Of course I didn't get the fucking job

[AnthonyElite]

Thanks for all the support folks. I have the advantage of looking for a job while I keep the one I have which helps immensely.

I’m not sure why they decided to keep looking for another candidate, but my girlfriend came up with a good guess: the manager that interviewed me was 7 months pregnant and was hoping the person that filled in could come in right away and keep the fort down while she was gone. Perhaps she is afraid I would outshine her while she was gone.

Now I’m off to MPSIMS to give my explanation of government employment

[even_sven]

Nm

[AncientHumanoid]

@even_sven

Nm

^^this^^

[Celidin]

I’ve been on pretty much all sides of this.

As the interviewee, you can never tell what that is that’s going to get you scratched off the list. You may think you’re completely qualified and maybe you are - but for a position where you can find a fair number of “qualified” people, meshing with the interviewers to fit into the company culture is usually a big thing that they’re looking for.

I’ve had interviewees (mostly for project mgmt positions) who come in seem qualified on paper, who seem like they can manage a project fine, but in my conversation the candidate does something that I know won’t bode well over time and that person will leave quickly or be a problem overall. For example, there was this one guy I interviewed who had done some large-scale IT projects and probably was qualified for the job, but was coming across as very, very slick and made me question his background and how much of the truth I was getting. If I had to manage this guy, I figured I would have been constantly having to follow up and figure out if he was doing what he was supposed to.

When it comes down to it, they might have scratched you off the list because you didn’t gel with the interviewer - and you’ll never know why. If they’re a bad interviewer, maybe they were paying attention to nonsense and scratched you off because you were wearing the wrong color socks. Or maybe because you were wearing a nice suit and fully coordinated. Or maybe something else.

All that said, I’ve on both sides - there are large companies (I worked for 2) that completely deal in nepotism, cronyism and other borderline-legal nonsense. Then there are other companies (seem to be generally smaller, I work for one now) that try very hard to do the right thing and find the right people … but are looking for a specific attitude/demeanor in addition to straight qualifications.

In any case - good luck!

[even_sven]

What I said in my deleted post is that sometimes it isn’t a value judgement.

For example, I was helping to hire an admin at an organization with some prestige in it’s field.

The admin job really is straightforward administration-- filing, travel arrangements, scheduling, etc. And historically, admins have been unable to advance, as the organization didn’t consider their admin experience relevant to any higher positions. So basically anyone who applies for this job as a “foot in the door” is going to be out of luck, and probably worse off than before they had the job.

We would always get amazing a resumes from recent grad students- prestigious internships, good schools, lots of subject-matter expertise, etc. People who were on their way somewhere.

And every time we would get dazzled and hire one, they’d want to do everything BUT filing, arranging travel and managing schedules. They weren’t happy, and we didn’t get the work done that needed doing. It’d never last long, and each time we lost one it cost tens of thousands of dollars.

I’d like to say the organization learned and eventually started hiring career administrative staff. That would be better off for everyone. But I doubt they have.

[Cognoscant]

@BobLibDem

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.

Sounds to the letter like what happened at my previous job. Thankfully I got out just as the first toadie was about to be hired. They’ve already gotten rid of one of the very good people there, and several others are on the firing line.

[Miller]

@even_sven

I’d like to say the organization learned and eventually started hiring career administrative staff. That would be better off for everyone. But I doubt they have.

I’m confused by this post. You started in this thread with the idea that people who are complaining about corporate incompetence in hiring are, themselves, the problem. And you demonstrate it with an anecdote about a company being incompetent in their hiring practices.

What did you think you were demonstrating here, exactly?

[kaylasdad99]

Not to answer for her, but maybe her point was to illustrate that it’s not always possible to place blame on a single participant in the process, whether it be interviewer, interviewee, hiring manager, or HR department.

[usedtobe]

Here’s a good one - back in the 80’s when anybody who could spell “COBOL” could make 20K and up, the contract house I worked for decided to employ UK citizens/subjects.
Federal law required that the openings be posted in a “conspicuous place”. They chose the back of the lunchroom door (which was never closed, so nobody but those intrigued by a loose piece of tape would see it).
Yes, the deck is stacked.

Sadly, that is another of those “Get used to it’s”.

[Crafter_Man]

@Dallas_Jones

Was it a government related job?

This is very common, especially in government jobs and contractors. They already have the candidate they want to fill the position and have already interviewed them when the position was opened for internal applicants.

Job bids are always opened for internal applicants before the job is advertised for public applicants. The bid is then held open for a certain length of time and a variety of applicants are interviewed.

Then they hire the person that they had in mind at the start and he/she either moves up or laterally within the organization.

Technically all the rules have been followed but the only real job openings are at the very bottom of the ladder. All the other jobs will be filled by persons already employed moving within the organization. This is the only and always way that it happens where I work, a contractor for the Dept of Labor even.

Yep. We call these “wired” positions. As in, “Don’t bother applying for that job. The position is wired for someone else.” It happens all the time.

What sucks even more is when a government person tells a contractor who to hire. Don’t get me started on that one…

[even_sven]

@Miller

I’m confused by this post. You started in this thread with the idea that people who are complaining about corporate incompetence in hiring are, themselves, the problem. And you demonstrate it with an anecdote about a company being incompetent in their hiring practices.

