Pretty weird. I am between contracts (but that should be ending on the 8th…) and was going to say that I have gone to some interviews in order to see if I wanted the job, but this doesn’t seem like that was the case.
Could it be that they were on some kind of government assistance and they needed to interview every so often to keep it.
Maybe it’s just me (I’m an engineer), but I’ve read plenty of times that one should go on job interviews once a year or so just to keep your job hunting skills fresh. Also, it allows you to network outside of your normal corporate sphere. I haven’t done this yet but I’m planning to.
Of course, I wouldn’t just stonewall the interview. I would do my best and even go in with the mindset that, if I’m blown away by the job, work environment and pay, I would take the job. Just that I’d have higher standards since I already have a good job.
Maybe it is just the universe trying to keep itself in balance. I have interviewed for jobs that didn’t really exist. It is quite common actually. I have even interviewed multiple people for jobs that didn’t really exist (HR just gets bored sometimes and like to keep names on file). It is good to hear that an interviewee gives it right back sometimes as well.
That was my first thought as well. Here in the UK, those receiving unemployment assistance have to follow the “advice” of staff at the department that pays the benefits. If they tell you to apply for a particular job and you get called in for an interview, you’d be expected to show up or have your benefits cut.
Of course, the next stage would be that the department would call the prospective employer to see how it went. If the employer said “She showed up but told us she didn’t want the job” well, same thing - benefits cut.
I’d say the employer has a corresponding responsibility not to interview people it has no intention of hiring - sometimes they know who they want ti hire, but they have to interview some minimum number of people due to policy or legal requirement. My wife once had to interview candidates for the job she had just been hired into - they hired her and then had her interview the other candidates!
I’ve had recruiters just add stuff to my resume before sending it out to people. I’ve heard great things about skills that I have at the interview.
Yeah, seriously. One company brought my in for FOUR interviews in a two week period, each one ending with a variant of “Wow, you seem so great and so qualified, I’d love to hire you but we already have an internal candidate in mind for the position, but I’ll let HR know to keep you in mind for any openings…”
At least you’re still getting paid while having your time wasted.
I once went on a job interview trip:
-Upon arrival I had a message to call my peer-level contact. Contact was still at work at 7:30pm. Bad sign, but he was waiting for me and my flight was delayed, so maybe a fluke.
-Dinner was basically my first interview…lasted about 2 hours. After interview I had a drink in the Hotel bar. Got a pretty weird vibe from the locals. Overheard lots of talk about the company I was interviewing. They were only major employer in small town, employing about 15% of population.
-Next day was full day of interviews, with like probably 10 different people except for a couple of techs assigned to take me to lunch, and about an hour for somebody’s wife to give me a driving tour of the small town.
By mid-afternoon I had decided that there was no way in hell I would work for this company, nor live in that town. Not helpful that my body was two time zones later, so I had been up since about 4AM body-time. I was getting pretty punchy, and asking pointed questions…not quite “What the fuck do people DO in this town?” but pretty near. Of about a half dozen interviews I had prior to graduation (THOSE were the days, eh!) that was the only one that didn’t make an offer.
But knowing you didn’t want the job from the start and still interviewing? Maybe if you needed to do it to keep UI coming in, but the one in the OP had a job, so that wasn’t it. Weird!
I’ve nearly been in that situation- as PaulParkhead said, in the UK, if you’re on unemployment benefits, you have to attend interviews, or lose the benefits (at least, if the advisor finds out you were offered one).
I had one a few weeks ago, where the advert I applied to didn’t have the hours listed- but the company, a casino, had a job with the same title advertised on their website with varying shifts either finishing at 9pm or 5am. I realised just before going that it was clearly the same job, and… well… hell no. I live in a shared house in a dodgy area, and walking home from work at that kind of time would be a bad idea, and walking would be the only option, as they had no parking available. Even if I could manage the walk back without being mugged, my housemate would kill me for waking her up 3 hours before she had to get up for her job.
Still had to go to the interview though.
Assuming you hadn’t just decided not to mention something which is so obviously going to put off a lot of applicants, and assuming you don’t work in a horrendous site, it does seem pretty damn weird for someone to show up when they don’t want a job.
“So…you don’t need the job, aren’t interested in the job and are basically wasting your time and ours? Well, thanks so much, Ms. Shitforbrains, I hope that you enjoy never working for us, because this just got you blacklisted for life.”
I know someone who did this years ago. It turns out that she wanted a part time job but needed full time pay. So after being hired for a full time job, she wanted to know how late she could arrive in the morning and how soon she could leave each day. Also, was showing up on Mondays and Fridays really mandatory?
She left after three days.
The thing about the unemployment angle, though, is that the woman mentioned “another job” and her “current role”. Of course, she could be lying. But then, she would also have to lie to her recruiter, and I can’t imagine any sane unemployed professional doing that, even if he or she wanted to coast on unemployment benefits for a while.
This is the only plausible explanation I’ve seen. She didn’t want to refuse the recruiter, just in case, and the recruiter wanted to see if he could churn the job to get the money. Stupid but remotely plausible.
This makes sense, of course. It’s just that I’m struggling to think of any reason at all why a happily employed person would bother to show up to interview for a job they didn’t actually want.
I have, as some others have said, interviewed to see whether or not I potentially wanted a job or not.
In my most recent scenario, the guy who was interviewing me seemed determined that I would be his “employee” (although it was a contract job) after a few short minutes of a not-so-formal interview. He didn’t even give me a chance to say whether or not I really wanted to be hired, even though I was still on the fence about it at the time. No formal job offer or anything. Probably should’ve ran away at that point. I took the job, ultimately, and it sucked, but at least that position is over with now.
Well, it’s possible (not likely, but possible) that after saying “I’m happy with my current job” the interviewer might come back with “we’re willing to pay three times the industry average salary” or something like that.
Hey, I wouldn’t do it, but people buy lottery tickets, don’t they?
I mean, these fake jobs on Monster-they pop up all the time. Either the job really doesn’t exist, or Monster keeps the listing (to keep generating website hits).
I see the same jobs popping up regularly…which leads me to suspect that it all has to do with pretending.
This is a typical dodge for agencies trying to build a portfolio of candidates.
BTW in Britain, it’s catch 22 if you’re on benefits: if you’re offered the job you have to take it or your benefits get cut, even if the job will leave you worse off or is unsuitable. Or they decide to lower the pay.