Not a great experience. I scheduled a phone interview with a recruiter early in the week, and this first interview went well enough. She seemed happy with my answers and said she thought I’d be a good fit for the role. Then we scheduled my second interview for later in the week on Friday, and she said she wouldn’t be surprised if I were to receive an answer regarding the position by the following Monday. Cool, quick turnaround, I thought.
The second interview was to be a video interview over Teams with my potential manager. Philips even included video interview tips in the email invitation. But come Friday, the manager invites me into the meeting room and she’s not on video. I’m on video and her screen is black. Now that I’m in the meeting room, surely she’ll turn on her camera in a few moments, right? Nope.
I know she knows that I know that her video isn’t on. Do I say anything? Do I turn off my own video? No, too much time had passed. That would’ve made it even more awkward. I continued that interview just like that, with me on video and her screen black. And it actually went pretty well. She seemed impressed by my background and answers.
Then we got to the end of the interview, and she asked me if I had any more questions about the position. I had already asked a few, so I said that I didn’t and made an (apparently unjustified) assumption that the conversation would naturally wrap up. I figured she would give me a cordial closing or tell me that they would get back to me in some period of time, maybe exchanging a few final pieces of small talk with me. And then we would say our goodbyes and that would be that. Again, nope.
Right after I said that I didn’t have any more questions, the interviewer immediately said “Okay, thanks for your time, bye,” and ended the call. Like, it was weirdly abrupt, almost as if she had to go answer the door or get something out of the oven. Or she just didn’t want to be interviewing me and was good at hiding it earlier. Who knows.
At this point I didn’t know how to feel, but Monday came and went so I assumed I didn’t get the job. But then, on Tuesday, the recruiter emailed me out of the blue and said I would hear something by Wednesday, and she actually apologized for the delay! They’re really updating me about the status of my application just to say that I’ll receive a response the following day? Why not just say nothing and give me the response on Wednesday? It certainly seemed like this was a good sign, so I started getting my hopes up (a predictably dumb idea).
Anyway, Wednesday comes and goes and I hear nothing. Thursday is the same—radio silence. By Friday afternoon, I decide on a whim to email the recruiter. I’m absolutely expecting no response, or a generic compliment while she explains that they went with another candidate.
Nope. I’m wrong again (my wife would pay money to hear me say that). The recruiter emails me back—and I’m literally looking at the email time stamp right now—seven minutes later to say that I would have a response by the end of the day or Monday at the latest, again apologizing.
It was already pretty late on Friday, but her unusually quick response rekindled my hopes. What recruiter in the world responds to a job applicant in less than 10 minutes on a Friday afternoon? This was an unquestionably good sign.
Over the weekend I start getting a little excited, but then Monday comes. Nothing. No call or email or anything. Huh. Weird. Maybe something happened? Maybe there was, like, some kind of personal emergency. They’ll probably get back to me on Tuesday, right? Nope. Wednesday? Nope. Thursday? You get the idea.
Strung along for a week, led to believe day after day that I would receive potentially life-altering news, only to be completely ghosted. Don’t want to hire me? Fine. But why say you’re specifically going to give me an answer on a specific day and fail to do it, and why do it more than once?! WHY?! Why not just tell me nothing at all? Or say, “We might have an answer for you in a week, but it’s hard to say.” Why not be vague?
When you tell someone some version of, “Hey, you’re going to get some news on [date] that could significantly alter your life, so just a heads up,” that person is going to be occupied with thoughts of receiving that news, particularly on the day that the news is expected to come! Obviously they will! And don’t you think they might be a little miffed when that news doesn’t come on the specific day that was specifically named, and then miffed even a little more when that news doesn’t come a second time on either of the specific days that were specifically named?
And lastly, why not have the courtesy to at least send me an automated rejection message, AT THE VERY LEAST?? I guess maybe I’m still being considered for the position??? HA.