Here is what happend. I had a job interview. They seemed to love me. They flew me out to Cleveland, I stayed two days, they paid all expenses. Anyway I’m thinking all is good. After all they paid for everything, food, lodging, plane fare. They told me I had exceptional qualification, we seemed to all get on well.
So a week after I get back the lady I would’ve been working for calls me and says that they decided to go with another candidate. (when I was interviewing she indicated they didn’t have anyone else they were seriously considering) Then she says “when I was calling for your references one of the people asked me to tell you that Gloria had had a stroke and died last August.” So I thanked her and hung up.
Now I was thinking…Gloria was a member of my staff who I really liked. And we were friends. Twice a month we would go out and try new resturants but it was one of those friendships that was strictly a work thing. I knew once I left work we’d probably not keep in touch.
The point I’m trying to see is couldn’t someone I worked with have called me right after she died. I would have like to have gone to the funeral. These people I worked with ALL had my phone number, my email etc.
And even if they didn’t want to isn’t it extemely tacky to tell someone who is calling for a reference for me to pass on a message like that.
Now this happened about 1 week ago. Today I went back on the website to search for new job openings and, yes you guessed it, the job I interviewed for is back up there. Obviously that lady lied to me. They didn’t go with another candidate. Because the job is still open.
I was discussing this with a couple of other people and they seem to think it was OK to do something like this. But I’m thinking now that the job is still open, maybe that is one of the reasons they thought not to hire me.
So I guess the question I would like to know is was this a tacky thing to do. Tell a person calling for a reference to pass on a message like that?
I don’t work for this company anymore. I was let go in July.
I had to give them 3 people I worked with at the hotel. I don’t really fault the lady who didn’t give me the job after all I could’ve screwed up the interview.
And Gloria IS dead. I called her husband to offer my condolences.
I guess I found it so tacky to say, whether a good or bad reference someone said “Oh yeah by the way Mark had this employee Gloria, she died of a stroke 3 months ago, when you talk to him next can you let him know.”
I mean now you’ve put this person I am interviewing with in a bad position.
I had worked there for over 4 years. I was the computer guy. People used to call me at 4am on a weekend so plenty of people have my phone number. Lots have my email. You could’ve called or emailed me directly when it happened.
The people I put down as references were not irresponsible yahoos. The Director of Six Sigma, The General Manager and the Controller.
As long as you all agree it was tacky to ask to pass on a message like that, I am wondering if I should call these people directly or what.
I mean you could’ve sent me an email saying “Oh yeah I just thought of you today when someone called for a referece. By the way you’re friend died.”
I’m sorry for the rant I just keep thinking what is wrong with these people. They got splinters in the windmills of their minds.
It’s possible that the people calling for the reference thought that this message indicated that your former workplace didn’t respect you or care about you at all. If you don’t have a bad relationship with them, my guess is that maybe they hadn’t been thinking about you much (life and work goes on, etc.) and then when this call came in, someone realized “omg, we didn’t tell Mark that Gloria died!” and just got stupid and blurted that out. That got misinterpreted as “wow, these guys must think he’s an asshole if they didn’t bother to tell him until now” and were tacky enough to pass along the message.
It is weird and tacky, as you said. It’s kind of a tough spot, you don’t really want to confront the people that are ostensibly giving you references and piss them off. Is it possible a receptionist or someone who’s not your ref threw in the comment about your former employee?
If you think these people are giving you bad reviews, you might want to have a friend call and pose as a prospective employer and ask for a ref.
One more thing. In my expereince, just because the job is still posted, doesn’t mean it’s open. My current job was stil posted a month after I started.
All in all, a pretty weird situation. Good luck with the job hunt.
Can’t really say why your former co-workers didn’t contact you but perhaps a few things could have crossed the interviewer’s mind:
Do you normally give references of people who worked [b[for you** in your profession? I always give references of people I worked for since they usually carry more weight and so not to seem like the referral may be a quid pro quo for future employment with me.
Did Gloria know you had her as a referral? Being 5 months had passed they may have found it odd that you didn’t know or had checked with Gloria when putting her name down as the referral.