Tales from unemployment
I found myself over the weekend, in between unpacking and attempting to get the overshare badge on Foursquare (Me? Overshare? Never!), reflecting on my stint being unemployed. As this had been the longest I had ever been unemployed, and hopefully it will never be that long again, a lot of craziness went down and I thought I might share some of that with you. Here are some of the silly, funny, and crazy things that happened. They say it’s important to find humor in things, which fortunately has never been a problem for me. So, for your amusement, here are some of my Tales from Unemployment!
– After the HR manager waxed poetic during our in person interview about how much the candidate experience meant to their company, they proceeded to string me along for another month before I got a canned rejection from their applicant tracking system. Can you say ironic?
– At an interview I was so surprised to be asked what the Fair Labor Standards Act was that for a few seconds I actually forgot what it was. This question was swiftly followed by what is the current minimum wage. Cause, you know, my PHR certification and Master’s degree was not good enough for them, they had to test me themselves.
– After receiving an offer for a contract position I asked a few questions before I would accept the role. The recruiter stated he would check with his boss and get back to me. I never heard from them again.
– There was the recruiter who never seemed to get my messages, voice mail and email, about setting up a phone screen. But she got them for everything else. We never did end up talking. Entirely my fault I’m sure.
– There was the staffing agency that spent 20 minutes telling me how wrong I was for a position only to end the call by letting me know they would be sending my resume in for the role right away.
Have some crazy stories yourself that you want to share? Hit me up in the comments so we can all have a good chuckle together!
August 9th, 2010 saat: 7:38 am
Since you’re speaking in the past tense, I hope your humorous search is over. I was once contacted by a recruiter very urgently. We set up an appointment to speak and I got an automated cancellation notice the next day. I sent a short email asking why and she wrote back and said it was a mistake. We set up a new appointment and had a nice talk. Apparently one of her Sr. VPs had gotten my name from somewhere and wanted to talk to me about a particular role. At the end she said she’d set up a call with the VP in the next week or so and I never heard from them again. Since they reached out to me I wasn’t too bothered but I always felt an explanatory two-liner would have been appropriate. Another personal favorite was a recruiter who was kind enough to let me know directly that he couldn’t process my application because I didn’t have a BA in computer science – although I was a software developer for more than 5 years and it was a non-technical role! I was all, ‘Get over yourself!’ and he was all, ‘No!’
August 14th, 2010 saat: 8:16 pm
Working Girl – Please tell me you actually told the recruiter to get over themselves. *giggle* 🙂
August 16th, 2010 saat: 8:50 am
This message really resonated with me. Maybe because this was the longest period of time that I’d ever been employed as well. In the fall,I had a company tell me I was great for the job and they strung me along through 8 interviews(some in person some via phone) over an 8 week period. Checked my references only to send me an automated rejection letter and never respond to my inquiries over what happened. My references were all former bosses that had nothing but good to say of me so not sure what caused the turn around
August 17th, 2010 saat: 1:08 pm
Reese – Wow, that sucks. No cookie for them, not even stale ones.