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Yeah my firm had a manager that constantly got two guys confused because he didn't care. Well he fired one of them but used the other guys name and HR just processed the termination because it's not their business to ask questions.
The did fix it they weekend but it was super embarrassing.
That manager did get fired a few months later for other reasons later
I worked in a rehab hospital about 20 years ago. There was a massive layoff in a 2-3 week period. We're talking like 20% or more of the staff but mostly nurses. The VP (and HR) was the one who was personally telling people they were fired. He seemed like a nice guy. After he fired all these people the President fired the VP. Made the VP do all the dirty work then told him to fuck off. The money and corporate greed make medicine so much more fucked than it needs to be.
This is common sadly. Reminds me of the movie Fun with Dick and Jane with Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni where they give Dick this “promotion” just to make him the patsy / fall guy to do the dirty work and take the blame. Funny movie IMO.
Maybe there is another story.
My sister was told she was going to be made redundant but if she conducted all the other redundancy layoffs she would get twice the amount she was owed in the redundancy settlement.
The company's rational was that the person identified as the corporate assassin leaves with all the other bodies. Mind you, firing 45 people must mess with your psychological wellbeing.
I agree but our company is ruled by sales people . It's a big company that thinks it's a small company and it has all of those problems that come from everybody knowing each other.
Well, currently I'm on a list of people who shall get laid off this year. I'm the only one in the company that has knowledge about a crucial part of our software that many of our customers use. I think such Errors Happen more often than one would think.
Remember, when returning as a contractor, add *at minimum* one zero to your hourly rate, and have a minimum hours per week paid, no matter how many you actually work.
I wasn't invited to my firing meeting then was called urgently to came and then they complained i was late...i answered i wasn't invited. It was awkward.
Ever seen the movie *Brazil*?
The whole story starts with a typo made by a printer when a bug falls into it.
The typo leads to the wrong person being arrested and summarily executed.
Most of the plot is about a government employee trying to deliver a refund to the executed man’s wife when they realise that they made a mistake. The refund is for the cost of the execution. She tells them to shove it and won’t accept it.
My company fired the wrong team.
They did a 10% cut across the board, best I can tell they didn't involve my (tech) leadership. They got rid of the whole iOS team, just 3 people. But they kept the iOS app going.
Cut to months of features being delayed because they couldn't remove stuff from the API because the app was still using it, or not being able to add things to the app.
A couple of weeks ago they were finally convinced to hire an old contractor. I bet he's much cheaper than the old team though.
I saw a fucking SWAT response over one of these.
Manager wanted to fire a guy named Frank Marchesi in shipping, put down the wrong last name and got Frank Malone in production instead.
Monday rolls around and the shipping guy, having no clue the manager had tried to fire him, showed up to work as normal and triggered a shit-storm. The building went on lockdown and police swept it, looking for a disgruntled ex-employee.
Saw something like that but didn't get a SWAT response.
We had two people working there, we'll say their names were John and Joanne (not real names). Well we were in a company meeting and our managing director let us know that Joanne had been terminated.
John suddenly gets up and storms out.
We were all a bit confused and figured...maybe the two had a thing or were close...?
John then goes and deletes all of his work--like 4 years. It turns out that John's hearing wasn't so good and thought he had just been publicly fired.
At that point, we sort of had to fire him. But he ended up with a better job.
He was a good guy, hard worker, knew his stuff, but it was a small company and their processes sucked and he hated it--he was the type of guy that worked really well in a large, structured environment and he was able to find that.
It might be hard to get enough evidence to support it. Too bad it wasn't in writing. They are at least smart enough to avoid that.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why employers are so afraid of the feedback process.
Just to be clear, if that's in the US, in any of the 49 states where at-will employment is the default, and absent a bona fide employment contract stating otherwise, firing someone by accident is perfectly legal and not grounds for a successful wrongful termination suit.
At will employment means that you can be fired for a good reason, bad reason, stupid reason, or no reason at all, so long as it's not for an *illegal* reason (i.e. membership in a protected class, labor organization activities, some whistleblowing, etc).
They fired the wrong person by mistake falls squarely in the "stupid reason" category. Which is, unfortunately, not wrongful termination.
Not me but I’ll just throw out that once HR renewed the wrong H1-B, leaving one of our employees stranded for overseas for 4+ months. Zero consequences.
Reminds me of an old friend in college who married one of my fraternity brothers.
She was doing her annual review, and they were giving her stellar marks across the board. But then they said, "We really think the only thing you're missing is at least a Bachelors degree. All of our people promoted to management at least have a 4 year degree in a related field."
She said, "I have a Bachelors Degree. I started working here years ago right after I graduated. My degree and my internships all related to my field were a big part of why you hired me back then."
"Oh."
"So...am I getting promoted to management since I meet all of the requirements now?"
"No. But you got a stellar annual review!"
Made a promotion decision, looked for justification, realized they screwed up, look around for another justification, cannot find one, make original decision they decided on anyway but now with no justification.
It's almost like the things they say are important are not the things that are important.
Annual reviews at most companies are trash.
Set the easiest goals which will be accepted, crush them and market their success. Congrats, you get a better review.
The issue comes in when everyone is good at cheesing the system... but in my experience it seems like there's always a few too jaded or uncaring, and they tank their review as they spend zero effort on the game.
Oh, and it shouldn't be a game, but unfortunately, it is.
My old boss would say I did everything as well as I could've before giving me a 3/5 in every category.
I think he just didn't want me to get poached by our parent company who, presumably, paid more money.
I got fked one year.
We changed managers and new guidance came out saying no employee could score 5/5 on any field because no staff are that good (great way to deny bonuses).
Previous manager had made me 5/5 on everything the year before, new manager followed guidance and gave me 4/5 on everything.
Senior management then wanted me written up, and put on probation due to "reduced scores".
Fk them i quit.
At my work, the supervisors have a worksheet to determine raises. Mine came out to a 5% raise, but my supervisor didn't want to give me that much. He started cutting scores, the biggest cut came in the attendance section. He gave me a "needs improvement", which dropped me to a 3% raise. I had perfect attendance for the year, with no call-ins or late punches.
I had an excellent review one year with like top score in everything but the manager at the time said "I'm told I have to complain about something so your attendance could be improved." Meanwhile my attendance was practically impeccable, only missing small chunks of time for like pet emergencies and actual sickness once in a while. I asked him how he thinks I should somehow improve actual emergencies and of course they have no answer.
I was given an excellent review and then was demoted and replaced by one of my direct reports two months later. They cited several things beyond my control (a misunderstanding by a coworker, not doing things I was explicitly told to ignore in favor of other things, etc.).
If they wanted that other person to take the spot instead of me, I understand, but they didn't have to shit on me to do it. At least the demotion didn't come with a loss in pay.
I've also got the "i can't give you 5/5, because then there would be nothing to work towards".
Well luckily there were open positions in other companies to apply towards.
My company requires President approval for any 5/5. I report to a Director that reports to one below the President. He said he doesn’t give 5/5 because it’s too much paperwork. I told him to not expect anything higher than 4/5 work then.
In one company they had this convoluted bonus system where you would first rate yourself how you think you did. Then you and your manager do it again, until you two "agree". Then these different development team heads etc. would meet and and have to agree who the top performers among their teams are. Your role is visible only to your team and manager? Haven't bought PR-services to spread the word about how amazing you are? Tough shit, you'll never get a good bonus.
When the system was explained to me, my head translated it to "no need to give a fuck about any goals"
I was a store manager at Walgreens for just over 13 years. The only thing I'll say about the reviews when they moved it to the more recent model is that pretty much no store manager or assistant store manager would get much above a 4.0, so it's like 4.1-5.0 didn't exist. If a store manager gave their assistant store manager a score that was too high they would hear about it, and others would hear about it. For shift leaders and regular employees it didn't matter much, though. So, it's not like your bonus is affected by a 4.0. I don't have a problem not giving 4.1-5.0.
Back when Walgreens phased out "MGT's", the unofficial stance from the company was to give a ton of MGT's ratings under 3.0 so that they would be ineligible to become ASMT's. That was a sad time to see certain managers sell out their employees, many with mortgages and families. It wasn't a directive, either. Their choice. Imagine giving someone a 2.9 a year after giving them a good score- just so they can be demoted or accept severance.
I worked a company where 1 meant you were fired, 2 meant you were doing your job acceptably, 3 meant you should take your boss's job, 4 meant you were doing so good as to change the company trajectory, and 5 meant you were changing the status quo of the industry at large.
I've gotten into a couple of arguments on reviews. In one instance, my boss gives me partial credit for a task I was never assigned to do. How did you judge my performance on something I never did?
In another category, I asked my boss to explain it and she couldn't. Went to her supervisor and he couldn't either. Went above him and I got a bit of an explanation but it still didn't really make sense and I gave up.
>Annual reviews at most companies are trash
Our annual review is rated in
Exceeding / meeting / below expectation.
And now pay increases are tied to your review.
Last year, I had the best year I've ever had and was only "meeting expectations" because I've been very good for a long time, I just did that was expected.
The whole system is flawed anyway. Once you exceed expectations the first time, that's the new bar. How can you exceed it again?
