Monday, January 25, 2010

READY OR NOT...HERE I COME!

Anyone who has ever looked for a job, especially recently, has experienced the anxiety of waiting to hear back from the Hiring Manager or HR Rep following the application or job interview. Even worse, is the frustration of waiting and waiting and not getting a response. The general assumption, of course is, unless the position is involved with a full scale, high level, executive search, if there has been no response in two weeks, you didn’t get the job. Sure, everybody is busy and companies are flooded with resumes and applications, but in this age of Emails and IM’s and almost continuous and instantaneous communication, however, there should be no reason why even just a brief, form letter email isn’t sent to the applicant, especially to an applicant who actually went through an actual in-person interview.

Well, one New York writer, Neal Hirschfeld, came up with a novel solution to the problem, and wrote about it in the Sunday New York Times. You may or may not want to try this yourself, depending on how you feel about the company and whether or not you ever hope to work for a subsidiary of that company.

“Sitting down at my computer one morning, I e-mailed the managing editor to say that I had happily accepted the job. More specifically, I wrote that I was ‘delighted to learn that I will be joining the editorial team!’ I went on to say that ‘the salary and vacation are fine and I will report for duty bright and early Monday morning.’

Whereupon, after the prolonged cold shoulder I had received, I was immediately bombarded with urgent e-mail messages, accompanied by the online equivalent of bells and whistles – the red exclamation point. Urgent messages were left on my answering machine, demanding that I call Human Resources at once. It was just too delicious.

When I finally did call back, the HR director was beside herself. ‘Who authorized this?’ she demanded breathlessly. ‘Who was it that told you? There must have been some mistake. Nobody cleared this with me. I don’t get it.’

‘Well,’ I said sweetly, ‘I spoke to the editor in chief and he told me I’ve been hired, so I’ll be there first thing Monday. And, let me tell you, I am truly excited about joining your team!’

‘But . . .but . . . but . . .’ she sputtered.

Finally, I let the cat out of the bag.

‘Listen, lady’, I told her, ‘when you ask someone to come in for an interview, take a test and physically return it to you, and you can’t be bothered after three months to let that person know where he or she stands, much less acknowledge even receiving the test back, you are nothing but rude, thoughtless, unprofessional amateurs.’

Huffily, she started to give me the stock speech about ‘our hiring procedures,’ until I abruptly cut her off with the appropriate barnyard epithet. Then I barked: ‘Do you get it now? Well, do you?’

Meekly, she conceded, ‘Yes, I get it.’

No, I did not get the job.”