Sometimes they don’t even know there is an internal candidate at first. I’m now in a process where someone left, the position was posted before his 30 days were even over, and there are at least two internal candidates that nobody was expecting. There are also several external ones, which are being taken into serious consideration.
But then, one of the reasons I applied is that this is a company which believes in Doing Things Right; they may disagree or stumble over what and how is exactly “right”, but they try.
In another case, I learned that my boss had gotten a lateral promotion (read: killed any career prospects thanks to a lateral move to another department, performed via some maneuvers which pissed off everybody else in the management structure) when people congratulated me on my upcoming promotion. The position needed to get advertised because HR rules, it had to get processed by an external firm because see above, and it went to an external candidate (because the external firm never proposes a woman for a management position and nobody had explained that I was in fact considered a perfect candidate). But hey, I ended up getting a different promotion and this one became my current career.
Sometimes, this kind of information tells you both that great people work there, that great assholes work there, and that the second ones do not belong to the first.
Interview at my local water treatment plant, for a position as its manager. The interviewer was a woman about my age, maybe a bit older (later I confirmed she’s three years older). She gave me her name but no title. She asked what had been my research focus in graduate school and I asked how much Chemistry did she know, because it’s the kind of thing for which I give a very different explanation to a chemist or to a lawyer. She was the chemist who had just been promoted out of the position they were looking to fill, her new position involved managing her replacement.
A few days later I ran into her in the street (her husband owns one of the two florist’s on my mother’s street) and she was so upset that she blurted out the whole story. The only male candidate, an asshole who had been calling her “honey” and “sweetie” the whole interview, was somebody’s nephew. I understand her employers were very surprised when she left them a few months later.
Think you were all done with cliques and bullies when you got out of school? Think again. For a while my organization was pretty well run, people got promoted through a combination of experience and merit. Then they hired a bully for one of the top jobs. He pushed out the lead engineer and brought in one of his toadies who had ZERO experience in the field. As toadies do, toadies become bullies when promoted, recruit their own toadies and the cycle continues. Now the bullies are pretty well entrenched in every level. They reorganized and the job I was doing for more than 20 years was upgraded one level. I thought I had a chance, until I realized one of the candidates was a toadie who left the department after less than 5 years on the job. Yep, they brought her back as my supervisor.
Really, for most jobs they could well dispense with the interview questions and just ask one: “What is your name?” There is one correct answer that gets the job, all others are just wasting their time.
If that were the only criteria for filling jobs, then there would be no need for a face to face interview, roles would be filled based upon resumes alone. Many employers look for other factors such as cultural fit, communication skills, behavioral attributes, etc.
Do companies open up interviews when they already have a particular candidate in mind? Sure, but any quality hiring manager isn’t going to turn away a better candidate, simply because of the person they already have in mind. And most companies wouldn’t incur the expense of flying a candidate in for an interview if they weren’t seriously going to consider them.
WRT to the employees being the companies most valuable asset. They are. But like most things, some employees are more valuable than others. If you aren’t contributing to your companies performance or you don’t understand how you contribute to your companies performance, don’t be surprised if you’re part of the 10% cut, the next time things get rough for your company.
On the other hand, you get overzealous recruiters who don’t do their research before recommending applicants.
A few years ago, I got sent to an interview with a small company that was about 30 miles away from where I live. Not a horrible commute (I was used to it), but definitely a longer drive than I was desiring at the time. However, since it was in oil and gas (a very boom & bust industry), I saw a chance to either make a windfall for a short period of time before they closed-up shop, or to get in on the ground floor if they decided to make the business endure. I wasn’t provided much information other than the industry and that they were looking for people with a legal background.
I get there, and as I am sitting in the lobby waiting, my recruiter is meeting with the panel with whom I would be interviewing. I overhear talk about my youth as a potential deal-breaker. Pretending not to hear the conversation, I sit there with an uneasiness quickly growing in my chest.
When the recruiter leaves and I’m called in, I immediately begin to stress the benefits to having a younger employee - enthusiasm, willing to work longer hours, plans to be there for the long term, etc.
It wasn’t until I started getting peppered with questions that I realized that the job description was not within my range of expertise. After 5 minutes of awkwardness, I dropped all pretenses, told the men that it was obvious that I was unsuited to the position (the law “requirement” was an added bonus, and they wanted someone who had a background in something else entirely) and even discounting that, they were clearly looking for someone older.
Once the awkwardness of that moment subsided, we continued our conversation which had become enjoyable now that the pretense of hiring me had been dropped. As I left the conference room, I gave them two friendly pieces of advice: 1) Not to use that particular recruiter again, because she obviously did not know how to find suitable candidates; and 2) to always shut their conference room door when discussing people who might be down the hall.
Mein Furor, I must complement you on your propaganda machine. It will work well and will have the masses believing all the failures of the system are their own fault. This will crush all opposition to our purposes.
Damn you to hell Wesley Claaaaarrrrkk!! ya beat me to that! Anthony, please do click on the onion link, so poignant & true. It’s often a blessing in disguise that you don’t get what you think is the dream job. I know it sometimes sucks to have to keep telling yourself that, believe me, but stay positive and hang in there!
That’s how I first got hired at my company almost 22 years ago. I first interviewed for one job and got called a couple of months later for a job in another department.
I have too many stories of HR lunacy. But instead of depressing you, I will just tell you to keep trying and don’t give up. You never know when something will break.
HR people, however, are NOT the brightest people in the world. In fact, without exception, I would say unequivocally that HR staff are filled with more incompetent morons than any other department in your company. And what is worse, many of them are EXTREMELY well paid. If you would see the salaries of some of your HR folks, many of you would throw up.
I remember an axiom often heard in college, used to bash education majors.
“Those who can, do… Those who can’t, teach.” I added an addendum after being in the workforce… “Those who can, do… Those who can’t, teach. And those who can’t teach, work in HR.”
A neighbor/friend has been clerking for local elementary schools for years, often doing the secretary’s work since that person is too lazy to do it. Neighbor works unpaid overtime, etc. When a secretarial position opened up, everyone told her to apply since she was so qualified and experienced. She did.
And to whom did the job go? To a young gal whose only experience was working in a high school photocopying room. She didn’t even know how to send an email attachment and eventually admitted having lied on her application regarding her skills. She’s still there, though.
Most likely, she showed up for the interview wearing a low-cut blouse and high heels. Or she got hired for some other b.s. reason.