Yes, the job description was pretty standard for an administrative assistant to the management team, listing specific tasks and duties commonly associated with such a position, and absolutely nothing related to sales or customer service. Being about a page in length, the ad had a fairly typical level of detail.
You said the ad was old. Where did she find it. Many of the job posts on our web site were way old also, since hiring managers and HR never get around to removing them.
My guess is that the position got filled a long time ago, but given the hiring situation someone in the company decided that a short interview was worth it in case your friend was some kind of superstar. When they didn’t think she was, they got back to her. Getting back to her so quickly is the only extraordinary thing here. The usual response seems to be ghosting.
I was on the inside of hiring for over 30 years, and there is no way a candidate could ever figure out what is really going on.
Was the person interviewing the person who was likely to be her boss?
Because individuals are more likely to have individual requirements that aren’t legal like wanting someone of a particular age or perceived attractiveness. Note I said “more likely”, not normal or acceptable; I’m just throwing out a suggestion. It’s a reason why a job with fairly straightforward requirements may have difficulty filling the position and cannot mention the additional requirements in the ad.
In general I wouldn’t overthink situations like these. All kinds of dumb can happen in the recruiting process.
I once went for a job that I failed to get, and I was able to later find out from a friend at the company why I was rejected: it was because I was late to the interview. Only thing was, I wasn’t late, I arrived at reception in good time, told them who my appointment was with, and somewhere in feeding the message through there was probably some mix up, as I was waiting in reception for about 30 mins before my interviewer arrived.
My friend offered to tell them about their error and give me a second chance but I told him not to bother.
or, dare I suggest… perhaps her race?
The company may have quotas to meet.
Although it’s weird that they demanded the interview so immediately,within hours.
The opposite case could be true. In our company we have quotas (or really minimums) of candidates we INTERVIEW that must be women & POCs. Then you are free to hire the white son of your golfing buddy, like you always intended to, because he’s a great fit with the team.
At first, I was going to suggest some sort of phishing, in which the interviewer was spoofing a legitimate company and intended to get personal info that could be used for identity theft, but for whatever reason the friend didn’t meet the profile they were seeking, so they didn’t pursue it.
However, that doesn’t explain why they bothered to get back to her, and so quickly. You’d think that if they decided she wasn’t a candidate for a scam or identity theft, they’d simply have ghosted her. So I don’t think my theory is supported by the evidence.
Actually, if bug overlords had trained this pod of in-vitro humans to masquerade as insurance agents, I wouldn’t be surprised. It’s like they’re the secret party that pays the foxes not to raid the henhouses.
That’s a good point. I’m not sure whether the interviewer was the prospective boss; I’ll have to ask her.
Sure. But to be clear, she and I aren’t really hurt or surprised that she got rejected for the position, since that’s not an unexpected outcome when you’re job hunting. We’re just amazed that the entire end-to-end process happened so fast. In our experience, the times between application and initial contact, between initial contact and interview, and between interview and first decision are normally measured in days or weeks, not hours or minutes.
This is along the lines of what I was thinking. I used to work for a big-name corporation that is guilty of age discrimination (not yet convicted in the US as far as I know, but is in litigation). Perhaps they are trying to “prove” that they “considered” hiring someone “older” (i.e. older than 25),
I used to work for a company in the early 2000s that is still paying a couple of Administrative Assistants who haven’t worked there in 18 years, because their bosses wanted to replace 40-something admins with newer more aerodynamic models, and they weren’t very subtle about what they were doing.
Yeah, given a long open offer, and such a rapid interview and rejection, my guess is that there is some very important requirement they have that they can’t advertise, can only determine in person, and will know right away if you’re a fit.
Among the things I could think of:
- Race. Either way. Maybe they needed a minority for a quota, or if your friend is a minority, maybe they are racist.
- Sexism. Maybe s skeevy boss looking for a hot ‘assistant’, and your friend didn’t make the grade. Or the opposite: In small companies sometimes a boss won’t hire an attractive woman because his wife will be pissed and jealous and suspicious.
- Interview questions they ask, looking for a very specific answer and not getting it.
- Something intangible about your friend that really put them off.
- Someone is forcing the position on the manager, and they have to go through the motions but have no intention of hiring.
My personal record (and I am not proud of it) was having an in-person interview for an open job late in the afternoon. We finished at 5:15. The next day I received a rejection via snail mail. I happened to know the last pickup at the post office near that business was at 5:45 p.m. I figure they had the rejection already typed up, and were just waiting to run the letter through the postage meter and out the door.
Bingo!
At least this is where I’ve seen the OP’s story the most. Common when a company (or govt. office) wants to hire from within (and Susan has busted her butt and done a great job and knows everyone in the department already).
BUT, there’s this little tradition/policy/law called “Open the position up to the public!” So they place the ads, interview as many as they’ve decided they need to, and lo and behold, the interviewers all score Susan the best.
I’ve also seen cases where they even write the ad in such a way that Susan is the only candidate in the world whose skills/experience/credentials line up with the job.
It might not be a requirement but instead simply a “nice to have.” At my job, the qualifications in the posting are required - I cannot choose someone who does not meet the qualifications in the posting even if literally no one meets the requirements. Instead, I would have to change the requirements and repost. That means that skills and experience that are “nice to have” but not strictly necessary do not appear in the posting. But if for example, speaking Spanish is “nice to have” and 50% of my applicants speak Spanish, then I might reject the applicants who do not speak Spanish relatively quickly, while I would not do so if only 5% of the applicant’s spoke Spanish
Repeating what a male relative who works for the TSA when another male friend of the family asked about a posted opening for TSA agents at our local airport. The family friend was told not to waste his time as there was no way he would get hired, he could be by far most qualified applicant and would not get the job.
The TSA needed females agents (for pat downs, etc of female passengers) but could not advertise that as it would be sexist and discriminatory.
That also happens when you are trying to get a visa for someone. I don’t know the current law, but you used to be required to advertise the job. These ads could be detected by weird requirements - 5 1/2 years of some obscure language, for instance. We actually wound up hiring someone who met all our odd requirements, and the person the ad was for also.
The requirements mentioned in the OP don’t sound like this, though.
My favorite job postings were the ones that came out about a year after Java showed up on the scene, looking for people with 5 years of Java experience.