What did you think you were demonstrating here, exactly?

Sometimes a bad match is just a bad match. It’s not always because someone was wrong- there are times when perfectly nice, perfectly qualified applicants just happen to not fit for whatever reason, and it doesn’t benefit anyone to hire them despite that.

[Miller]

But your example is of a corporation that consistently hires the wrong people for the position - which supports the basic contention of this thread that hiring managers don’t seem to know what the fuck they’re doing.

[alexandra]

@OffByOne

Several years ago, I had a phone interview that I totally aced. They offered to pay me to fly to Tampa for a face-to-face interview. (Turned out that I had to buy my own fare and pay for my own hotel, then submit an expense report to get reimbursed!)

When I got there, the interview process was completely different, asking me questions that were not more in-depth forms of those that had been asked over the phone, but about completely different technologies that I had had limited or no experience with. This was followed by a hands-on demonstration of my lack of skills in those same, not previously mentioned, technologies.

The person asking the hardest questions and administering the physical quiz was a man from India (he had also been on the phone interview). I suspected that he was seeking a work visa. (I had learned from another H1B worker that companies that wanted to sponsor an alien had to show that they had made a good-faith effort to find an American Citizen to do the same job, and hire the alien only after they were unable to find an American that could do the same job.) I did not receive an offer.

Just because you are paranoid does not mean that they aren’t out to get you.

Perhaps your…erm…*interesting * attitude to immigrants came through.

[even_sven]

@Miller

But your example is of a corporation that consistently hires the wrong people for the position - which supports the basic contention of this thread that hiring managers don’t seem to know what the fuck they’re doing.

That’s not the point I am addressing. I am pointing out that very good candidates can be very bad fits for a job for reasons that they may not be clued in on.

[bols59]

@AnthonyElite

I had all the qualifications, education requirements, job experience, and great references. I used 4 hours of my vacation time to meet for an interview in beautiful suit in the scorching August heat. I’m terribly exhausted with my current job and I don’t get paid shit to do it. So, of course, I didn’t get the job I applied for, even though $30k/year isn’t much for someone with their Master’s degree. They are “still looking for applicants”. Every god damned employer these days wants the President’s credentials for a secretary position. They can all get fucked

**Don’t turn their fuckery inward. You’ll kill yourself. **

[bols59]

@Cognoscant

Sounds to the letter like what happened at my previous job. Thankfully I got out just as the first toadie was about to be hired. They’ve already gotten rid of one of the very good people there, and several others are on the firing line.

I’m not here to sing the blues about separating from my last and final job. But if I was to interview, and I made it to the point where I was offered the job, here is what I swear to all of you I would say to their face. “Thank you so much. And… just to make my transition into this career a little easier, would you send me an email with the names of the associates who have their fuckin tongues in your ass? The ones who show up late, do sweet FA, are fawned over, leave early, and seem to grow vacation time on the ends of their frizzy eyebrows?
That way I won’t feel obligated to point the losers in the department out to you. Thank you so much.”

[Lightnin]

I’ve been looking for work for the past 3 months.

A bit of backstory: I"m a video game special effects artist. I’m *very *specialized into what I do. I’ve been doing it (or related stuff) for over twenty years now. Normally I have no trouble finding work- I put my info out there, talk to a few recruiters, and I get interviews and an offer within a month.

Not this time, though. This time, I’m lucky to get an interview. They see my resume, they see my portfolio, and then if everything aligns they do a phone interview and then have me do an art test.

Yeah. Over twenty years in an industry where the average employee lifespan is five years, a website that shows all my work, multiple projects shipped… and I still have to do an art test. And these art tests are generally not very quick or easy- first off, you have to have really expensive software (or cracked copies thereof) and a good computer. Then you get to spend a week working on the test- unpaid, of course. I’ve done several of these over the past few months.

On one of them, I nailed the art test (I mean, it was damn good)… and then was told that it was for a six-month on-site contract job in LA. Sure would’ve been nice to hear this *before *the test.

Another got me an on-site interview, and having gone through several interviews, I can say confidently that it went well. Then they sent me a form letter telling me that they’d gone with someone else, and never responded to me. They didn’t even repay my expenses for the car rental.

One I finished just recently- and then *immediately * got asked to do *another *test. Yeah, two weeks of unpaid work. This was after two phone interviews. They’re flying me out for an on-site interview in a few weeks, so we’ll see how that goes. Normally, once I get an on-site, I’m pretty certain I’m going to be offered the job… but now, my confidence is shattered.

I’m really wondering if I’m starting to experience ageism. I’m almost fifty at this point- and the game industry is a field for youngsters.

[John_Mace]

They gave it to a fucking zombie instead!!!

[Pippers]

So did the original poster from 2014 ever find a good job? I wonder what his masters was in? My neighbors son has a ba in social studies and can’t find a job. Um, yeah, why are you surprised about that?

[Quartz]

@Lightnin

And these art tests are generally not very quick or easy- first off, you have to have really expensive software (or cracked copies thereof) and a good computer. Then you get to spend a week working on the test- unpaid, of course. I’ve done several of these over the past few months.

If they’re demanding a week’s worth of work from you then you need to bill them for that week’s work.