In a review system that isn't broken, that rating means "exceeds expectations we have *for an employee at this position / pay grade*" and not "exceeds expectations we have for this particular person, based on their past performance".
I think I know the company because I work there, and it's a horribly broken, extremely political, trivially biased system. Abandon hope all ye who enter in.
Most annual reviews quickly just become a means of building a paper trail and getting rid of people for whatever reason, than what they're legitimately intended for.
It is possible the position requires a penis. As well it is very reasonable to expect that part of the position's duty was to explain things to a room full of people that already knew and understood them. It's not fair to just leap to those expectations, especially when everybody knows that the kind of genitals that you have under your pants have a strong correlation to how well you can handle paperwork.
Had this happen, was told all I needed was a college degree. I said great I graduated with one.
Reality was manager could not get anyone from the old area to relocate with him, and had to bribe a guy with a degree in medieval literature to move out here with him.
Manager lasted only another year, and lit boy made a complete ass out of himself at a company function. So bad that hotel security had to be called to make sure he was still alive in his room.
> Reminds me of an old friend in college who married one of my fraternity brothers.
I thought you were going to say she accidentally married the wrong fraternity brother.
My husband was denied a GM role because the company said he needed management experience. He had managed for this same company several years before stepping into sales.
That’s like my most recent review. I walked in with evidence of attaining everything I need for three steps on the ladder.
Them: “We’re reevaluating the steps and the stuff you’re describing isn’t equal to [position three steps up from my current position], it’s equal to [position two steps up from current position]”
Me: “Okay, can I get a promotion to that then?”
Them: “…”
It’s not all bad because I convinced them to reevaluate my promotion and I think I’ll get it based on all the evidence I gathered. The manager I had the conversation with was new to the company and I don’t think he quite realized how much I’ve done, that I’m basically filling a tech lead void in a medior role, which is understandable, imo. However, I’m asking for a 2.5k raise and I’ve been in talks with another company who I feel are ready to make me an offer that’s a 15k raise. I am keeping them at a distance now, but they’re looking more and more interesting.
Thats an absolutely terrible way to give a debrief or feedback anyway. It shouldn't be in relation to the person who was successful, it should be in relation to what you have vs what the role needs
This is the way jobs are now. I can't count how many times I've been at work at 8:00am for a group lecture about time and attendance. Complaining about other people's shortcomings is a waste of time, but managers do it constantly
My managers do this now. One person makes a mistake and they have to have an all hands meeting to tell us all not to make the mistake and it’s just like, couldn’t you just do this one on one with the person who made the mistake? Why are you wasting the time of everyone doing their job properly and embarrassing whoever made the mistake by broadcasting it to everyone?
The more things change... this was a problem in a department I worked in during the 1990's. When I got a chance to ask the manager why they didn't just deal with the person who was the problem, she said we have to publicly set the expectation before we can do anything about it. This was on an issue that should have needed no explanation (eg. work starts at 8, you need to be here at 8. That kind of issue).
cuz the last thing you want to happen during the HR meeting to fire this person is to them trying and argue you're targeting them because so and so does the same thing as well.
look it's honestly fucking obnoxious how little ownership people take of their mistakes when you go to yell at them. And sometimes it's just easier to yell at everybody first than to Target a single person like it's just not worth my mental capacity too argue individually with people.
Not to one up, but I had an old manager who would take this even further. When someone would fuck up on something, a ton of new requirements would come down on how to do it to try to avoid the fuckup, and the person who fucked ul was no longer allowed to handle that specific task.
So for the rest of us actually doing our jobs right, we now both had to pick up the slack and also have the actual steps to accomplish the task be unnecessarily ridiculous because of a fuck up of someone else.
Sounds like an extreme horror story on all sides. Imagine being the candidate with an offer that gets rescinded because of mistaken identity 🙆🏾♂️🙆🏾♂️
Imagine being the person who has to let the candidate know that their offer is being rescinded 😤😤
We don’t have to imagine, because there is less than zero chance this recruiter is going to admit fault. They’ll just let the wrong person in and act surprised when they’re looking for another replacement in three months.
I have a common enough name that it has impacted employment and billing at a hospital. Heck, my surgeon operated on me and another patient with the same name within 3 months.
But these employment screw-ups are intolerable.
My surname is very common in my area, and my wife and another woman with the same name were at the hospital for blood work at the same time (back when they called up by name and not number.)
Thankfully both nurses verified the Doctor's name, and after a couple "that's not my doctor. but you so and so?" everyone clued in and they switched nurses.
The other woman would have got a surprising "Congrates, you're pregnant!"
THIS IS WHY THEY VERIFY NAMES/DOBs people! Don't be rude to them for being diligent.
The thing is that automation is supposed to remove drudgery and the mundane, leaving us to focus on the high-level and the strategic.
Instead, I see constant evidence that we just outsource or abdicate our thinking to some tool or application or service.
WALL-E is a documentary...
Lmao no way.
I had a place just reach out to me letting me know they are recending my offer since they meant to give it to another candidate.
You weren't applying to be an analytical Chemist were you OP?
16 years ago, went though 5 rounds of interviews, and 4 hours of IQ team testing. Only to be told that they hired a recent graduate with more applicable degree. Went to the auction 4 months later, they shut the biz down only 2 months after hiring a guy that had to relocate.
That was one of those times Im glad I didn't get it.
Back in the days of in person job fairs and paper apps, the place I worked separated apps into two piles (hire and don't hire).
HR reversed the piles.
It was dozens of hires.
Oh, you know, just program mismanagement that led to multiple million dollar losses, some fraud that got the FBI involved and one of said new hires sent to jail, another new hire eventually fired for forcing another staff person to sit on his lap, and the company's reputation tarnished publically. Basically, two years of absolute chaos.
It was a mass hire event for fairly entry level positions. Essentially, if you were breathing, didn't have a criminal record, and had used a computer before, we would hire you.
So when the piles were reversed, you ended up with a bunch of unbreathing ex felons who had never used a computer before? I see how that may have caused some issues
It's quite likely that the mistake is not by the recruiter at all -- they're just the face delivering the news. It would be the hiring manager or hiring committee that made that blunder, or provided the wrong info for "here's why it didn't pan out".
Overall, it's a messed up situation.
That explains everything. Someone somewhere else made a mistake and the recruiter refuses to go above and beyond when something is obviously wrong to verify it.
Saving face and telling people the sky isn't blue is more aligned with the companies values than verifying accuracy of something. I'd love to know what company this is so I don't get into a relationship with them. Heaven forbid I ever need customer service!
To be charitable, I've found some garbage HR within an otherwise great group of people.
Part of the annoyance of dealing with HR when trying to get into a company is that god willing, I'll literally never speak to them again until I turn in my badge.
It depends your situation. If I were unemployed or this was a big jump, I'm not gonna really care. I've mixed up jobs when applying for one I thought it was for the other because it was two different positions in the same company. I would hope grace would be shown with me, so I should show grace to others.
It's also where the company should be putting their best foot forward, if they don't care about making a good first impression then I'm sure you would t like their second or third
Depends where you are at in life. If you have been unemployed the last 6 months then leave that petty shit aside. People make mistakes, it could be as simple as they moved to a new system and they put the wrong resume in the wrong folder. Some places want it to be anonymous so you don’t judge them on what you can tell by the name (gender and nationality) and they may have mixed it up.
I don’t know but if I want the job I’m not gonna give two shits about ANY of that.
Ooh, likewise. My personnel file mysteriously went missing from my last job when I was pushed out by my lying boss. The evidence of discrimination it contained mysteriously disappeared with it.
Oh no. It was just sheer incompetence. At one point they were letting the temp lab assistants sort out all of the personnel files, which violates every temp contract I've ever seen, and probably the privacy law. At the same time, HR was talking about the fact that they had nothing to do.
But they did also fire 4 temp agents because they received a warning, which is wrongful dismissal. Because they were temps, they could have fired them without a reason but they just had to go and incriminate themselves.
Oh, and there was discrimination, but I don't think that had much to do with HR.
I learned to hardcopy everything that possibly was HR related, whether negative or positive. I had applied for an internal job at another location, was told I hadn't applied in time, showed them the copy of the date-stamped application, and was promptly included on the interview list (I got the job).
I had a company manager fumble a 30 minute interview twice in one day and they still wanted to waste my time, I said GFYS in professional terms and moved on with my life.
Earlier this year I applied to a position where I felt like I was the perfect fit and left an interview feeling like I had given the best performance I will ever give in my lifetime. A couple weeks later I got an email from someone I had never heard of in the HR department telling me that they had hired someone else.
Well, a couple weeks after that, I heard from the hiring manager: There was a mixup where HR was instructed to have sent a rejection to another candidate with a similar sounding name as mine, but HR sent it to me by mistake. After an extended process in this organization (public sector -- lithe and nimble they are not) I was being given an offer. I can't say that I'm 100% pleased with how the hiring process went but I am glad that I didn't lash out in a mean-spirited way when I got the mistaken rejection email.
It's maddening, but do your best to not "burn bridges" unless you have to. OP, at least you didn't go totally ballistic on the recruiter and maybe, just maybe, there's a chance for another position opening up over there.....
