and confirm with all parties involved. Later
that day a call was set up for the next day at 11:00 a.m. The next day the VP didn’t call until 11:15
a.m. and informed me that she had a hard cut-off at 11:30 because she had
another appointment. So I had to try to
impress this chick in 15 minutes. Well I
thought things went well enough because she asked me if we could continue our
call the next day. We set up a call for 8:00 a.m. the next day. The following morning, I got up around 6:00
a.m., took a trip to the gym, got home around 7:00 a.m., took a shower and prepared
for my call. 8:00 a.m. came and went. 8:15a.m. came and went. At 8:30 a.m. I called
her to make sure that she hadn’t forgotten about me. I got her voicemail. I left a message and never heard back. Now I was pissed! I called the recruiter to tell him that this
was the most bizarre interviewing process I had ever encountered. I got his voicemail too so I had to leave him
a message. Later that day, while I’m at
lunch with my co-workers (including my boss) my phone rang and it was the
recruiter, he said that he had no idea what had happened, but he would get to
the bottom of it. I told him that I had
never experienced something like this before then I asked him if I was being Punk’d
( I really did). He assured me that I
was not being Punk’d and that he would get to the bottom of what was going on. I didn’t hear from him again…until 1 month
later!!! WTF?!?! He called to say that the position had changed from what it
had been when we first spoke and that they had to put things on hold while the
big swingin’ dicks agreed on what the job was going to entail. He went on and on about how I was the front
runner and they wanted me to come in for an interview that very week. I was still annoyed by the whole thing, but I
decided that I had already invested a bunch of time so I would go ahead and
finally meet the selfish bitch that had been wasting my time. I went in to meet her that week and the
meeting went well. We talked for over an
hour and I actually kind of liked her once I actually had time to sit down with
her. She had my resume from when we had
spoken (a month earlier) and she had taken a lot of notes which made me feel
more confident that she was actually taking this seriously. After our meeting I did the proper follow-up
with a note of thanks. I even sent a hand-written
note on totally adorable, yet professional, stationery. I was sure that I was in or at least still in
the running. Well I never heard another
word from the company. I have to admit
that I got a sense that something was weird when I asked her what the next steps
were and she seemed taken aback and answered “You should speak with your
recruiter about next steps.” Hmmm….never
seen anyone appear to be shocked by that question before. After a couple of weeks of not hearing
anything, I thought I’d just check in with the recruiter to get the definitive “kick
rocks!” I shot him an email asking him
if I was still being considered or if I should continue my search elsewhere and
that asshole didn’t even have the courtesy to simply write back a standard “thanks,
but no thanks”. After literally months
of putting up with their irresponsible, inconsiderate bullshit, he couldn’t
even take the time to just make a clean break? What a douche! The whole company
sucks. This is not just my personal sour
grapes either. One of my colleagues
started interviewing with this same company about a month after I did and her
experience was even worse than mine. I’m
now interviewing at another company and I just got an email from them that they
will have their final decision tomorrow. They have been much more responsive than the other company, but they
suck in their own special way as well. Oh well, until tomorrow…
I’m in the process of trying to change jobs which means
going on the dreaded interviews. As an
interviewee I am tired of the runaround, lack of consideration and general
bullshit that people think they are allowed to subject you to because you are
looking for a job. I have a damn
job. I just want a different job. I don’t have to put up with some crazy person’s
power trip. Here is a classic example of the shit I’ve had to endure:
