Employer Fail #6: The Blasphemy

Once more, this particular event had more fail than malice on the part of the employer, and as a result it's difficult for me to get particularly incensed about it. Well, most of it. At one point, I applied to a Jewish organization of a nearby university, thinking at the time that they would never get back to me by virtue of not being, well, Jewish enough. Much to my surprise, the reply was relatively instant: in a few hours, I received an email back from the rabbi I had sent a resume and cover letter to.

(As an aside, I think it's befitting of this chronicle to point out that for some strange reason, I generally only get replies to my applications/inquiries if I get them within around a day of my initial email. I'm not quite sure why this would be the case. Perhaps it's because my resume is generally attractive to anyone that looks at it, but the only eyes that are in a looking mode right now are those held by those that have desperate, immediate needs at their organization. On the other hand, as I also tend to apply to things less than 24 hours after they are posted on the great wide internet, it may be because my resume is appealing at first glance, but is considerably less so relative to the immensely overqualified candidates that come pouring in after. That would be consistent with why I've yet to find employment, but without a hiring manager telling me the truth one of these days, it would be difficult to ascertain the reason, or compose a test to divine a statistically-supported theory for this phenomenon.)

In any case, the email I received was rather brief, simply stating that the organization would love to have me in for an interview, and that they would get back to me within a week about scheduling a time to meet. There was a slight issue inherent in that setup because I would be going out of town for a week that next week, so if they wanted to interview within that time period, I would have to make a gracious excuse that hopefully wouldn't end up taking me out of the running. Of course, none of this came into play, because I received no follow-up email scheduling an interview, not that week, nor the week that I was gone. Nor did I the week after returning home, nor did I after sending a friendly reminder email. And then, on a Monday night, essentially three weeks after I would be told that they would contact me "within a week," I received a phone call that the caller ID identified as the rabbi I had sent my emails to.

Employer Fail #38: No matter how you slice it, three weeks and one week are not the same. It is not that difficult to send an email, even if it's just to say there are scheduling difficulties, or that your office is busy revising the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

I picked up the phone, and after the usual small talk at the beginning, the rabbi inquired concerning my desire to interview. After hearing that I was still willing and able, he gave me the choice of "doing it right now" or "coming in tomorrow." As it was already 9:40, I didn't fancy leaving the house on a trek of any sort, but when I said as much he expressed confusion: he had a phone interview in mind. Not wanting to be rejected once more because an interviewer didn't put in the effort to get to know me and my qualifications, I hastily averred that meeting face-to-face was definitely preferable, and that it wouldn't be a problem to come by the next day. I didn't ask for directions, just a time, and yet the rabbi launched into a veritable dissertation about getting there, telling me how to get there from every part of the metro area and then debating with himself, while I was still on the line, about whether it was easier to take one subway line, a different one, or a third one and then hop over to a bus. He decided on the third, but at this point I had already interjected meekly with, "I'm sure I can find it," "I can use Google Maps," and "I have friends to call if I get lost," so I decided to agree and bring the seminar on public transit to a close.

The interview itself was devoid of unecessary monologues. Aside from one more-awkward-than-anything moment where I walked into the building as the rabbi was returning from seeing another candidate out the door, resulting in me making eye contact with him and thanking him for holding the door for me, and then having him backtrack over to me in recognition that I was the next candidate to be interviewed, it was quite pleasant. What floored me was the distinct similarity between what I had already done for two years and what this position entailed: every question I asked only confirmed this. The office atmosphere, the schedules, the way the workload was handled, absolutely identical to what I had already been exposed to functioning within. I made sure that he knew as much. During the interview, I gleaned a couple of interesting tidbits:

1) The reason they took so long in getting back to me is that they had already found someone for the position, who then promptly accepted a spot at a seminary, leaving them in a real bind. The disconcerting thing about this is that they clearly told me that I would be interviewed, and if they had already chosen someone prior to interviewing me (regardless of the fact that he bailed on them), I would have essentially been interviewing for a position that I couldn't get. Awesome.

Employer Fail #39: No, seriously, waste my time. I don't mind. How is that an acceptable employment practice? When, say, trying to rent an apartment, does the landlord have people show up to sign a lease, only to tell them afterward that the complex is full and there are no vacancies? Why do job-seekers get treated like subhumans sometimes?

2) They presumably wanted someone to begin at the start of September, then a couple of weeks away. As such, they would have to contact me concerning a second interview pretty quickly.

As the interview drew to a close, the rabbi told me that he had no final say in the decision-making process. He would simply report his impressions of every first round candidate to the two bosses responsible for conducting the second batch of interviews, pass on the resumes and cover letters, and fade into the background. Still, as he walked me out of the building and we turned to shake hands, he said to me something akin to, "We will start calling people back soon, and you'll definitely be hearing from us."

I didn't. Oh, sure, I did about ten days later, when I received a rejection email, but I don't think that's quite what he meant. Yes, he didn't have any decision-making powers, like he stated. But why say something that can't translate into reality? Over the course of my job search, I've been lied to by company representatives, interviewers, sinister financial masterminds possibly running a fraudulent company as a tax write-off, and now, a representative of a faith. How much lower can I sink?

Employer Fail #40: Lying is bad, whether you're Richard Nixon or an HR staffer for a box company in Tustin. If you don't know something for sure, make that clear in your statement. If you can't promise something, don't. The job search is disappointing enough without being sucker-punched via a rabbi's misleading words.

With that, this chronicle has almost caught up to my life, at least in terms of the major ordeals. I'm currently embroiled in just one more opportunity, one that has proven to be a veritable cornucopia of fail, and as soon as that completes, excepting the unexpected, I'm going to have to rely on something other than my own sob stories for material.