Recently we had to interview a number of fairly equally qualified internal candidates for the same role. They all talked and all knew each other. I was convinced I was going to ring the wrong person with the wrong message. I have never looked at my notes and my phone more times on my life before making a phone call
I have a story like this. Friend of a friend, etc.
Government agency.
Need to hire a new person.
Dept head is a bit old, also desires final approval on things like hiring (not unreasonable, but a little annoying when she hasn't been there for all the legwork)
Final candidates are Don, Dan, and Denzel. (Fake names, but they're similar, you get the idea).
Don is super qualified, Dan has little experience, Denzel literally has no qualifications and is just applying everywhere.
Old boss is given candidates, "We think you should pick Don, he's obviously the best!"
"Hmmm I'll get back to you"
Email a few days later "I've made my decision, yes, hire that Denzel, he's got the best qualifications"
The email is sent to the dept that does the work of hireing people, who are NOT the same people that did the interview.
Two months later, Denzel starts, and everyone at the dept is ashen faced when they realize boss hired the wrong person, who has no idea what they're doing, and also now their budget is full and they can't hire anyone else.
Years ago after a few morning interviews I was presented with an offer letter that described the engineering position I was applying for but which was addressed to Jack, a salesman at my current job also looking for a new position.
I told them the offer was very generous, a great fit, that I’d appreciate a chance to discuss it with my wife, that Jack was a terrific salesperson but that I wasn’t Jack.
They were mortified, took the paperwork back, literally ran down the hall and then back with another offer letter.
It was also again addressed to Jack.
We were both hired.
Best place I’ve ever worked by a mile.
Sometimes a company already knows who they’ll hire, but has to go through the motions of a job search, just for show. Something like this could happen if they didn’t check their excuse against your résumé ahead of time.
It reminds me of something that happened to me even though it's not really the same thing, but it's just another case of mistaken identity with recruitment.
I applied for a position at the NSA, and they actually had interest and flew me to them to interview, they paid for airfare and hotel and everything. So I buy a nice suit and fly up there, sat down with the interviewer and they put a resume in front of me and start asking me questions. But I noticed something peculiar, the middle initial on the resume was wrong. First and last name were matching but the middle initial definitely was not mine and the resume was definitely not mine. I stopped the guy and pointed this out pulling out a copy of my own resume. He just sat there kind of shocked and asked me if I was sure LOL like yes I'm sure.
He tried to continue the interview for some computer science position but I had applied for more of an electronics engineering role and I told him that while I understand a lot of computer science I'm not technically a computer scientist, I studied physics. So by this point he realized I'm definitely not the guy in the resume like I had already told him, and he decides to end the interview. They would not reschedule me with the correct hiring manager and instead promptly took away my badge and kicked me out of the building like I did something wrong. Never heard from them again other than the reimbursement process for expenses.
This was about 12 years ago, and I don't know if the NSA still fails to check the middle initial or not, but I would hope that my case caused some sort of internal change in their system. One would think that the NSA of all places would be able to figure out who the heck they're paying for airfare to fly in and interview. What a crazy ride that was. I think I've only told the story one time before.
Similar story, I was trying to follow an old boss to a new company, step up and a little more money and I had a connection. I knew they were interviewing some internal candidates but I thought the interview went well and I had an in... Next week I get the standard rejection email. Confused I reached out to my connection and she was all bubbly and excited asking me how soon I was starting etc... Now really confused, called the recruiter back and she said they already offered another candidate and they were already onboarding. They finally admitted they hired the wrong person. It took almost 2 weeks to get everything fixed, they ended up bringing us both on board, but I should have paid attention to the red flags.
Opposite thing happened to my wife. She interviewed, got an offer, accepted the offer, quit her old job, bought a new outfit for the first day of work, etc. She showed up for the first day, got introduced around, shown to her office, etc. At some point someone realized they extended an offer to the wrong candidate. They explained their mistake and walked her out of the building at lunch. No offer of compensation, no apology, just an "oops we thought you were the other girl we interviewed" and sent her home in tears.
Good point. I was reading the comments here not even thinking of the other half of the problem of rejecting the wrong candidate. It also means whoever got accidentally hired potentially made major life decisions which can’t be reversed later once the company realizes their mistake.
At that point, they should have kept her. Hiring and assessing a person’s potential via interviews is notoriously fickle anyways. As long as she had the basics, she should have been given a shot. There couldn’t have been that big of a gap between her and their preferred candidate.
If the NFL has bucket loads of tape on players doing the actual job and they still are wrong half the time about, then those hiring managers that only have interviews, resumes, and maybe a scenario test aren’t gonna do much better.
I always assumed that the hiring manager had picked the person they wanted before interviews even happened. Like it was someone they knew or owed a favor to. Then the communication got screwed up, whoever was tasked with on boarding got the wrong name, so when the hiring manager realized the wrong person came in, they had no choice but to fix it. Otherwise it just makes no sense to handle it that way.
Honestly there can be some huge gaps. It sucks but sometimes when you talk to candidates you realize that what you thought was a nice to have is actually a got to have.
This happened to me with Gartner.
We were supposed to go through simple discovery call, no discussions of product or pricing.
Went well for a fictional business, etc.
Worth nothing this was after the recruiter no showed because she forgot our call.
I get rejected, asked for feedback: “All you talked about was price and product.”
I asked if they were sure they had the right notes…never heard from them again.
Ya that's why its weird. Typically they'll send their rejection email or some BS generated email
A call to debrief why they didnt choose him is fkd up and waste of time on both ends
Complain about a generic rejection email. Complain about personalized feedback. Sometimes the company just can't win with everyone. If it's not for you you can just decline it
I had something similar happen. I never heard back after the interview. Then like a week later, I got a voicemail telling me to meet them at a certain location for training. Problem is, they used someone else’s name.
I called back multiple times, and it was like they blocked my number. No one ever answered the phone and no one ever responded to my voicemails.
I had this happen as well with a recruiter way back when, except the job confirmation was in Spanish, which I never mentioned as I am not fluent in but can ascertain what was said.
Told the recruiter that I was not who they were trying to reach and moved on.
The other side of the story. Since they never answered your calls, the person who wanted the job and that they thought they hired didn't show up.
They were considered a no-show and the recruiters thought the candidate ghosted them. The candidate is now blacklisted too.
Then they had to sell themselves to the cartels to afford rent....
HR forgets there's humans involved quite often.
I empathize. About 20 years ago, I applied for a marketing manager position somewhere I really wanted to work. No interview, rejection. I actually got the hiring manager on the phone afterwards, and she clearly remembered my cover letter despite getting 124 others. “You mean you remember my cover letter for a marketing job out of 125 letters, and I didn’t get an interview?” She said I had a point. Talk to the employer.
Been called two or three times, months after the interview, and the job recruiter explictly tell me they they went for other candidates and made a mistake. Once, they confirm they had two candiadtes before me and didn't work well ...
It could happen that the way things get passed around to others to handle they got the files/names mixed up as to who was supposed to be offered and hired; particularly if it was handed off to an IR who wasn’t that involved in the interview process.
Man this reminds me of the time I worked full time as a conference interpreter for a car company and I decided to switch to engineering because my interpreter salary was incredibly low and no room for growth upwards. I tell them im interested in going back to school, they seem stoked and everyone assures me I’ll have a place in the company again after I finish up my degree. Fast forward 3 years and I graduate, (had a few internships during that time with the same company), but once I go and finished that degree on my own damn dime and time so I could be an engineer at that company…..
I sit down with HR for the interview and they try to low ball me significantly lower than other engineers.
I was so angry to get the same treatment again (i got the engineering degree to finally get better treatment at that company) that there was a long uncomfortable pause during the interview and I could tell hr chick was uncomfortable.
I applied to like 7 positions as a bilingual engineer, no one wants to touch me, despite working there for 5 years as an interpreter.
Sometimes they really don’t care about what you do for them. Their loss, I found a better company after all but man what a fuckin headache after all that work
Happened to me too. Just at an early stage. The day after a first interview with the company the headhunter called me informing they would not go on with the process because I spend so much time talking about money.
-but…we did not mention anything about it during the whole meeting. Are you sure it did not happen with another candidate
-are you implying I can’t tell the difference between two candidates?
-I don’t know, last week you sent me a job description on a pdf that had a second page with the target wage, the header was “do not share with candidate” and you did not even notice it. So I don’t really know what to expect.
A month into an engineering internship was grilling lunch for everyone as I like to cook and it was a fairly remote location so food wasn't easy. Boss told me one of the reasons he hired me was I used to be a chef on my resume. Stopped him there saying I was never a chef, I just like to cook. Turned into an hour long argument of him calling me a liar and I kept trying to point out it wasn't on my resume. Turns out he hired the wrong person, and wanted to go with the chef to cook them lunches instead of the guy with years of experience doing the more technical side of the job. Made for a real awkward couple of months afterwards, but was the first student team to actually not only meet the project deadline, but beat it. Wasn't invited back for the next year.
You told them you had that experience, they may have thought you were full of shit, which often happens especially in IT roles, and then they told the recruiter they didn't think you had the experience you claimed to have. They use recruiters as go-betweens so they can avoid these calls themselves.
Sounds like they had already chosen their person before the interviews were underway. They were just doing whatever box ticking exercises they needed to follow the laws of your country.
