What would you make of this
I applied for a position I really like last week. I went through HR like the ad instructed. I waited for a week and heard nothing. So, last Tuesday I called the person to whom the position would be reporting (had to do quite a bit of research to find out the name and phone#) and told her about my qualifications and that I would like to interview for the position. She told me to e-mail her my resume (I'm assuming HR had not forwarded it to her). She then wrote back saying she had forwarded my resume to 2 of her superiors and that they would contact me if they wanted to schedule an interview. It's now Friday, and I have not heard anything. Since this isn't just HR dragging their feet, and the resume has been in the decision makers' possession since Tuesday, would it be fair to assume that if they were interested in interviewing me, I would've been contacted by now? I am not comfortable contacting the same person again because I had already gone against the protocol by contacting her despite the instruction to apply through HR. She did not sound ticked off that I called her, and was very friendly and helpful, but she did make it clear that it was up to the 2 directors to decide, and I don't want to push it by becoming a pest. I'm not waiting by the phone. I am continuing my search. However, I was really excited about this opportunity, and it is a little disappointing that they are not interested, so if my conclusion is premature, I'd like to know. What do you think? Thanks.
1. Don' t contact this Hiring Manager again for at least 2 weeks. 2. If they want you, they' ll call you. 3. It might take a while. You have no idea how many resumes they have to sift through or what their agenda is or what other business is going on. You are not taking into consideration that they may want to do a group interview, since there are 2 Directors involved in the decision making besides the Hiring Manager. Perhaps it's taking them awhile to coordinate their schedules and they have not started interviewing at all yet. One of the jobs I applied to recently was at a small company that didn't even have HR. One would think that, since the resume went straight to the Hiring Manager, without the "middleman", the whole thing should've taken only a few days. Well, it took them 3 weeks to make initial contact. The hiring decision came very fast (I was offered the job the next business day after interviewing), but the interview itself took over a month--3 weeks to receive the call, and then 2 weeks to wait for the interview, which was rescheduled twice, btw. Sometimes, people are simply busy and it's hard to carve out the time to meet with candidates. I would imagine it's even harder if there are multiple interviewers involved who all need to coordinate their schedules. Just hang in there, don't pester the Hiring Manager who has already done you a favor by agreeing to forward your resume to the appropriate individuals, and continue your job search. What's meant to be will be. The hiring manager has told you that the decision is ultimately up to the two supervisors, right? So, probably in order to get both of the supervisors in the same room at the same time without one of them needing to be excused for something, the high waters of the Hoover Dam will need to be super glued drop by drop. In other words, hard. They probably want the hiring manager, hr twit and both supervisors all together to do one panel interview as opposed to two or three individual interviews. Don' t stress over it too much because you wouldn' t want those feelings overlapping into any other interviews you have. Thanks. I guess I am just worried because the position is not advertised anywhere except on their own employment web site--sign of an internal candidate. I' ve heard that employers often won' t even consider an outside candidate, even one who is highly qualified, when there is an internal candidate who is at least marginally qualified. It' s not a well-known company, the type that doesn' t have to advertise anywhere else because people check their web site on a regular basis. I' m betting they don' t have that many resumes to consider. I guess I will just have to let this one go. I' m figuring that unless the internal candidate completely screws up his/her interview or changes their mind about wanting the job, I don' t stand much of a chance. Oh well. Back to step 1. You know, I never could understand why companies will sometimes make a minimal effort to advertise open positions even if they already have a candidate they are going to hire and are not really considering anyone else. I don't think there is a law saying that employers MUST advertise every single open position to the general public. I know my company has a policy to advertise open positions internally for 2 weeks and, if no internal candidate pans out, to then start advertising on the company web site and industry-specific job sites. Until that point, there are no outside ads, and if an internal candidate ends up getting the job, that position will never be mentioned in outside ads at all. So why do some companies advertise positions that are not really available to outside candidates, even if it's only on the company web site? Is it just a self-imposed rule that these companies follow? If so, what exactly is the point? "We already know whom we are going to hire, so we are not going to advertise this position too widely. However, we'll still put it up on our web site where noone will ever see it, since we are not a well known company, just so we can say we advertised." Does this make sense to anyone? Where does it say that companies are obligated to advertise all open positions, even if only for appearances' sake? With the private sector and big companies, it may be more of a policy than any type of law that states an open position has to be advertised to all potential candidates, both external and internal. I have found that with some companies, two in particular who I dealt with last week and a couple of weeks ago, that if you are sufficiently qualified and you contact the right person, usually hiring manager or, as in one of my cases, the department head of the human resource office, you can be invited to view the internal positions. In the past two weeks I have had four interviews this way. I have had unfortunate experiences with recruiters and headhunter types. I have found that, yes, they do lie, embellish, exagerate and generally stick it to ya. Even after my bad experiences with them, I feel that at some level, they were lied to by the company itself and so cannot place the entire blame on the recruiter. Though on the same hand, the recruiter should have done his/her homework and been sufficiently trained to recognize these lies. My experience working in the public sector for ten years has been that the government DOES have a policy which states that ALL open positions be posted. These postings are on the government agency's website , on the bulletin board generally located outside the government human resource office and advertised in the newspaper. Even if the position is an internal lateral move or an internal promotion, it has to be posted. It is supposed to be posted for a certain length of time with the opportunity to test, if neccesary. In some instances a cert list is generated from the human resource office with the names of candidates who have scored high enough and/or posses enough of the skills and qualifications, given to the hiring department and the hiring department contacts the candidate for an interview. Some government agency's have the human resource department handle the testing, but generate their own list of qualified candidates to call and interview. In either case, most government agency's do not have the human resource screen candidates for jobs. They have employment specialists who will aide a candidate in the proper techniques to land a job and help out with promotional opportunities. But they do not screen. I am currently in line for two additional government jobs. One for the state I live and for the Federal government. "So why do some companies advertise positions that are not really available to outside candidates, even if it's only on the company web site?" Mainly because they can. I personally think it's because even when they already have an internal candidate, they are still thinking that perhaps they will get lucky and someone applies who has a Masters, 10 years of experience, and is willing to work for entry-level pay. It all falls under the "Hey, you never know" category. It costs money to advertise on outside sites, so there is no point in doing so when they already have an internal candidate, but advertising on their own website is free, so why not? IMO, it's still worth it to apply, even when there is an internal candidate. If you are better qualified than the internal candidate, some employers might be willing to give you a shot at interviewing. Also, the internal candidate may end up doing badly in the interview and not getting the job after all. Or the hiring manager may dislike the candidate and jump at the first valid excuse to hire someone else. You just never know. | |
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