Job Interview Failed - Again

Clive,

I've debated sending this reply. I hope not to offend, my apologies if I do.

Firstly I wish you well in your job hunting. I sincerely do.

I probably interview 15+ folk a year for my clients. Used to be more in my corporate life. Interviews do matter, 100%. But only if undertaken properly.

I take the responsibility incredibly seriously and put a huge amount of time and effort into the process planning ahead, during the interview and in the objective post interview assessment phase. It sounds a cliche but genuinely people are paramount when supporting the success of any organisation.

Some feedback solely from your posts on this subject though:
1) Your degree for this role was probably completely irrelevant. I do not believe someone more qualified than you, in an academic sense, got the role.
2) Languages possibly also not relevant depending on which languages you are skilled at. Interviewing for a porter role I would be extremely interested in someone who had a working knowledge of Urdu or Punjabi for example but not so much German. Do you have language skills relevant to the elderly population of the hospital's location and if so did you explain that to the interviewers? Other candidates may have demonstrated those skills
3) The job hunting environment is harsh, very harsh, at the moment. It is more likely that the person who beat you to the role had greater hospital/cleaner/porterage experience. 2 years as a carer for people applying for this role was possibly 'light' on the direct experience compared with others. I could be wrong but I am seeing applicants with often decades of experience applying for roles at the moment.
4) I agree that the language of being "pipped for the role" is not helpful and frankly unacceptable. A flimsy excuse. I think phoning someone and being prepared to spend 5-10 minutes with explicit feedback of why they were not successful should not be beyond an empathetic interviewing organisation


A genuine offer though.....If you DM me I would be happy to interview you for a theoretical role and give you 100% objective feedback on whether I believe you could improve on any element of your interview performance.

 

This is usually impossible though, as the reason tends to be you just liked another candidate more as they had a better personality. It's just not possible to come up with 5-10 minutes of genuine feedback when there is no genuine and tangible reason they were rejected other than you had a slight inkling they might turn out to be a bit of a wrong un.

Why waste someone's time with 5-10 mins of made up reasons?

 

I have far more integrity than that. I have far more respect for the candidates than that. Clearly your interviewing style is very different to mine.

 

Sounds to me like you waste a huge amount of time on a process that doesn't require anything like the amount of effort you put in.

Each to their own though.

 

And you clearly have a very closed mind.

I dont mind ignorant people and I dont mind arrogant people but those who mix both.....

 

Which was the experience I had back in the '70s....disappointing to realise it's still the same. Everyone has to start somewhere & getting hands-on experience of the types of roles someone may have ambitions of overseeing in future can only be positive for successful management performance in more elevated positions.
Fair to say that the bloke who, despite misgivings, gave me my first job engendered real benefit for the company in the long term.

 

I would have thought a degree and linguistic ability would be viewed as evidence of motivated & flexible thinking that would be more than useful in any role.

 

I'd say you are in a tiny minority if you phone people to explain why they were rejected. It's flat out rude not to inform someone they have been rejected and I can't stand companies who do that. But explaining in detail is simply too time consuming and furthermore you'd need to be extremely careful with how you word your reasons.

 

I believe you are right. Hence my offer to help.

 

I hope it isn't a tiny minority.

I had 22+ years spanning only two large companies before retiring from corporate life and both of those made a commitment to interviewees to do so and that has stuck with me. Luckily the SMEs I now support are likewise committed to personal development. One of the interviewers always feeds back unless the interviewee declines (which happens a lot).

 

I meant to add that if we interview five-six people for a new role once every couple of months then that's only 20-30 minutes one leader in the company is spending feeding back per recruitment process. I've spent as much time as that on this thread, probably more. It really is not a burden and just demonstrates the organisation's core values.

 

Exactly this.

I don’t claim to be a recruiting genius but my job is running the online operation for one of the big supermarket stores, needless to say over the past 6-9 months I’ve interviewed a huge range of individuals.

I’ve pretty much doubled the number of people who work for me and due to the sheer number of applications, some don’t even make it to interview. A big part of that is a candidate’s longevity, their CV will read extremely well and they’ll have qualifications & experience that far exceeds the role they’re applying for, be it driving a van or picking someone’s shopping!

For us and I suspect other businesses who’ve grown massively as a result of covid, the hiring we did wasn’t overly selective, a case of just getting bodies on board. Now for us at least our operation won’t return to pre-covid levels and we’re now recruiting with more of a long term view as some have returned to their previous sector.

Appreciate this might not help Clive, but just an insight from someone who recruits people into what some might call “lower end” jobs!

 

I haven’t scanned the rest of this thread but my immediate reaction is that you would be a threat to the inefficient, inept leaders of the council and your suggestions for improving their operation would not be welcomed.
They want someone who puts up and shuts up and to leave things as they are, thankyou.