fuck this job.com

Is it within forum protocol to gripe about a job interview rather than a job? I think this one deserves one or two (2) blogs.

I'm a grad student getting his Masters in accounting. I'll be done in six months, and I'm in the midst of hunting down a job. I'm in a southeastern state university, and there is some level of representation from all of the Big Four in this area, as well as half a dozen or more of the second-tier worldwide and regional firms. If that isn't enough of a clue for you: I'm in the Carolinas. So you might figure out who I'm talking about on your own if you're familiar with the industry.

What I'm sharing with you is the kind of thing that (a) I shouldn't take personally, (b) just part of the game, and (c) probably builds character, or some such bullshit, but it pisses me off anyway. I think it's the official genesis of a soon-to-be lifetime hatred of HR departments.

One month ago today I interviewed for a tax position with a not-quite Big Four firm here in town. I saw that I was one of four interviews that day, but from talking to the others and listening to conversations, I could tell that I was easily the most qualified (I was the only grad student and the only one with a tax degree). I though the interview went well, as I was asking a lot of questions and building a good rapport with my various interviewers. Something struck me strange though that almost half of the people I was supposed to speak with--all seniors and managers--happened NOT to be there that day for various reasons. Pretty unprofessional, I thought, that they'd schedule an interview and no one be there to talk to. I wound up spending 75% of the day with associates and ...*shudder*... interns.

I was supposed to hear back in one week. A week goes by. 10 days go by. I fire off a couple of emails, and I get the whole, "Somebody's supposed to do something and talk to somebody and this and that." Finally, 2 weeks and 3 days after my interview, I get a FORM LETTER REJECTION BY EMAIL. The rudest kind of email!

Of course it was the whole, "It's not you, it's us" kind of thing. "It's not that you're not super-duper! We wish we could clone you and hire you twice! It's just that it's a really, really competitive market." I'm to infer from this statement that they chose a better candidate. Okay, so I was a little hurt by this for a while--I mean, I thought since I was technically very qualified for the position, it must have been because they just didn't like me. That can be a little hard to handle, but you let it go and move on.

So this morning, I take a bus trip to Charlotte for a tour of several firms with my college accounting society. I'm suffering the indignation of traveling with a bus load of undergrads, since I'm like the last remaining grad student without a job. One of the firms on the list is the one I applied with. At first I thought it might be best to just stay on the bus and read the paper during that one, but no; the bus always left us to go park somewhere and I didn't want to do that.

Then I see a coffee shop in the lobby, and my gut tells me, "Order some coffee and park it for an hour," but I say, "No. Be the bigger man. Just go up there and listen to the presentation. This is a different branch with different people. No reason to hold a grudge here." Wrong!

I get upstairs and who do I see but the same two HR harlots I met at my interview! They're splitting their time between offices! And they don't even recognize me! Or at least they pretend not to. It's only been a month guys, and I'm weird-looking enough not to forget.

Now here comes the bruising insult. It's almost as if this firm went out of its way to shove it right up my ass that I didn't get hired. They break out the PowerPoint, and the first slide they throw up is a list of all the students they've recently hired from my school. So I get to sit there and look at a dozen names of people I know, people in my classes, PEOPLE WHO'S ASSES I KICK UP AND DOWN THE HALLS EVERY DAY who were obviously better than me. I have never seen a firm do this--parade out the names of people that haven't even started yet.

But I like to think I have a strong constitution, and I did everything I could to let it go. These people were hired BEFORE me, right? So it's still possible that I was just too late. Just too late.

At the end of the presentation, the HR harpies announce that they'll be coming to campus next week for additional recruiting because they're "still looking." Still looking. Any shred of self-respect I had is now totally evaporated. It is unequivocal now--they'd rather risk NOT FILLING a position for the year than have hired me. Oooooorgh!

What makes this so enraging to me is that they had reason to know I was there. They had the guest list. Did they overlook it, or just not care? Did they think I wasn't important enough to alter their presentation? Well I don't know who they're hoping to find, because I was pretty much all they had to choose from at this point.