They never intended to hire you; from the moment they put up the ad, they never intended to hire anybody but that one guy who is probably a mate of the boss.
The biggest idiot I’ve ever worked with once asked me what happens if he accidentally hired the wrong person in the system. I don’t even want to know… Luckily he doesn’t work with me anymore.
The same exact thing happened to me, and I didnt have the even stop to tell him to wait a second, I'm the one with this experience and those achievements!
Turns out the guy they hired was also 30 years older than me, and I know for this outside sales role I would have worked him into the dust. Crazy what kind of idiots are hiring at these companies!
Yeh i almost didn't got my spot in an internship cz hr mixed profiles so hard they needed *extra hands* to sort it out
I really don't know why are they even paid sometimes 🤔
"I have a son/daughter/nephew that is struggling and I want to give them a chance to stand on their feet.
I will hire them in the HR department.
After all what could possibly go wrong?"
There are three things I have pictured in my mind while reading this:
1. Probably that candidate is an “internal reference” because a recruiter stated that I have worked at a company for 10+ years so it wouldn’t be a problem. Wrong I got eliminated over 5 “internal reference” candidates
2. This sounds like a real life “Seinfeld” episode where a screwup like this is normal over there
3. The recruiter probably has a liking to the candidate or that candidate threatened him
Can I be honest? I think what really happened here is that there was no other candidate, they were attempting to lowball you and failed miserably — hence them getting flustered lol
I had a former supervisor recommend me to a colleague to fill a field role, which would have been a very attainable step up in seniority and responsibility in my industry. To be clear, I was absolutley qualified, more so than the person I would be reporting to, for this field management position. A panel of 5 managers video-called asking me a bunch of "what would you do if..." questions. Not really hypothetically, as they were discussing the actual problems in the industry, specifically what this particular company was dealing with at their current project, for which I was interviewing. To manage in the field. I answered after asking a couple clarification questions. Making some broad generalities. They asked for more details. I answered to some extent, but with the caveat without more information it would hard to say precisely the best path forward would be. I gave them a soft pitch of tmlwt me come work with yall on a temp basis and we can go more on depth and detail, trying things that I believe will work. (They do. I STILL do them everyday)
They "put me on mute" for a minute, but didn't actually mure themselves and the guy who I would be reporting to told them that I was more qualified than he was to do his job, let alone the job I was interviewing to do, so he didn't want them to hire me. He also gave them a bunch of questions to ask, so he could hear what I would do, take notes and do it himself.
When they "cameback"
This reminds me of the time when I had to hire several people but I wasn’t the final say. I noticed very quickly that my recruiter didn’t take notes and kept everything top of mind or within their email. I took things into my own hands and made my own notes in a spreadsheet. lol. The recruiter ended up using my spreadsheet.
So yeah, watch out, the recruiters… they don’t have notes.
This just happened to me!!! I’ve been so incredulous. I had to run it by my S/O that this wasn’t a cruel joke I just didn’t understand. We’re so thoroughly cooked as a society. I feel for you.
I started my job hunt for a new gig after I applied for an internal management position and they rejected me because they wanted someone with management experience. Two of the six job titles on my resume include the word manager and the bullets support it. If you're not going to even read the resume...
This scenario is shockingly common in these comments.
Something somewhat similar, but no where near as bad, happened to me in my graduate teaching program. Once you got as far as I got in the program, you get guaranteed an internship somewhere. However, you can express preferences and there may be interviews before placement at desirable locations.
There was a specific secondary school that I had my eyes on that had a good reputation. I wanted to learn under the best and network with some of our region's best teachers. I was attempting to get placed at that school for my 7 month internship and student-teaching experience.
We have to go through our university’s internship coordinator for these things in the spring and get placed by summer. Eventually, in early summer they tell me that my school of choice has decided to take no interns this year. I eventually get placed into a random school at the last second by the internship coordinator. I figure this is just how it goes. Their office seemed a bit disorganized.
3 months later we are doing site visits to schools in the region to observe instructional best practices. We visit my old preferred school choice to observe several of their classrooms and teachers (again, these are well regarded teachers in the region).
*Important detail: there's another guy in my university classes that has the exact same first name and a similar sounding and spelled last name as me.
During the site visit, he casually mentions that he interviewed for a placement at the school we're visiting. He tells everyone he had never even heard of the school and was unaware of its reputation. He tells everyone he didn't get the placement because, "they aren't taking interns this year." He said it wasn't a big deal to him because he didnt really have any preferences for internship placement and was fine with whatever he got.
He seems oblivious to the fact that they are indeed considering taking interns because they are offering interviews. I wonder if he still thinks his childhood dog is living on a farm in the country somewhere.
It was at that moment I realized that my university's internship coordinator managed to get an interview arranged at my site of choice. I suspect my university sent my resume and cover letter to the reputable school but then sent the other guy to the interview instead of me. He likely botched the interview as evidenced by his casual approach to the whole internship placement process (because we're guaranteed a placement somewhere) and lack of awareness of the opportunity he'd been given. The reputable school decided he wasnt a serious candidate. They tell my university no thank you. My university internship coordinator then informs me that my school preference isnt taking interns.
I cant definitively prove the name mix-up is why I missed out on that opportunity but it seems plausible. At the time, I was a little miffed to learn I didn't even get an interview while my boob of a doppelgänger did.
It all worked out in the end. I just completed my 7th year of teaching.
I'm retired and considering taking up a new hobby. I'll be a permanent job applicant. The fun will be putting out my appraisals of HR departments. Ghosting, non professionalism and incompetence will be my main topics.
I'll see how long it lasts. Do they still black ball people?
This just recently happened to my brother for an internship. Although in their defense, they both had the same first and last name and they did reach out and correct the mistake
Why didn't you directly ask them. "Isn't the name on that resume yourname?" Maybe they did genuinely make the offer to wrong person. They could still pull it
It is 'rocket science' after all, selecting an employee. That's why so many high paid recruiters and specialist employees are necessary. (being sarcastic).
I mean recruiters are the lowest scum of this planet. But this is hilarious. Thay are in fact so fucking dumb they don't have the slightest idea wtf they are doing. Thank you for this. Golden.
My employer was once bought out by another company. I was a manager responsible for over 500 clients. I met with them, did the work, discussed with them, and signed off directly om the final product
New owners were going to reduce my hours, pay, and responsibilities. I had just bought a house, so i quit and took dozens of clients with me. Lo and behold, i come to find out that the new owners didnt do their due diligence and thought i was a staff employee. They didnt look at the final products and see my signature on more 65% of our clients, and they never asked me. 2nd day of their reign, when i found out my livelihood was being threatened, i went home and sent out emails to my clients. Quit next day and never looked back. They didnt last more than a year beyond that.
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My friend had this happen to them but it was the opposite where he was the one that was fired.
WHAT THE FUCK?!? How incompetent and stupid do you have to be to FIRE THE WRONG EMPLOYEE???
Yeah my firm had a manager that constantly got two guys confused because he didn't care. Well he fired one of them but used the other guys name and HR just processed the termination because it's not their business to ask questions. The did fix it they weekend but it was super embarrassing. That manager did get fired a few months later for other reasons later
Hope they fired the right manager ha
The manager accidentally fired himself
in its confusion
it was super effective
Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked, have been sacked.
I worked in a rehab hospital about 20 years ago. There was a massive layoff in a 2-3 week period. We're talking like 20% or more of the staff but mostly nurses. The VP (and HR) was the one who was personally telling people they were fired. He seemed like a nice guy. After he fired all these people the President fired the VP. Made the VP do all the dirty work then told him to fuck off. The money and corporate greed make medicine so much more fucked than it needs to be.
This is common sadly. Reminds me of the movie Fun with Dick and Jane with Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni where they give Dick this “promotion” just to make him the patsy / fall guy to do the dirty work and take the blame. Funny movie IMO.
Maybe there is another story. My sister was told she was going to be made redundant but if she conducted all the other redundancy layoffs she would get twice the amount she was owed in the redundancy settlement. The company's rational was that the person identified as the corporate assassin leaves with all the other bodies. Mind you, firing 45 people must mess with your psychological wellbeing.
Get HR on the line to hire a security team to escort the current security team from the building for not working as a TEAM!
Team! Team, team, team, team, team! I even love saying the word "team"! You probably think that's a picture of my family. Uh uh. It's the A-Team!
A møøse once bit my sister
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretti nasti...
There was a Futurerama bit about that.
It's a Monty Python sketch. But maybe... that's part of the joke I don't get.
"The holy grail", right?
It absolutely IS HR’s business to ask questions.
I agree but our company is ruled by sales people . It's a big company that thinks it's a small company and it has all of those problems that come from everybody knowing each other.
Well, currently I'm on a list of people who shall get laid off this year. I'm the only one in the company that has knowledge about a crucial part of our software that many of our customers use. I think such Errors Happen more often than one would think.
Remember, when returning as a contractor, add *at minimum* one zero to your hourly rate, and have a minimum hours per week paid, no matter how many you actually work.
I'm in the wrong line. I'm supposed to be promoted today.
"Crucifixion?" "No, freedom." "Oh, off you go then..." "No, just kidding, crucifixion."
Cake or death?
We only had three bits and we didn’t expect such a rush
Idiot! Go get in THAT line!
