The Change is happening…sorta.

I started 2022 in quarantine following a pair of positive Covid tests. The symptoms were relatively mild, with me staying in bed most of one day to recover from a fever, but I was told to remain in quarantine for 5-7 days.

Rather than sit around and binge-watch all the streaming apps, I took to LinkedIn instead, updated my resume, and applied to several dozen positions. I started receiving responses towards the end of January and, long story short had calls with four recruiters for four different companies. Three of those calls went very well, with two of them resulting in meeting face-to-face with the hiring department heads of two of them (virtually), while the third had me produce a writing sample under a short deadline, which lead to my getting to meet with the person the Founder/CEO and the president in person.

Let me show you in brief how they went based on what recruiters explained to me. I will refrain from specifically naming the companies specifically out of respect

Job #1

This was the first position I interviewed for towards the end of January. It was an entry-level position for an audio/visual technology association not far from where I live. The managing editor and I hit it off immediately in our Microsoft Teams call and were very impressed with my background, skillset, and personal life as a father caring for my super-preemie son.

Result: Rejection

Reasoning: Even though the company was very impressed with what I could bring, I had been informed that one of the candidates had done some freelance work for them and had more experience/knowledge in AV tech specifically.

Job #2

This was an interesting one as it was with the company I have been with for the last year and a half and was a very rare entry-level position. It was brought to my attention by my supervisor. It was the fourth position at the corporate office I had applied for, and the company’s recruiter was on my side hoping this would be the one. Again, the hiring manager and I hit it off immediately and the interview went great, but what made this one even more special to me was that, upon its conclusion, I had to switch mentalities, pack my things, change into another suit, and take my family to Front Royal/Little Washington, Virginia, for two days of mourning as we paid our respects and said “until next time” to my best friend, who had passed away unexpectedly the week before.

Result: Rejection

Reasoning: My company’s recruiter called me as I was preparing for another call with that fourth company (which did not go anywhere) to inform me that they were going in a different direction. She told me the manager loved me and really wanted to say yes to me, but was instead torn between two candidates from outside the company who had just a little more experience in a specific skill than I. The recruiter said I was a “very high third place”, which meant she was trying a bit too hard to keep my spirits up, but I appreciated the attempt and told her I wasn’t giving up.

Job #3

Another entry-level position, I was excited for this one as it was with a technology company that has done a lot of government work. Following submission of a writing sample, I was scheduled for a meeting with the company’s founder and CEO, as well as the company’s president who also had quite a career, and I was excited for the chance to not just meet such accomplished individuals, but at the possibility of collaborating with them.

The scheduling seemed to be falling in line in my favor, as the meeting fell on a day I was off from work and didn’t need to take off. However, I was told the day before that a conference had popped up for the founder and the meeting had to be rescheduled, and that she was not available on my next scheduled day off, which was a Monday. So, I had to take time off of work–a day’s pay–for the chance to impress. The meeting went well overall, I started the interview strong (though I’m not sure if I ended it strong), and both individuals said I proclaimed that I had “good answers”. I followed this interview with a thank you note.

Result: Rejection

Reasoning: “Leadership has decided to take a different approach with this position.” My thank you to the recruiter who informed me, as well as my request for possible feedback, has gone unanswered for almost ten days.

So what’s the change?

With these interviews, as well as for the three other corporate positions I’ve applied for with my current company over the last year, some form of feedback or reasoning was always provided:

1. Needing a specific certification
2. Not having enough of the right specific experience
3. Not inline with my own ambitions or career pursuits (that was an unexpected one, I’ll admit)
4. There was already a candidate in mind with whom they’ve worked with before

For me, this at least shows that companies and recruiters are changing it up for the better in providing a little hope and guidance for qualified candidates who aren’t selected. It would seem, based on this information, that the days of ghosting candidates following an interview or rejection are numbered

However, a real problem that I see is that this humble practice is being executed by those lower on the ladder as opposed to the very top. I would have thought that if a candidate had made it to the interview process holy land of meeting the company’s founder–following a month between application and response from the recruiter, to interviewing with the recruiter, to clearing the schedule to research and composing and editing a writing sample under a strict deadline for submission, to having to reschedule that important in-person meeting last minute, to make the financial investment by calling out of work to meet that respectable and accomplished CEO–that that candidate had at the very least earned the right to feedback that would potentially shed light on why they weren’t selected or what they could do to improve for the next possible interview. And I would imagine that there would be no greater source of feedback or guidance than from accomplished corporate officers who have already spent a great chunk of their careers conducting job interviews.

Guess I was wrong and that we still live among the dinosaurs. But it looks like evolution is slowly on the move.