Now, on past post performance you might expect this to be about, for example, the temporary role I went for where I was asked about things that weren’t on the job description. Or the one advertised as permanent which was only a nine-month post – and where they left me languishing in Reception well past the advertised start time of the interview. Or some of the incredibly awful on-line application systems I’ve come across.
But actually, I want to talk about me.
Because I’m the one thing all my interviews have in common. I’m the reason I’m not employed.
Trouble is, I don’t know why. I never get any feedback. Ever. Even when I’m offered it, it never arrives (two months and counting, from a York-based company that was going to call me with the outcome but emailed instead). I’ve had the odd “you were a close second” via recruiters, which is not much help really.
Am I too chatty? Not talkative enough? Too smiley? Too downbeat? Over-qualified, under-qualified…
Is it some sort of conspiracy? An age thing? A race thing? Are you having trouble matching my name, face and grey hairs with your diversity monitoring form1?
I’m not applying for jobs randomly, I’m spending time trying to interpret what it is prospective employers want, then customising my text and CV accordingly. I’m putting the effort in, it’s not getting matched.
Without feedback, how will I know where I’m going wrong and what to change? There’s presumably some sort of decision grid that interview panels are filling in. I could always send in an FOI request to the public sector organisations, but that’s a bit over the top for something they should be acting transparently about anyway.
So: a plea to interview panels. Write up your notes (or just scan in the selection grid you used) and send them along with the rejection email. I’m sure I won’t be the only one who would appreciate it.
- Mixed – Other. I could go for Anglo-Indian thanks to dad’s mum’s mum’s dad’s mum, but you know they’d get confused. [↩]