I am perched on my soapbox having spent the last nine months attempting to move on to my next career role. My field is in learning and development and I know nothing about recruitment as a field. I had the most horrendous journey along the way.
I chose to apply for roles only through agents rather than hunting directly. I used mostly mainstream national agents and two independents. I know circumstances have become more challenging and I factored this in to my application process. I originally expected that it would take three months to find the
right role. My expectation then changed to six, once I had reached the fourth month. I have been attempting two things at once – more responsibility and more money. As a result, I averaged one interview per month, recognising I would have had many more interviews if I had only been attempting a sideways move.
Having now attained my dream role, I feel the need to get two things off my chest. Firstly, I am extremely dissatisfied with my experiences around the interview process. Companies appeared to have little respect for my time. For instance, by committing to two interviews, then changing it to three, then changing the interview time once I’d made arrangements to attend. Two companies expected me to make myself available at one day’s notice. Furthermore, I was almost always required to be available at
times between 9am and 5pm, with no ability to have interviews at, for example, 8am or 6pm. I am fairly senior and cannot just walk out of existing commitments in the middle of the day. In one case, an agent let me know afterwards that a client selected someone who was actually unsuitable for a role, purely
on the basis that they were the best of the candidates who were able to make the unchangeable interview slot.
The upshot of this was that the only way I could attend would be to lie to my employer, taking a sick day or similar. I cannot in all conscience agree with this. I am highly ethical and it concerns me greatly that the agent (and in some cases the company) would condone this. After all, what would stop me acting the same way in the new role? I am very lucky in that my employer has known I have been looking to move on and has supported me, but any other employer would have been seriously annoyed at my frequent diary changes when they impacted upon the business.
The second area where I was extremely disappointed is in the lack of post-interview feedback. I always call the agent immediately after the interview as requested, with clear information about the meeting and potential further interviews. Where there is a positive response from the company, feedback always comes back quickly from the agent. However, when the feedback is less positive, or worse, indecisive, gaining feedback is usually like squeezing blood from a stone.
When both the company and the agent promise feedback and neither do, the outcome is discourteous to me and gives a very poor impression of both parties. Having jumped through endless hoops to get at least two, sometimes three interviews, to be left wondering, is not a finish worth having. As a learning professional, the worst thing about this is that I can learn nothing from the process. Was it me? Was it them? Was it cultural? Has the establishment’s budget been reduced? So I begin the process again, wondering what might have been or might yet be. In closing, when I commenced my search, I set
three criteria which had to be fulfilled.
The role had to be:
- right in terms of level and opportunity
- right in terms of the values of the organisation
- right in terms of the financial package
After these nine months, I have finally got what I wanted. It’s the perfect role and has been the only one which meets all of my three criteria. I had a consistent and sensible agent (an independent, not a chain), only one interview and I ended up with a perfect match between candidate and client.
In terms of lessons learnt, I am not sure how I could prevent some of these things happening again. I now need to put together a team myself in the next few months and am determined to set clear agreements with any agencies that I use, in terms of how my candidates are to be treated.
I would be interested to know the thoughts of other readers.
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