A few years back I interviewed for a mid-level development (fundraising) position at a local university. The first interview went well and I was called back for a second interview. This interview was attended by several university deans and the head of HR. It was stressful but it also went well. I followed up with the original interviewer and he told me I was one of three finalists for the position. It was before the holidays but they would let me know the decision after the new year.

Mid-January, not having heard anything, I called and left a message inquiring on the status of a decision. I was told that a new VP had been hired for the department and she was getting up to speed on process in filling the position I had applied for. I called a few weeks later, left a message and received no response. I called again a few weeks after that and left another message. Again no response.

When March finally rolled around I hunted down a person in the HR department to inquire what was going on. After much digging I found out that the new VP had scrapped the entire job search process until further notice. The End.

I once had a job interview where the person interviewing me talked (negatively and specifically) about the other candidates. This would have been awkward under any circumstances; it was more so because the names of those people were posted where I could see them. [I didn't know any of them, but it was still disturbing.]

My one real horror story was once when I got a rejection over email. It was actually a very nicely worded rejection and I wasn’t the best match for the job so I would have felt OK about it, except that it was to Dear (blank) and the person sending the rejection had forgotten to removed the forwarded note, which was from HR and said something like, “Send this to the job candidates” so the nicely worded personal note felt suddenly quite impersonal. But that’s not the horror part — the horror part is that I forwarded it (so I thought) to a friend of mine also looking for a job, with a comment like, “We weren’t a good match, but a rejection still hurts — still, it doesn’t sound like they remembered me, does it?” and not three minutes later got a very apologetic note from the person who sent the rejection saying that they hadn’t meant to send it as it, they DID remember me, etc. I wasn’t sure if they realized what happened on their own or if I accidentally replied instead of forwarded. So I didn’t know if I should apologize for what would have appeared to be a snarky comment, or ignore it. [Of course I chose to ignore it and hope it was coincidence, though I'm sure it's not.]

I also got a letter of rejection once for a job I never applied for. Now *that* makes a person feel special.

I worked for two years as a systems admin on campus and was “demoted” by my boss for not working hard enough, when I had put in 38 hours to a maximum 20 hour week (campus restrictions).

The next weekend I trudged through the cattleyards at a part-time job fair and connected with a manager from ticketmaster. They were hiring technicians and I arranged an interview for two days later. I waited an hour for my interview, it lasted five minutes with a promise to call. I followed up ten days later and was told “Oh wow, you were the first to interview, everyone was so bad after you we got so caught up trying to pick the best, that we forgot about you entirely. Can you start tomorrow?” (I swear this is true)

Well the “technician” job turned out to be tech support on the phone, and I left the job, amiably but disappointed, about six months later when it was clear I wasn’t going to be transferred. (The department was shut down a few weeks later, doh! severance pay.)

I refocused on my studies, doing 18 credit hours a semester (12 is full time) and graduated Dec. 2008 and have been without work since. I send out applications for one week every month and then follow them up. I’ve got a degree and four years corporate experience and haven’t even landed a single interview. It’s not with self-pity that I write, but with frustration. My pride gets in the way of working as a cell phone salesman or candle vendor in the mall, but I don’t understand how our society expects us to be successful and self-sufficient adults, contributing to our communities, when there’s no jobs to be had!

I agree that interviewing should be a two-way street. Most interviews I’ve been on were fairly reasonable — they asked if you had questions about the company and didn’t just grill you. But I did have a few horrific interviews too. My worst interview was at Fidelity: the manager actually paused on the way to his office to yell — red-face, vein-popping scream — at two of his employees for talking. One was visiting the other in his cubicle and the manager shouted “I don’t pay you to talk!! Get back to your cubicle!!!” It didn’t seem to occur to him that they could have been talking about .. um .. work? Not to mention it was dehumanizing to tell your employees they can never talk at all (even if it isn’t about work). Not to mention it was appalling bad manners to publicly berate an employee — let alone berate an employee in front of a prospective candidate. Horrifyingly, they offered me the job. Even though I dd everything I could to blow the interview. Needless to say, I didn’t take it. But this was a billion years ago and the economy was a lot more forgiving.

Enrico — GOOD LUCK!!!

Josh — no bullets, please!! Nor should you take M. Nico’s advice. Evil advice. West coast indeed . Six days a week I feel bad.

Ryan — I love that you’re the keeper of the avatars on this blog

Craig — John is right — the fact that the HR person is gone means that they could have dropped the ball. It’s worth a call.

Dave S. So, first off, consider yourself followed. Second off. In precisely what parallel universe can you be considered to lack (a) good-lookings and (b) brains? Puh-LEEZE.

Chris D. You are an ethical guy. *Most* corporate employers aren’t unfortunately. I know what you mean about interviewing and hoping to redeem interns. We’re successful about 30% of the time…

Lastly. I’ve gone back and forth about the content of Craig’s original post. I’m not sure if Amy’s advice is crappy or not. She is sympathetic at first. And she does have a point about self-esteem. On the other hand, it does come across as condescending and patronizing. Not to mention bitchy.

I think I may have only been on two interviews, and that was many years ago. It seems that I have been lucky to avoid all this craziness.

I have interviewed a number of interns over the years. The first one we hired was a college student. He told us the reason he wanted to work was because his mother told him he had to get a job. He was a compsci major, but he was one of those compsci majors that don’t seem to have much passion for, or understanding of, the field. We actually hired him since he was our only applicant at the time and we thought we could inspire him. We couldn’t inspire him, and had to let him go a few weeks latter. He didn’t seem to mind. We learned some lessons from that experience, and have had some great hires over the years.

We put a lot of effort into our interviews. We treat our candidates well, and try our best to gauge their potential. We always notified applicants we could not hire.

Interviewing is rough, especially your first couple when you aren’t prepared and think you can wing it. In one of my first interviews, I was ask what I wanted from the position and I basically said “money”. It was an honest answer but I didnt know they wanted me to BS about finding a “family” in the workplace and advancing my skillz.