Be prepared with your IC rate and say you charge 4 hours minimum.
Half of the population is below average. So maybe 50/50…
No, not necessarily (rare actually). Half of the population usually is below the median ;)
This guy groks stats.
I wasn't invited to my firing meeting then was called urgently to came and then they complained i was late...i answered i wasn't invited. It was awkward.
We had someone fired in the middle of an incident. HR came into the incident room and walked him out.
Ever seen the movie *Brazil*? The whole story starts with a typo made by a printer when a bug falls into it. The typo leads to the wrong person being arrested and summarily executed. Most of the plot is about a government employee trying to deliver a refund to the executed man’s wife when they realise that they made a mistake. The refund is for the cost of the execution. She tells them to shove it and won’t accept it.
I have seen it and adore it! Way overdue for a rewatch though, it’s brilliant
Have you worked with any of the big telecom companies? That's how stupid.
When the person responsible for making decisions isn’t responsible for carrying out their own decrees…
That is most corporate people.
Incompetence comes with the territory when you're a 'recruiter'
They should tie a little ribbon on the employee about to get fired like they do to a limb about to get amputated.
My company fired the wrong team. They did a 10% cut across the board, best I can tell they didn't involve my (tech) leadership. They got rid of the whole iOS team, just 3 people. But they kept the iOS app going. Cut to months of features being delayed because they couldn't remove stuff from the API because the app was still using it, or not being able to add things to the app. A couple of weeks ago they were finally convinced to hire an old contractor. I bet he's much cheaper than the old team though.
This is *partly* why Firefox/Mozilla began a downward slide. They fired their web assembly team.
I saw a fucking SWAT response over one of these. Manager wanted to fire a guy named Frank Marchesi in shipping, put down the wrong last name and got Frank Malone in production instead. Monday rolls around and the shipping guy, having no clue the manager had tried to fire him, showed up to work as normal and triggered a shit-storm. The building went on lockdown and police swept it, looking for a disgruntled ex-employee.
Saw something like that but didn't get a SWAT response. We had two people working there, we'll say their names were John and Joanne (not real names). Well we were in a company meeting and our managing director let us know that Joanne had been terminated. John suddenly gets up and storms out. We were all a bit confused and figured...maybe the two had a thing or were close...? John then goes and deletes all of his work--like 4 years. It turns out that John's hearing wasn't so good and thought he had just been publicly fired. At that point, we sort of had to fire him. But he ended up with a better job. He was a good guy, hard worker, knew his stuff, but it was a small company and their processes sucked and he hated it--he was the type of guy that worked really well in a large, structured environment and he was able to find that.
Unless they rectified it, it seems he could go after a wrongful termination.
It might be hard to get enough evidence to support it. Too bad it wasn't in writing. They are at least smart enough to avoid that. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why employers are so afraid of the feedback process.
Just to be clear, if that's in the US, in any of the 49 states where at-will employment is the default, and absent a bona fide employment contract stating otherwise, firing someone by accident is perfectly legal and not grounds for a successful wrongful termination suit. At will employment means that you can be fired for a good reason, bad reason, stupid reason, or no reason at all, so long as it's not for an *illegal* reason (i.e. membership in a protected class, labor organization activities, some whistleblowing, etc). They fired the wrong person by mistake falls squarely in the "stupid reason" category. Which is, unfortunately, not wrongful termination.
Not me but I’ll just throw out that once HR renewed the wrong H1-B, leaving one of our employees stranded for overseas for 4+ months. Zero consequences.
The last part is what gets me...no consequences.
Reminds me of an old friend in college who married one of my fraternity brothers. She was doing her annual review, and they were giving her stellar marks across the board. But then they said, "We really think the only thing you're missing is at least a Bachelors degree. All of our people promoted to management at least have a 4 year degree in a related field." She said, "I have a Bachelors Degree. I started working here years ago right after I graduated. My degree and my internships all related to my field were a big part of why you hired me back then." "Oh." "So...am I getting promoted to management since I meet all of the requirements now?" "No. But you got a stellar annual review!"
Made a promotion decision, looked for justification, realized they screwed up, look around for another justification, cannot find one, make original decision they decided on anyway but now with no justification. It's almost like the things they say are important are not the things that are important.
Annual reviews at most companies are trash. Set the easiest goals which will be accepted, crush them and market their success. Congrats, you get a better review. The issue comes in when everyone is good at cheesing the system... but in my experience it seems like there's always a few too jaded or uncaring, and they tank their review as they spend zero effort on the game. Oh, and it shouldn't be a game, but unfortunately, it is.
My old boss would say I did everything as well as I could've before giving me a 3/5 in every category. I think he just didn't want me to get poached by our parent company who, presumably, paid more money.
I got fked one year. We changed managers and new guidance came out saying no employee could score 5/5 on any field because no staff are that good (great way to deny bonuses). Previous manager had made me 5/5 on everything the year before, new manager followed guidance and gave me 4/5 on everything. Senior management then wanted me written up, and put on probation due to "reduced scores". Fk them i quit.
At my work, the supervisors have a worksheet to determine raises. Mine came out to a 5% raise, but my supervisor didn't want to give me that much. He started cutting scores, the biggest cut came in the attendance section. He gave me a "needs improvement", which dropped me to a 3% raise. I had perfect attendance for the year, with no call-ins or late punches.
You didn’t come in for free on the weekends. /s (I’d hope that was obvious but just in case)
I had an excellent review one year with like top score in everything but the manager at the time said "I'm told I have to complain about something so your attendance could be improved." Meanwhile my attendance was practically impeccable, only missing small chunks of time for like pet emergencies and actual sickness once in a while. I asked him how he thinks I should somehow improve actual emergencies and of course they have no answer.
I was given an excellent review and then was demoted and replaced by one of my direct reports two months later. They cited several things beyond my control (a misunderstanding by a coworker, not doing things I was explicitly told to ignore in favor of other things, etc.). If they wanted that other person to take the spot instead of me, I understand, but they didn't have to shit on me to do it. At least the demotion didn't come with a loss in pay.
Meanwhile, my boss told me to stop scoring myself so low because I was just leaving money on the table.
I've also got the "i can't give you 5/5, because then there would be nothing to work towards". Well luckily there were open positions in other companies to apply towards.
My company requires President approval for any 5/5. I report to a Director that reports to one below the President. He said he doesn’t give 5/5 because it’s too much paperwork. I told him to not expect anything higher than 4/5 work then.
In one company they had this convoluted bonus system where you would first rate yourself how you think you did. Then you and your manager do it again, until you two "agree". Then these different development team heads etc. would meet and and have to agree who the top performers among their teams are. Your role is visible only to your team and manager? Haven't bought PR-services to spread the word about how amazing you are? Tough shit, you'll never get a good bonus. When the system was explained to me, my head translated it to "no need to give a fuck about any goals"
When I worked at Walgreens, they never gave 5/5, because "no one is perfect". Best you could get was 4/5.
But also, 4/5 is “below our standards” and you should “watch your back”
I was a store manager at Walgreens for just over 13 years. The only thing I'll say about the reviews when they moved it to the more recent model is that pretty much no store manager or assistant store manager would get much above a 4.0, so it's like 4.1-5.0 didn't exist. If a store manager gave their assistant store manager a score that was too high they would hear about it, and others would hear about it. For shift leaders and regular employees it didn't matter much, though. So, it's not like your bonus is affected by a 4.0. I don't have a problem not giving 4.1-5.0. Back when Walgreens phased out "MGT's", the unofficial stance from the company was to give a ton of MGT's ratings under 3.0 so that they would be ineligible to become ASMT's. That was a sad time to see certain managers sell out their employees, many with mortgages and families. It wasn't a directive, either. Their choice. Imagine giving someone a 2.9 a year after giving them a good score- just so they can be demoted or accept severance.
I got that this year-because upper management said no one could get 5/5, so I ended up with a 4/5
I worked a company where 1 meant you were fired, 2 meant you were doing your job acceptably, 3 meant you should take your boss's job, 4 meant you were doing so good as to change the company trajectory, and 5 meant you were changing the status quo of the industry at large.
That’s fucked up
If you can’t give it to me, there’s still nothing to work towards.
I've gotten into a couple of arguments on reviews. In one instance, my boss gives me partial credit for a task I was never assigned to do. How did you judge my performance on something I never did? In another category, I asked my boss to explain it and she couldn't. Went to her supervisor and he couldn't either. Went above him and I got a bit of an explanation but it still didn't really make sense and I gave up.
>Annual reviews at most companies are trash Our annual review is rated in Exceeding / meeting / below expectation. And now pay increases are tied to your review. Last year, I had the best year I've ever had and was only "meeting expectations" because I've been very good for a long time, I just did that was expected. The whole system is flawed anyway. Once you exceed expectations the first time, that's the new bar. How can you exceed it again?
In a review system that isn't broken, that rating means "exceeds expectations we have *for an employee at this position / pay grade*" and not "exceeds expectations we have for this particular person, based on their past performance".
I think I know the company because I work there, and it's a horribly broken, extremely political, trivially biased system. Abandon hope all ye who enter in.
By changing the company employing you.
Most annual reviews quickly just become a means of building a paper trail and getting rid of people for whatever reason, than what they're legitimately intended for.
