When the Interview Process Glitches – How Technology Almost Ruined My Job Opportunity

Have you ever left an interview feeling empowered, on cloud-nine, and the job is as good as yours only to receive the dreaded “Thank you for coming in and interviewing?   At this time, we are moving forward with another candidate?”  Me too!  It has got to be the worst feeling.  However, what if the email was incorrect?  What if they did choose you, but thanks to our good friend technology, and a click of a button you received the incorrect email?  You maybe thinking, no way, hiring is too important for a company to make this mistake.  But you would be wrong.  And I know this because it happened to me.  Here’s my quick story…

I went through the interviewing process with an organization and felt confident that I would be hired.  The first interview was with a panel consisting of the Director and two of the Managers, one of whom would become my manager.  Then I had my second one-on-one interview with my future manager.  I really nailed the second interview; it was relaxed, I made her laugh, and I even got her to admit it was down to me and one other candidate.  I left feeling I would be receiving an offer within a few days.  Two days later I was devastated by an email, not from the manager, but one that seemed automated and thanked me for my time, but they were going in a different direction. 

I almost cried.  I began to pace around my house and re-ran through everything trying to figure out if I missed any signs that I was not the front runner for the job.  I then called my husband and told him there must be a mistake, that job was mine.  He, my husband, tried to calm me down and said you can’t land every interview, you will get the next one.  My next move may shock you.  I decided if they didn’t want to hire me, I wanted to hear it from a person.  I wrote down exactly what I would say because even though this seems like something only a confident person would do, I was scared, and shaking.  I really wanted this job because it was exactly what I wanted to do. 

My plan was to thank her for interviewing me and ask if she had any tips that could help me in the future.  She answered the phone and seemed very happy to hear from me.  Then she asked, “Laura, did you accept our job offer?  I can’t wait to have you join our team.”  Okay, shocked again.  I explained that I received an email stating the job was given to someone else.  She was extremely apologetic and a bit embarrassed for the mishap.  She said stay by the phone I will get this resolved.  You are hired, if you still want the position.  And within the hour I received a new email with my job offer!

All I can say is technology is not error free.  If you feel like you had the job and you receive an email stating otherwise, please give the person you interviewed with a call.  Worst case scenario you still don’t get the job, but you may get some constructive feedback.  Best case scenario, you are hired and finally have that job, the next step in your career path!

Until next Tuesday…

Comment below: Has anything close to this ever happened to you?