Monday, May 02, 2011

Job Interview


There seems to be a trend these days of organisations not getting back to interviewees following the interview process. I think this is very unprofessional and does not sit well with me for several reasons:

1. The interviewee may have applied for many posts and will likely have psyched themselves up for the interview.

2. They may have spent valuable time researching information for the position: finding out what the job entails, updating their CV, learning specifics relating to that particular post.

3. Most interviewees intend to look the part so may well have paid to have their suit, coat, dress or garment of choice dry cleaned, or even purchased a new outfit, which for ladies like myself may even entail purchasing new shoes and a bag to match said outfit.

4. The interviewee gives up valuable time thinking about the interview, travelling to the venue and engaging in the interview, which can sometimes be highly stressful. There's usually a panel of interviewers who often ask some tough questions, sometimes as many as ten in all.

During the past year, I've attended two interviews where the organisation did not respond . The first one was for a well-known drug charity. I was already shortlisted from 65 applicants to the final 5, so it wasn't as if they had many people to inform afterwards! A panel of 5 people interviewed me and I was in the room on what felt like the hottest day of the year. The interview went on for about 45 minutes and I travelled 25 miles there and back for the privilege of not being informed whether I had the job or not!

Shortly afterwards I got a job elsewhere, which I resigned from, but that's another story...

I had a interview for another job three weeks ago for a position which is fairly specialised, so I don't think there would have been that many applicants. Again, no reply even though they said they would let the successful applicant know by the end of the week and the others would receive letters.

Not a sausage since.

Surely, out of common decency these organisations could put us poor interviewees out of our misery. I wouldn't even mind if they said something like, "If you haven't heard anything within the next fourteen days, then you haven't got the position. We won't be sending out any notification letters."

Instead we are left in Limbo Land wondering until we get fed up of wondering and decide to move on from the thought of working for that particular organisation.

It seems that once they've bagged their successful applicant, it's s** off everyone else!

In any case, if an organisation is so unreliable that they can't let me know one way or the other, would I want to work for that organisation anyhow?

No, not a chance! From now on I'll be interviewing them!

3 comments:

Teresa Ashby said...

I just think it's awful the way companies treat people these days - a letter, phone call or even an email wouldn't hurt them would it. It's just downright rude! And a shoddy way to treat people. It seems to be the norm now :-(

Lynette said...

That is so true, Teresa. It didn't seem to be like that when I left school in the late 70s. Nowadays it's difficult to even get to the interview process in the first place! Might be an idea if interviewees took along a s.a.e to give to employers to give to prospective employers [like we writers do when we submit to publishers lol.]

Heather Jones said...

I can understand that employers may not respond to all applications as they may well receive hundreds for each position nowadays. But to fail to respond to interviewees is unforgiveable in my book. And no, I wouldn't want to work for an organisation which treats people so shoddily either!