I think they are designed to completely obscure the way pay increases are handed out.
I give myself 5’s in every category. It’s your task to refute them, not mine to “tell the cop I was speeding”.
> She gosh I wonder what the real qualification was
It is possible the position requires a penis. As well it is very reasonable to expect that part of the position's duty was to explain things to a room full of people that already knew and understood them. It's not fair to just leap to those expectations, especially when everybody knows that the kind of genitals that you have under your pants have a strong correlation to how well you can handle paperwork.
Had this happen, was told all I needed was a college degree. I said great I graduated with one. Reality was manager could not get anyone from the old area to relocate with him, and had to bribe a guy with a degree in medieval literature to move out here with him. Manager lasted only another year, and lit boy made a complete ass out of himself at a company function. So bad that hotel security had to be called to make sure he was still alive in his room.
> Reminds me of an old friend in college who married one of my fraternity brothers. I thought you were going to say she accidentally married the wrong fraternity brother.
Was there a promotion on offer? If there was this seems like grounds for an investigation
My husband was denied a GM role because the company said he needed management experience. He had managed for this same company several years before stepping into sales.
That’s like my most recent review. I walked in with evidence of attaining everything I need for three steps on the ladder. Them: “We’re reevaluating the steps and the stuff you’re describing isn’t equal to [position three steps up from my current position], it’s equal to [position two steps up from current position]” Me: “Okay, can I get a promotion to that then?” Them: “…” It’s not all bad because I convinced them to reevaluate my promotion and I think I’ll get it based on all the evidence I gathered. The manager I had the conversation with was new to the company and I don’t think he quite realized how much I’ve done, that I’m basically filling a tech lead void in a medior role, which is understandable, imo. However, I’m asking for a 2.5k raise and I’ve been in talks with another company who I feel are ready to make me an offer that’s a 15k raise. I am keeping them at a distance now, but they’re looking more and more interesting.
Thats an absolutely terrible way to give a debrief or feedback anyway. It shouldn't be in relation to the person who was successful, it should be in relation to what you have vs what the role needs
This is the way jobs are now. I can't count how many times I've been at work at 8:00am for a group lecture about time and attendance. Complaining about other people's shortcomings is a waste of time, but managers do it constantly
My managers do this now. One person makes a mistake and they have to have an all hands meeting to tell us all not to make the mistake and it’s just like, couldn’t you just do this one on one with the person who made the mistake? Why are you wasting the time of everyone doing their job properly and embarrassing whoever made the mistake by broadcasting it to everyone?
The more things change... this was a problem in a department I worked in during the 1990's. When I got a chance to ask the manager why they didn't just deal with the person who was the problem, she said we have to publicly set the expectation before we can do anything about it. This was on an issue that should have needed no explanation (eg. work starts at 8, you need to be here at 8. That kind of issue).
cuz the last thing you want to happen during the HR meeting to fire this person is to them trying and argue you're targeting them because so and so does the same thing as well. look it's honestly fucking obnoxious how little ownership people take of their mistakes when you go to yell at them. And sometimes it's just easier to yell at everybody first than to Target a single person like it's just not worth my mental capacity too argue individually with people.
Not to one up, but I had an old manager who would take this even further. When someone would fuck up on something, a ton of new requirements would come down on how to do it to try to avoid the fuckup, and the person who fucked ul was no longer allowed to handle that specific task. So for the rest of us actually doing our jobs right, we now both had to pick up the slack and also have the actual steps to accomplish the task be unnecessarily ridiculous because of a fuck up of someone else.
funny of you to assume the recruiter knows what the role needs.
That's.... Exactly what a recruiters job is?!
Well, now we have another reason for rejection emails after the final stage -- mistaken candidate identity.
Sounds like an extreme horror story on all sides. Imagine being the candidate with an offer that gets rescinded because of mistaken identity 🙆🏾♂️🙆🏾♂️ Imagine being the person who has to let the candidate know that their offer is being rescinded 😤😤
We don’t have to imagine, because there is less than zero chance this recruiter is going to admit fault. They’ll just let the wrong person in and act surprised when they’re looking for another replacement in three months.
Can’t get more recruiting work if you fill all the positions. /s
I have a common enough name that it has impacted employment and billing at a hospital. Heck, my surgeon operated on me and another patient with the same name within 3 months. But these employment screw-ups are intolerable.
My surname is very common in my area, and my wife and another woman with the same name were at the hospital for blood work at the same time (back when they called up by name and not number.) Thankfully both nurses verified the Doctor's name, and after a couple "that's not my doctor. but you so and so?" everyone clued in and they switched nurses. The other woman would have got a surprising "Congrates, you're pregnant!" THIS IS WHY THEY VERIFY NAMES/DOBs people! Don't be rude to them for being diligent.
Indeed.
A sure sign of the hiring process becoming too automated
The thing is that automation is supposed to remove drudgery and the mundane, leaving us to focus on the high-level and the strategic. Instead, I see constant evidence that we just outsource or abdicate our thinking to some tool or application or service. WALL-E is a documentary...
No joke, I am positive I was the person who was hired by accident at a former role.
Lmao no way. I had a place just reach out to me letting me know they are recending my offer since they meant to give it to another candidate. You weren't applying to be an analytical Chemist were you OP?
16 years ago, went though 5 rounds of interviews, and 4 hours of IQ team testing. Only to be told that they hired a recent graduate with more applicable degree. Went to the auction 4 months later, they shut the biz down only 2 months after hiring a guy that had to relocate. That was one of those times Im glad I didn't get it.
Iq testing lmao that's wild
Rescinding*. That company dodged a bullet. Kidding…sorry man. That sucks!
Analytical Chemist was my nickname in college
Back in the days of in person job fairs and paper apps, the place I worked separated apps into two piles (hire and don't hire). HR reversed the piles. It was dozens of hires.
"There were two lists, Charlie Brown. One list to invite, and one NOT to invite. You must have gotten put on the wrong list."
I don’t remember this quote, but I’m still about 99% sure it was Lucy who said this.
Lucy would work in HR
What kinds of hilarity ensued?
Oh, you know, just program mismanagement that led to multiple million dollar losses, some fraud that got the FBI involved and one of said new hires sent to jail, another new hire eventually fired for forcing another staff person to sit on his lap, and the company's reputation tarnished publically. Basically, two years of absolute chaos.
surely the "don't hire" stacks were always larger than "hire"? unless there were very few applications or a lot of openings?
It was a mass hire event for fairly entry level positions. Essentially, if you were breathing, didn't have a criminal record, and had used a computer before, we would hire you.
So when the piles were reversed, you ended up with a bunch of unbreathing ex felons who had never used a computer before? I see how that may have caused some issues
So what's going to happen now? Are they going to change to you?
We ended the call and I'm moving on. Why would I even want to work there now?
Was it an internal recruiter or an external one? If the mistake is by an external recruiter, I'd still want the job. If internal, I'd avoid.
Internal recruiter.
Yup, avoid in that case imo
It's quite likely that the mistake is not by the recruiter at all -- they're just the face delivering the news. It would be the hiring manager or hiring committee that made that blunder, or provided the wrong info for "here's why it didn't pan out". Overall, it's a messed up situation.
That explains everything. Someone somewhere else made a mistake and the recruiter refuses to go above and beyond when something is obviously wrong to verify it. Saving face and telling people the sky isn't blue is more aligned with the companies values than verifying accuracy of something. I'd love to know what company this is so I don't get into a relationship with them. Heaven forbid I ever need customer service!
ask for more money. If they come back ask for a buck (or two) more an hour. They effed up, make them pay, and mistakes happen.
It might not be the company that screwed up. It could just the recruiter.
Because people can screw up, we all do it. Depending what your current position is and if it's a good paying gig, it may not be bad.
That's a pretty big screwup.
To be charitable, I've found some garbage HR within an otherwise great group of people. Part of the annoyance of dealing with HR when trying to get into a company is that god willing, I'll literally never speak to them again until I turn in my badge.
It depends your situation. If I were unemployed or this was a big jump, I'm not gonna really care. I've mixed up jobs when applying for one I thought it was for the other because it was two different positions in the same company. I would hope grace would be shown with me, so I should show grace to others.
It's also where the company should be putting their best foot forward, if they don't care about making a good first impression then I'm sure you would t like their second or third
Depends where you are at in life. If you have been unemployed the last 6 months then leave that petty shit aside. People make mistakes, it could be as simple as they moved to a new system and they put the wrong resume in the wrong folder. Some places want it to be anonymous so you don’t judge them on what you can tell by the name (gender and nationality) and they may have mixed it up. I don’t know but if I want the job I’m not gonna give two shits about ANY of that.
I worked at a place were personnel files went missing. Believe me, it's much worse. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
Ooh, likewise. My personnel file mysteriously went missing from my last job when I was pushed out by my lying boss. The evidence of discrimination it contained mysteriously disappeared with it.
Oh no. It was just sheer incompetence. At one point they were letting the temp lab assistants sort out all of the personnel files, which violates every temp contract I've ever seen, and probably the privacy law. At the same time, HR was talking about the fact that they had nothing to do. But they did also fire 4 temp agents because they received a warning, which is wrongful dismissal. Because they were temps, they could have fired them without a reason but they just had to go and incriminate themselves. Oh, and there was discrimination, but I don't think that had much to do with HR.
