So I got laid off a few months ago along with another guy from my department. We’re both looking for similar jobs in a city where our industry is very small. So anyway, I get an interview at this one place, and I’m really happy about it because it’s the first one I’ve gotten. At the same time, former coworker talks to me and says he got a new job! I’m happy for him because with his situation (mortgage, wife and baby with another one on the way) he needs the money. I find out that he’s hired at this place where I’m going to interview, and we’re both excited because we work well together and it would be awesome if we could work together again!
So I go to this interview last Monday and they say they’ll get back to me in a day or so. You can see where this is going…I wait and wait and wait for a week, which feels like an eternity, especially since I know it was a much smaller wait for my former coworker.
Finally, I get into contact with my former coworker who tells me they’ve decided to just stick with hiring one person for now.
Why thank you, dickfaces, for contacting me about this! You couldn’t be nice motherfuckers and call or email me! No, you leave me waiting for a week, and I don’t find out until I ask one of your new employees! Fuck you! I put in the effort to facilitate communication with you, I spiffied myself up for the interview and you can’t even have the basic human decency to reject me?
Christ, at least the bloody government sent me a form letter in the mail rejecting me.
And on another note, I hate this whole goddamn ritualistic bullshit surrounding the job search. It’s not a romantic courtship! Sending endless thank you letters and follow-up calls? I’m not asking for your daughter’s hand in marriage! Fuuuuuck. I do realize someone is going to come in here and tell me it is like a courtship, that we’re trying to choose one another, but I don’t give a shit! There’s no loyalty from employers nowadays. I just want a desk to sit at where you give me work to do in exchange for money. I shouldn’t have to butter you up, my skills should speak for themselves.
[uses up her one free ‘take-it-to-LiveJournal!’ coupon]
I once got a rejection letter from a hospital 9 months AFTER I had taken another job at a different hospital. It made me glad I didn’t work there afterall-god knows how screwed up the place is, if it took that long to say NO to me…
I’m so considerate, that when I accept a job offer (like I just did an hour ago - hooray!) I actually email all the other people I had interviewed with, who hadn’t formally rejected me, to let them know I accepted another offer. Just on the off-chance that they were gonna call me two months later with an offer or another interview.
This reminds me I need to e-mail the alumni services director at my school to thank her for all of her help during my job search, but that I am taking a job in my old industry.
On two separate occasions, I was flown from Phoenix to Dallas for interviews (same company) and then never received any communication afterwards. One would think that any company willing to fly someone in for an interview would at least be willing to spend a quarter for a followup letter.
Yes this is one of my biggest pet peeves. It’s not even really that a big deal if they reject me. I’ve been rejected for jobs before. But don’t leave me hanging. Send me a letter, an e-mail, anything. Just let me know where I stand.
Saw job on Careerbuilder - a full-time city job, as it turned out - but had to apply through a well-known temporary placement agency. I figure, maybe they are really looking for someone if they are contracting with an agency. I do the online app, get a call the NEXT morning asking me to take online test. I ace the test, (so the rep tells me), she asks me to come to the state career center for a math test.
Math test is easy, I finish way before anyone else, in fact some guys couldn’t even figure out the directions.
The rep phones on Monday and assures me the city department will be calling me Wednesday if she doesn’t call me herself first.
Week passes. Nothing. Another week, nothing. I finally call the agency rep - “oh, I think they filled it.”
And so it goes. Been unemployed for a year and a half. I wish I’d gone to bartending school instead of getting a Master’s.
How dare the OP Je’cuse the Court of H. Resourse’ XVI…!
Is it not enough that we dain to allow you to our presence!? That such unemployed rabble be allowed to speak without being spoken to first!? This horrible insult, and from that applicant with the obvious scuff on the left heel of such cheap discount-store shoes.
Were you too blind to see it? Too lazy to polish it off? Or, do you insult us further by assuming we were too stupid to notice it? That you lack the manners and civility to follow established protocols of social introduction, card exchange, and proper expression of gratitude to the entire chain of command simply proves your deficient skill-set and unsuitableness for employment. Be Gone!
Oh, this really is too much Justine; I’m taking a personal day
Sorry, but it sounds as if you’ve got a bit of a double-standard working here. You want them to follow up with you but you’re not willing to follow up with them?
Look, I’ve been there. Job-hunting is a pain in the ass. It can be humiliating at times, and in a market like this, it just plain sucks. But if the attitude you project in your OP peeks out in interviews even a little bit, your search might be a long one.
Sure, yeah, it’d be nice if potential employers always contacted every applicant who didn’t get the job. The cruel truth is, they don’t, and you need to grow a thicker skin.
I know it isn’t what you wanted to hear, but you should call your interviewers (not their employees) at least once to follow up. It’s OK to flat-out ask them where you stand. After that, just assume you didn’t get it, try not to let it get you down, and absolutely don’t stop looking elsewhere while waiting for an answer. Eggs and baskets, and all that stuff.
Sorry if I sound harsh. I’m not trying to be mean, but there are some hard truths involved in looking for work, and you have to learn to deal with them without so much bitterness, or you’ll be toast.
I don’t think you should be mad at your former coworker for not contacting you. While he knew that they weren’t going to hire someone else he probably thought the higher-ups would call you or you would have called them. Maybe he could have called outside of work to just chat but it sounds like he’s got a lot going on right now and probably doesn’t have the time.
The degree of manners shown by personnel offices is directly proportional to the scarcity of jobs. A few years ago , when Clinton was in, if you applied for a job, you got timely information about the position. You got follow up letters from them.
Now they want you to send them thank you letters to everybody you meet during an interview. You can apply for hundreds of positions and never get any response at all.
That was really a sellers market for sure. I once got a job by saying I could learn to do the job, it was supporting Macs in a DTP environment. Got $ 40k per year 401k medical/vision to start.
Oh, heck yes. I saw a company rep chase someone across the room at a job fair because she overheard her say she did accounting at another booth. There were bidding wars for admin assistants too.
No-one ever asked them to. I don’t think, in an environment where there might be hundreds of applicants, that anyone expects the employer to contact every single applicant. You send off your application, and hope you hear back; if you don’t, you just move on.
But if the employer likes the look of your application enough to ask you in for an interview, and if you get dressed up and drag your ass across town to go to the interview, then i think you are entitled to expect at least that the employer will contact you to let you know whether or not you got the job.
How many people are they going to interview? A dozen? Twenty? Is it really that hard to get in touch with each of those people? Hell, if the employer doesn’t have the balls to actually call the people and disappoint them, then an email at least lets them know that they’re out of the running. It’s not that hard.
I don’t let it leak out when I’m communicating with potential employers! That would be really unprofessional. This is just the sort of rant anyone gives to their family and friends about work. I’m used to getting no response at all when I submit a resume, I was just really hopeful this time because it was my first interview.
Oh, no, I’m not mad at him for not contacting me! I just asked him if he knew anything after the people I interviewed with never got back to me. I’m actually thankful I got to talk to him.