A reader writes:
After an eight-month job search in a second language, I lastly lined up an important interview with an important firm. It took them 4 weeks from my utility (and a follow-up e-mail) to get the interview however, at 9:30 pm on a Monday evening, they requested me to verify certainly one of two time slots on Thursday.
Time slot confirmed, I sat again to attend for particulars of the place I needed to be, or how the interview would happen. By Wednesday, I used to be slightly twitchy and despatched one other e-mail asking for some particulars. Thursday morning, two hours earlier than the interview was to happen, I nonetheless knew nothing. So I despatched a Google Meets hyperlink and requested if that labored for the interviewer.
Ten minutes later, I obtained an e-mail telling me the interview, and my candidacy, had been cancelled on account of me being “impolite and pushy.” I assumed I used to be exhibiting initiative and enthusiasm. I referred to as to make clear and make issues proper and was informed it was “no large deal, as you had been our weakest candidate.”
I’m unsure how else I used to be alleged to deal with that state of affairs, so … was I impolite and pushy? And the way ought to I’ve performed it otherwise?
You weren’t impolite however you had been slightly pushy.
However not horrifically so, and never in any manner that justified rejecting you over it.
Usually it’s as much as the interviewer to find out what assembly software program shall be used for the interview and to set it up and generate an invite. That is extra about conference than logic, however it is very a lot the conference. (Partly it’s as a result of because the candidate you don’t essentially know precisely who shall be attending and thus wants the hyperlink, whether or not they have inside procedures they’ve to stick to, and many others. — however all these issues are additionally true of, say, vendor conferences and but the conference that celebration X will all the time concern the invitation isn’t almost as sturdy there.) However conference carries lots of energy and, rightly or wrongly, flouting it could possibly make you look pushy or out of contact with skilled norms or different issues that don’t make it easier to while you’re interviewing.
Now, ought to they’ve despatched particulars to you sooner than Thursday morning? Sure! It’s impolite to depart a candidate ready like that, making them surprise if the assembly is even going to occur. However on the identical time, it’s not terribly unusual for individuals to solely ship assembly hyperlinks proper earlier than a gathering time. And if that’s their common apply, having you ship your individual hyperlink got here throughout as Too A lot.
With interviews, you’ll usually do higher when you settle for that you simply don’t have whole management. Perhaps your interviewer will name once they say they’ll name, perhaps they received’t. Perhaps they’ll ship you the assembly hyperlink the evening earlier than, perhaps they’ll ship it half-hour earlier than. All of that is nerve-wracking for candidates (and none of it’s proper or something I’d advise employers to do, simply quite common) however you possibly can’t management it. Establishing your individual assembly hyperlink and sending it to them doesn’t make it any roughly doubtless that they’ll be at that assembly. Both they’re on prime of their appointments or they’re not; in the event that they’re not, your assembly hyperlink received’t change that. Due to that, I believe your motion was partly about self-soothing — “now there’s a gathering hyperlink so I can loosen up and received’t want to attend for theirs” — however it’s not aligned with that actuality, and it got here on the expense of annoying them.
However to the extent that your assembly hyperlink was Too A lot, it was a small factor, not one thing to reject you over. They might have merely replied, “Apologies for the delay — we’ll be utilizing Zoom and right here’s the hyperlink.”
After which telling you it was “no large deal” since you had been their weakest candidate? That’s a impolite and snotty response, which amplifies the snottiness of their dealing with of the state of affairs as a complete.
I’m hesitant to say “bullet dodged” based mostly simply on this one factor — perhaps they’ve bought one crappy HR individual however the remainder of the corporate is nice — however it’s not an superior signal about them.