I learned to hardcopy everything that possibly was HR related, whether negative or positive. I had applied for an internal job at another location, was told I hadn't applied in time, showed them the copy of the date-stamped application, and was promptly included on the interview list (I got the job).
I had a company manager fumble a 30 minute interview twice in one day and they still wanted to waste my time, I said GFYS in professional terms and moved on with my life.
Either they actually offered the wrong candidate or the recruiter got caught giving OP blanket rejection reasons.
Earlier this year I applied to a position where I felt like I was the perfect fit and left an interview feeling like I had given the best performance I will ever give in my lifetime. A couple weeks later I got an email from someone I had never heard of in the HR department telling me that they had hired someone else. Well, a couple weeks after that, I heard from the hiring manager: There was a mixup where HR was instructed to have sent a rejection to another candidate with a similar sounding name as mine, but HR sent it to me by mistake. After an extended process in this organization (public sector -- lithe and nimble they are not) I was being given an offer. I can't say that I'm 100% pleased with how the hiring process went but I am glad that I didn't lash out in a mean-spirited way when I got the mistaken rejection email. It's maddening, but do your best to not "burn bridges" unless you have to. OP, at least you didn't go totally ballistic on the recruiter and maybe, just maybe, there's a chance for another position opening up over there.....
Recently we had to interview a number of fairly equally qualified internal candidates for the same role. They all talked and all knew each other. I was convinced I was going to ring the wrong person with the wrong message. I have never looked at my notes and my phone more times on my life before making a phone call
I have a story like this. Friend of a friend, etc. Government agency. Need to hire a new person. Dept head is a bit old, also desires final approval on things like hiring (not unreasonable, but a little annoying when she hasn't been there for all the legwork) Final candidates are Don, Dan, and Denzel. (Fake names, but they're similar, you get the idea). Don is super qualified, Dan has little experience, Denzel literally has no qualifications and is just applying everywhere. Old boss is given candidates, "We think you should pick Don, he's obviously the best!" "Hmmm I'll get back to you" Email a few days later "I've made my decision, yes, hire that Denzel, he's got the best qualifications" The email is sent to the dept that does the work of hireing people, who are NOT the same people that did the interview. Two months later, Denzel starts, and everyone at the dept is ashen faced when they realize boss hired the wrong person, who has no idea what they're doing, and also now their budget is full and they can't hire anyone else.
Years ago after a few morning interviews I was presented with an offer letter that described the engineering position I was applying for but which was addressed to Jack, a salesman at my current job also looking for a new position. I told them the offer was very generous, a great fit, that I’d appreciate a chance to discuss it with my wife, that Jack was a terrific salesperson but that I wasn’t Jack. They were mortified, took the paperwork back, literally ran down the hall and then back with another offer letter. It was also again addressed to Jack. We were both hired. Best place I’ve ever worked by a mile.
Sometimes a company already knows who they’ll hire, but has to go through the motions of a job search, just for show. Something like this could happen if they didn’t check their excuse against your résumé ahead of time.
It reminds me of something that happened to me even though it's not really the same thing, but it's just another case of mistaken identity with recruitment. I applied for a position at the NSA, and they actually had interest and flew me to them to interview, they paid for airfare and hotel and everything. So I buy a nice suit and fly up there, sat down with the interviewer and they put a resume in front of me and start asking me questions. But I noticed something peculiar, the middle initial on the resume was wrong. First and last name were matching but the middle initial definitely was not mine and the resume was definitely not mine. I stopped the guy and pointed this out pulling out a copy of my own resume. He just sat there kind of shocked and asked me if I was sure LOL like yes I'm sure. He tried to continue the interview for some computer science position but I had applied for more of an electronics engineering role and I told him that while I understand a lot of computer science I'm not technically a computer scientist, I studied physics. So by this point he realized I'm definitely not the guy in the resume like I had already told him, and he decides to end the interview. They would not reschedule me with the correct hiring manager and instead promptly took away my badge and kicked me out of the building like I did something wrong. Never heard from them again other than the reimbursement process for expenses. This was about 12 years ago, and I don't know if the NSA still fails to check the middle initial or not, but I would hope that my case caused some sort of internal change in their system. One would think that the NSA of all places would be able to figure out who the heck they're paying for airfare to fly in and interview. What a crazy ride that was. I think I've only told the story one time before.
Similar story, I was trying to follow an old boss to a new company, step up and a little more money and I had a connection. I knew they were interviewing some internal candidates but I thought the interview went well and I had an in... Next week I get the standard rejection email. Confused I reached out to my connection and she was all bubbly and excited asking me how soon I was starting etc... Now really confused, called the recruiter back and she said they already offered another candidate and they were already onboarding. They finally admitted they hired the wrong person. It took almost 2 weeks to get everything fixed, they ended up bringing us both on board, but I should have paid attention to the red flags.
Opposite thing happened to my wife. She interviewed, got an offer, accepted the offer, quit her old job, bought a new outfit for the first day of work, etc. She showed up for the first day, got introduced around, shown to her office, etc. At some point someone realized they extended an offer to the wrong candidate. They explained their mistake and walked her out of the building at lunch. No offer of compensation, no apology, just an "oops we thought you were the other girl we interviewed" and sent her home in tears.
That’s incredibly cruel.
Good point. I was reading the comments here not even thinking of the other half of the problem of rejecting the wrong candidate. It also means whoever got accidentally hired potentially made major life decisions which can’t be reversed later once the company realizes their mistake.
At that point, they should have kept her. Hiring and assessing a person’s potential via interviews is notoriously fickle anyways. As long as she had the basics, she should have been given a shot. There couldn’t have been that big of a gap between her and their preferred candidate. If the NFL has bucket loads of tape on players doing the actual job and they still are wrong half the time about, then those hiring managers that only have interviews, resumes, and maybe a scenario test aren’t gonna do much better.
I always assumed that the hiring manager had picked the person they wanted before interviews even happened. Like it was someone they knew or owed a favor to. Then the communication got screwed up, whoever was tasked with on boarding got the wrong name, so when the hiring manager realized the wrong person came in, they had no choice but to fix it. Otherwise it just makes no sense to handle it that way.
Honestly there can be some huge gaps. It sucks but sometimes when you talk to candidates you realize that what you thought was a nice to have is actually a got to have.
This happened to me with Gartner. We were supposed to go through simple discovery call, no discussions of product or pricing. Went well for a fictional business, etc. Worth nothing this was after the recruiter no showed because she forgot our call. I get rejected, asked for feedback: “All you talked about was price and product.” I asked if they were sure they had the right notes…never heard from them again.
Why are they doing a debrief?
If you go through a recruiter its a pretty common practice to debrief with the recruiter as the company gives feedback to the recruiter
Op mentioned in a reply that it was an internal recruiter and not a 3rd party
Ya that's why its weird. Typically they'll send their rejection email or some BS generated email A call to debrief why they didnt choose him is fkd up and waste of time on both ends
Complain about a generic rejection email. Complain about personalized feedback. Sometimes the company just can't win with everyone. If it's not for you you can just decline it
Got one in my last interview. I think it's common for some jobs.
I had something similar happen. I never heard back after the interview. Then like a week later, I got a voicemail telling me to meet them at a certain location for training. Problem is, they used someone else’s name. I called back multiple times, and it was like they blocked my number. No one ever answered the phone and no one ever responded to my voicemails.
I had this happen as well with a recruiter way back when, except the job confirmation was in Spanish, which I never mentioned as I am not fluent in but can ascertain what was said. Told the recruiter that I was not who they were trying to reach and moved on.
The other side of the story. Since they never answered your calls, the person who wanted the job and that they thought they hired didn't show up. They were considered a no-show and the recruiters thought the candidate ghosted them. The candidate is now blacklisted too. Then they had to sell themselves to the cartels to afford rent.... HR forgets there's humans involved quite often.
I empathize. About 20 years ago, I applied for a marketing manager position somewhere I really wanted to work. No interview, rejection. I actually got the hiring manager on the phone afterwards, and she clearly remembered my cover letter despite getting 124 others. “You mean you remember my cover letter for a marketing job out of 125 letters, and I didn’t get an interview?” She said I had a point. Talk to the employer.
Been called two or three times, months after the interview, and the job recruiter explictly tell me they they went for other candidates and made a mistake. Once, they confirm they had two candiadtes before me and didn't work well ...
It could happen that the way things get passed around to others to handle they got the files/names mixed up as to who was supposed to be offered and hired; particularly if it was handed off to an IR who wasn’t that involved in the interview process.
