Interview tips : Phone Interview gone poorly

Well I had recently had a disconcerting experience in a phone interview I had waited over a month to have(the companies hiring process is the longest I have ever experienced!)

The interview started out okay, but soon after delving into my past work experiences, the interviewer seemed to become quite "Surly" and then posed a very unreasonable question to me regarding industry specific licensing required for the position I was interviewing for. As she attempted to compare this type of licensing to a previous job I held and its required licensing. In where I had opted to leave that position due to this requirement as it was not where I was interested in taking my career.

I explained to her that I was interested in that specific field, which was entirely different from the one which I was applying for. But instead of accepting this answer she posed the question to me again, exhibiting a great deal of contention the second time. And again I explained that it was an entirely different field of the industry and I was simply not interested in taking my career down that path.

She then attempted to make it seem as though I were a flighty candidate who failed to have any focus in my chosen career path, and stated to me that I would not be considered for a position with their company until I was able to demonstrate more stability by being employed for at least 18 months with one company. She then stated she didn' t care if it were several companies but must only work with one recruiter. This was due to one contract position I had taken between jobs so that I could continue to pay my bills until the right "Long term" job came my way.

Well I was so floored by her statements I could really find no words to express my disbelief, so the interview ended along with the opportunity which had been so long in the works.

The days following this interview I just kept going over the interview in my mind and made the decision "NOT" to just take this persons unreasonable assessment of me. And most certainly to NOT accept her insightful career advice(if you could even call it that!)And I called up her manager and discussed with her the main points of my discontent, as well as described how the interview went. additionally i resisted the urge to give any adjectives in evaluating the interviewers personality or demeanor. And to my benefit this manger contacted another manager discussed my plight with their colleagues who determined that I would be given another opportunity to interview for the position. But not only that this person actually ended up losing their position with the company.

So my advice to others who have had bad experiences in interviews would be if you objectively evaluate all that was discussed and still feel as though you were not given a fair shake and strongly desire that chance to to shine for the companies recruiters than do not accept one persons perceived picture of your abilities and fight for what is rightfully yours. which is the opportunity to showcase your abilities and assets and the fact that you would be bring to the company a great deal of hard earned experience and qualified talent!

This was probably not the first time the interviewer's managers had heard this story and yours was the straw that broke the camel's back.

I wouldn't advise doing this all the time. If the interviewer was just having a bad day, was otherwise a good employee, had the trust of her managers, was the boss's niece or any other reason, you would not have prevailed.

Of course I wouldn' t try this often!! But my point was that I got robbed of a very important opportunity, that I had worked hard to get. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew that I deserved more than that from the interviewer. Additionally, I knew that my work history and experience were a strength and I would be damned if I was going to let someone who obviously was lacking her own skills in her job, attempt to shed a negative light on them just because of her own ineptitude.

And I would have ended up no worse off for sticking to my guns and letting the people she reported to know this in no uncertain terms. Because I can assure you that after having put that much time and energy to get to the point that I was at in their hiring process, if that was where it ended, and all that I could hope to expect, I would never make the mistake again of investing so much with that company in the future.

So I guess you could say it was all or nothing, and if it was going to be nothing I wanted to be sure they were as certain as she was of throwing away the asset I know I will be to them!!

And I called up her manager and discussed with her the main points of my discontent... determined that I would be given another opportunity to interview for the position. .... But not only that this person actually ended up losing their position with the company.

This is almost too comical to believe. To be honest, If this story were indeed true, I would say that you are nuts to take the position. Do you really want to go to work for a manager willing to whack one of his/her employees because some whiny a$$ job candidate called and complained that s/he wasn' t given a fair interview? It tells a lot about the manager' s ineptness and likely the corporate culture if your s/he won' t have his/her employees backs covered.

good luck walking into that firing range.

PS Advice to job seekers. Whining is the sound that is made when your 9 yr old lets air out of a balloon through a tiny tiny hole. If you don' t get job and call back to complain, 99.9% of the time it sounds like whining and whining is not conducive to building relationships.

"Whining" as you call it may be the sound a child's baloon makes when the air is let out , BUT properly informing a supervisor, manager, hiring authority, whoever, that an employee is rude, discourteous, inappropriate, and generally does not perform her/his job in a manner befitting the greater good of the company IS NOT whining.

I recently complained to a human resource manager about his front desk receptionist/clerk and was not only invited to review the company's INTERNAL job sites, but when I arrived there I was asked to meet with two additional hiring managers for jobs that I hadn't even thought of applying to because I didn't believe that they would seriously consider me since one of the requirements was a college degree that I did not posess.

Just as a side note for interested parties, the advertisement did not give a specific level of experience, the college degree was not neccessary and my experience overrode it.

So, you saying that you are now working at this company? That was not clear from your post.

I will say it again, while it may feel good for job seekers feel like they are taking control by ranting and raving when an interview does not go their way, it seldom advances their cause in job hunting. Okay there are a few dysfunctional organizations, where it might come as a "shock" to the employer that his/her front desk person is rude but don' t give yourself that much power. In most cases, you are perceived as a whiny a$$ job seeker NO MATTER HOW professionally you think you are assessing my company' s problems. Think about it. You think you can judge the performance of my employees when you interview? Give me a freaking break.. you know squat about my company... and my employees... you don' t even have the job yet but you think you can diagnose and fix my problems? Give that lip to me and you will be the brunt of jokes for weeks to come...

Job hunting is about relationship building. And even if you can and even if it is entirely justified, you don' t build relationships with companies by pulling down the skirt sof the receptionists or by giving your interviewers weggies.

Well it just goes to show how very little you know on this subject. Because as it turns out I did get the job, and this company is a leader in their industry!!

You are wrong about the fact that Companies do not want feedback regarding the attitudes,demeanor and general lacking thereof of any and all of their employees, especially ones which are in the Service industry. Your attitude is one of the past where you just assume consumers have no right to any decency, or respect, and if they don' t like well they can just kick rocks.

Newsflash, many of the companies who adopted that attitude would be the first to tell you how ignorant that perception is and I' ll bet they would also state that they were forced to re-evaluate there diminishing customer base. Thus brought back that old mentality that if their employees are not delivering anything but A-1 service to any and all people they interact with on the companies behalf can well... Kick Rocks!!

"Job hunting is about relationship building."

Umm, why should I as an applicant care about damaging my "relationship" with a company whose employee has just insulted me? It's not like I would ever consider working there after that. The way I see it, if I'm not getting a job there because some jerk off doesn't know how to interview candidates without insulting them, I have nothing to lose by letting the idiot's manager know what's going on. They may laugh, and what's it to me if they do? Or this may be just the excuse they've been waiting for to take action against an employee who has been a pain in the neck, in which case, I still gain nothing, but feel much much better.

I just had an interview a few weeks ago where the interviewer (an HR recruiter) was completely unprofessional and did not even try to hide the fact that it was a "courtesy interview". I did not complain to the HR Director right away about the recruiter's disrespectful demeanor and now regret it.

And I'm sorry, but if you do not care about your subordinates being rude to people and giving the company a bad name (some of those applicants may also be customers buying you company's products/services, you know), there is a problem there. I would not fire someone because of one complaint against them from an applicant, but if enough people complained, you bet I would take notice.

Forgive me for being brutal and continuing this rant. But it would likely be the same reasons that I did not hire you that I would likely discount your rant about x.y or z in the interview process. Bottom line is that many of us have interviewed with head colds, experienced unfair injustices and have at least one experience where we shoulda, coulda, did throw a temper tantrum justly so. The world is unjust and interviewing subjects us to the most dreadful humilations we can think of. Once in a while like pookasheel suggests we get lucky and our raging gets us somewhere. Most of the time, we are just that. raging against machines.

BUT moreoften than not, what looks like a messed up organization isn't. The messed up is often something in real time and is not endemic. On that side, the PEOPLE side, many of us in management have conducted "unfair" interviews at one time or another (where there was an inside candidate), thought more about lunch than what a candidate was talking about, put up with bitchy HR people who also keep the company compliant with laws and saved our butts from more than one law suit. Newsflash. Organizations are for the most part made up of real human beings who are stressed and over worked, have aging parents with health problems, who have PMS, drinking problems or just drank a large Peet's supercaffinated coffee. Crappy customer service happens and yes, way more than we want to think, job candidates experience the brunt of lousy interviewers, complex HR nightmares and arbitary stuff that just happens...

In this context why do realtionships matter? Because someone in company A inevitably knows someone in company X. and raging has a way of coming back and biting you in the a$$.

Career Tips

Phone Interview gone poorly