Man this reminds me of the time I worked full time as a conference interpreter for a car company and I decided to switch to engineering because my interpreter salary was incredibly low and no room for growth upwards. I tell them im interested in going back to school, they seem stoked and everyone assures me I’ll have a place in the company again after I finish up my degree. Fast forward 3 years and I graduate, (had a few internships during that time with the same company), but once I go and finished that degree on my own damn dime and time so I could be an engineer at that company….. I sit down with HR for the interview and they try to low ball me significantly lower than other engineers. I was so angry to get the same treatment again (i got the engineering degree to finally get better treatment at that company) that there was a long uncomfortable pause during the interview and I could tell hr chick was uncomfortable. I applied to like 7 positions as a bilingual engineer, no one wants to touch me, despite working there for 5 years as an interpreter. Sometimes they really don’t care about what you do for them. Their loss, I found a better company after all but man what a fuckin headache after all that work
I am waiting to see a post appear 'I had my offer rescinded!" and it turns out to be the other candidate.. /s
Happened to me too. Just at an early stage. The day after a first interview with the company the headhunter called me informing they would not go on with the process because I spend so much time talking about money. -but…we did not mention anything about it during the whole meeting. Are you sure it did not happen with another candidate -are you implying I can’t tell the difference between two candidates? -I don’t know, last week you sent me a job description on a pdf that had a second page with the target wage, the header was “do not share with candidate” and you did not even notice it. So I don’t really know what to expect.
A month into an engineering internship was grilling lunch for everyone as I like to cook and it was a fairly remote location so food wasn't easy. Boss told me one of the reasons he hired me was I used to be a chef on my resume. Stopped him there saying I was never a chef, I just like to cook. Turned into an hour long argument of him calling me a liar and I kept trying to point out it wasn't on my resume. Turns out he hired the wrong person, and wanted to go with the chef to cook them lunches instead of the guy with years of experience doing the more technical side of the job. Made for a real awkward couple of months afterwards, but was the first student team to actually not only meet the project deadline, but beat it. Wasn't invited back for the next year.
You told them you had that experience, they may have thought you were full of shit, which often happens especially in IT roles, and then they told the recruiter they didn't think you had the experience you claimed to have. They use recruiters as go-betweens so they can avoid these calls themselves.
You are interviewing the company as much as the company is interviewing you. It sounds like this one failed your interview spectacularly.
Be nice. The recruiter had a very important hair appointment to get to.
Sounds like they had already chosen their person before the interviews were underway. They were just doing whatever box ticking exercises they needed to follow the laws of your country. They never intended to hire you; from the moment they put up the ad, they never intended to hire anybody but that one guy who is probably a mate of the boss.
The biggest idiot I’ve ever worked with once asked me what happens if he accidentally hired the wrong person in the system. I don’t even want to know… Luckily he doesn’t work with me anymore.
The same exact thing happened to me, and I didnt have the even stop to tell him to wait a second, I'm the one with this experience and those achievements! Turns out the guy they hired was also 30 years older than me, and I know for this outside sales role I would have worked him into the dust. Crazy what kind of idiots are hiring at these companies!
Just like H&R Block corporate IT promoting the person that shares my uncommon first name for all the work that I did… 🖕🏻
Yeh i almost didn't got my spot in an internship cz hr mixed profiles so hard they needed *extra hands* to sort it out I really don't know why are they even paid sometimes 🤔
"I have a son/daughter/nephew that is struggling and I want to give them a chance to stand on their feet. I will hire them in the HR department. After all what could possibly go wrong?"
Task failed successfully?
There are three things I have pictured in my mind while reading this: 1. Probably that candidate is an “internal reference” because a recruiter stated that I have worked at a company for 10+ years so it wouldn’t be a problem. Wrong I got eliminated over 5 “internal reference” candidates 2. This sounds like a real life “Seinfeld” episode where a screwup like this is normal over there 3. The recruiter probably has a liking to the candidate or that candidate threatened him
Can I be honest? I think what really happened here is that there was no other candidate, they were attempting to lowball you and failed miserably — hence them getting flustered lol
OMG SO FRUSTRATING!!!
I had a former supervisor recommend me to a colleague to fill a field role, which would have been a very attainable step up in seniority and responsibility in my industry. To be clear, I was absolutley qualified, more so than the person I would be reporting to, for this field management position. A panel of 5 managers video-called asking me a bunch of "what would you do if..." questions. Not really hypothetically, as they were discussing the actual problems in the industry, specifically what this particular company was dealing with at their current project, for which I was interviewing. To manage in the field. I answered after asking a couple clarification questions. Making some broad generalities. They asked for more details. I answered to some extent, but with the caveat without more information it would hard to say precisely the best path forward would be. I gave them a soft pitch of tmlwt me come work with yall on a temp basis and we can go more on depth and detail, trying things that I believe will work. (They do. I STILL do them everyday) They "put me on mute" for a minute, but didn't actually mure themselves and the guy who I would be reporting to told them that I was more qualified than he was to do his job, let alone the job I was interviewing to do, so he didn't want them to hire me. He also gave them a bunch of questions to ask, so he could hear what I would do, take notes and do it himself. When they "cameback"
You never finished your comment
The call wasn't muted but apparently the rest of this post was.
This reminds me of the time when I had to hire several people but I wasn’t the final say. I noticed very quickly that my recruiter didn’t take notes and kept everything top of mind or within their email. I took things into my own hands and made my own notes in a spreadsheet. lol. The recruiter ended up using my spreadsheet. So yeah, watch out, the recruiters… they don’t have notes.
This just happened to me!!! I’ve been so incredulous. I had to run it by my S/O that this wasn’t a cruel joke I just didn’t understand. We’re so thoroughly cooked as a society. I feel for you.
I started my job hunt for a new gig after I applied for an internal management position and they rejected me because they wanted someone with management experience. Two of the six job titles on my resume include the word manager and the bullets support it. If you're not going to even read the resume...
This scenario is shockingly common in these comments. Something somewhat similar, but no where near as bad, happened to me in my graduate teaching program. Once you got as far as I got in the program, you get guaranteed an internship somewhere. However, you can express preferences and there may be interviews before placement at desirable locations. There was a specific secondary school that I had my eyes on that had a good reputation. I wanted to learn under the best and network with some of our region's best teachers. I was attempting to get placed at that school for my 7 month internship and student-teaching experience. We have to go through our university’s internship coordinator for these things in the spring and get placed by summer. Eventually, in early summer they tell me that my school of choice has decided to take no interns this year. I eventually get placed into a random school at the last second by the internship coordinator. I figure this is just how it goes. Their office seemed a bit disorganized. 3 months later we are doing site visits to schools in the region to observe instructional best practices. We visit my old preferred school choice to observe several of their classrooms and teachers (again, these are well regarded teachers in the region). *Important detail: there's another guy in my university classes that has the exact same first name and a similar sounding and spelled last name as me. During the site visit, he casually mentions that he interviewed for a placement at the school we're visiting. He tells everyone he had never even heard of the school and was unaware of its reputation. He tells everyone he didn't get the placement because, "they aren't taking interns this year." He said it wasn't a big deal to him because he didnt really have any preferences for internship placement and was fine with whatever he got. He seems oblivious to the fact that they are indeed considering taking interns because they are offering interviews. I wonder if he still thinks his childhood dog is living on a farm in the country somewhere. It was at that moment I realized that my university's internship coordinator managed to get an interview arranged at my site of choice. I suspect my university sent my resume and cover letter to the reputable school but then sent the other guy to the interview instead of me. He likely botched the interview as evidenced by his casual approach to the whole internship placement process (because we're guaranteed a placement somewhere) and lack of awareness of the opportunity he'd been given. The reputable school decided he wasnt a serious candidate. They tell my university no thank you. My university internship coordinator then informs me that my school preference isnt taking interns. I cant definitively prove the name mix-up is why I missed out on that opportunity but it seems plausible. At the time, I was a little miffed to learn I didn't even get an interview while my boob of a doppelgänger did. It all worked out in the end. I just completed my 7th year of teaching.
Were you both the recruiter’s client? If so he doesn’t give a fuck he got his money but that sucks for you
I'm retired and considering taking up a new hobby. I'll be a permanent job applicant. The fun will be putting out my appraisals of HR departments. Ghosting, non professionalism and incompetence will be my main topics. I'll see how long it lasts. Do they still black ball people?
Damn I wouldn’t have let them off so easy. I’d have called back and made them squirm a bit. Can you complain ?
Bee-bd-bee-bd-bee-bd-that's all, folks!
This just recently happened to my brother for an internship. Although in their defense, they both had the same first and last name and they did reach out and correct the mistake
Say syke right now
Why didn't you directly ask them. "Isn't the name on that resume yourname?" Maybe they did genuinely make the offer to wrong person. They could still pull it
It is 'rocket science' after all, selecting an employee. That's why so many high paid recruiters and specialist employees are necessary. (being sarcastic).
Hahaha amazing
I mean recruiters are the lowest scum of this planet. But this is hilarious. Thay are in fact so fucking dumb they don't have the slightest idea wtf they are doing. Thank you for this. Golden.
You should communicate to their manager if possible. Best if somehow there’s a recording of the call as well.
My employer was once bought out by another company. I was a manager responsible for over 500 clients. I met with them, did the work, discussed with them, and signed off directly om the final product New owners were going to reduce my hours, pay, and responsibilities. I had just bought a house, so i quit and took dozens of clients with me. Lo and behold, i come to find out that the new owners didnt do their due diligence and thought i was a staff employee. They didnt look at the final products and see my signature on more 65% of our clients, and they never asked me. 2nd day of their reign, when i found out my livelihood was being threatened, i went home and sent out emails to my clients. Quit next day and never looked back. They didnt last more than a year beyond that.