

Ask HN: What do I do with those employers who stopped replying to me? - wishiknew

So I&#x27;m looking for a job and I&#x27;m starting to gather quite a few email addresses of people who&#x27;ve been dicks to me…<p>One has interviewed me a few months ago and told me things like &quot;great feeling, I feel you&#x27;re motivated, hit me up in a few months and we&#x27;ll hire you&quot;. I wrote to him as expected, never got an answer. I called a few weeks ago, he said he&#x27;d call me by the end of the week. I called once again after that, his secretary told me he&#x27;d call back. Nothing ever since.<p>Another has interviewed me on the phone for thirty minutes and told me his company was interested in hiring me but I had to do a test project first. So I woke up one Saturday (I was working full time at that point) and spent a day working on said project. I sent it and was told it would take two weeks to get a reply since the guy who was to review my project was on vacation. Three weeks later, I ask for some news. No reply. Two months later, I ping back: no reply.<p>Another is a friend&#x27;s acquaintance. He&#x27;s a freelance entrepreneur. We ate pizza and discussed about working together a few months ago. He basically told me &quot;yeah, call me when you&#x27;re free and I&#x27;ll introduce you to the tech I&#x27;m using&quot;. I write to him and he says &quot;right now I&#x27;m working on this and that, what about you? When do you want to come?&quot;. I tell him and get no reply.<p>(I have more examples in mind but have to stop here because of the length limit.)<p>For a few months I didn&#x27;t care much, but I&#x27;m slowly starting to understand that most companies are just like that, rude and unrespectful. If you don&#x27;t like me, why do you make me believe that you&#x27;re willing to hire? And what does it cost you to tell me &#x27;no&#x27;? You&#x27;re not busy to the point where you can&#x27;t do this. So yeah, what do I do with those addresses? Spam lists? Fake outstanding applications where the fake candidate never replies to them?
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RogerL
Glassdoor. If you interview with an established company you can write
anonymously about your experiences. I'm amazed at companies continue to not
care about how they treat people when everything is public these days. And
this is not 'getting back' at the company, it is helping people. The first
thing I do when an offer to talk shows up in my inbox is scamper off to
Glassdoor - it is very revealing and helpful.

------
BWStearns
I just finished up a job search and I ran into the same thing. I think
everyone does. Hiring is a hard process so it's not terribly surprising that
not many places do it right (I do not claim to have the answer on how to do it
right but non-responsiveness is certainly something to avoid).

One reason that I suspect for the silence isn't that they're actively snubbing
you or ignoring you but that the person doing the hiring might be doing
development as well and if they need to spend an hour interviewing or an hour
coding a feature they'd rather work on the feature. I feel like this is
particularly likely at startups since they don't have excess manpower. Even in
larger companies it might be that they want to move forward but it just keeps
getting deprioritized from above and they don't want to tell you to move on
and lose you since they still hold on to the delusion that they'll
successfully reprioritize it.

I wouldn't retaliate (though I understand the desire for vengeance... er
justice :), though as RogerL suggested Glassdoor might be a good route. If it
starts impacting their applicant pipeline then they'll start being more
responsive.

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MalcolmDiggs
I'd say that step 1 is not to take it personally. I don't want to excuse their
behavior (I've experienced the same thing), but in general, you've just got to
grow a thick skin and learn to move past it.

As someone who has been in this industry awhile, I can assure you: You'll
cross paths again and tables often turn. They'll get what they have coming to
them, karma will take of it, you don't have to worry about that.

You can't control other peoples' behavior. If I were you, I would focus on
you. Try to be your best self, and leave them with a stellar impression of
you. Someday, it very well might pay off.

And if they're really being a douchebag (to an extreme or offensive level),
you should tell them so. Nobody is above being called-out for their bullshit.

~~~
wishiknew
Right now I don't see karma being particularly generous to me, that's what
makes me bitter the most I think, more than these guys being unrespectful. I
mean in terms of material life I know this freelance guy is making a fortune
and constantly on vacation at luxurious places. I don't care much about money
and abroad holiday, all I'm looking for is the money to afford a small studio
where I wouldn't have to deal with relatives or roommates, and even something
as simple as that is too much to ask :\

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xyby
Why continue to bother with those? What can you gain from it? It won't make
the world a better place. Don't be bitter about people who treat you lika a
"dick". They don't mean it. They just did not notice. We all have very limited
attention to others. In the same time, you probably have been a dick to others
without noticing it.

It will make the world a better place when you find a job where you are
welcome and can work with people you click with. What is your skillset?

~~~
wishiknew
Well I'm sorry but some of those people are paid by companies to handle HR,
professionalism doesn't look like an option to me. It is true though that I
have nothing to gain in this. I'm a web dev with experience in front-end,
back-end and system administration. I'm looking for any first job that will
allow me to specialize in any of those fields.

------
jhwhite
I've gone through something similar.

Back in 2012 this happened:

>I interviewed for a job in Austin. I had 2 phone interviews, a 7 hour in
person interview with at least 10 different people including the CIO, VP's,
directors, and team members, then a follow-up interview with a senior person.
Then I hear NOTHING again. I call for a follow-up and leave a message and they
don't return my call. So I just assume they hired someone else. I just get a
call from a head hunter trying to fill the position that I interviewed for.
Obviously the company is still looking and glad to have some closure (I
apparently wasn't what they were looking for) but kinda disappointed that they
didn't call me to tell me themselves.

A friend of mine got a little fired up about it and replied to my Facebook
post:

>I think that is ridiculous! Sometimes I wonder who raised these people
because it is NOT hard to send a couple-sentence email saying "Thanks for
applying. We have chosen another candidate. We'll keep you in mind in the
future." Heck - I'd rather get an email saying "F-U" than NOTHING. I know
"they" think there are sooooo many applicants that they don't have to show
people common decency, but it's JUST PLAIN RUDE. The reality is you may be
looking for a job from them right now, but one day they may be wanting your
business or looking for a job themselves when they get laid off or fed up;
their company may be bought by one you own or even just work for; they may be
on the "needy" side of the equation one day, and you won't forget how poorly
they behaved. What if you weren't right for this opening, but they want you
for something else in the future? Or what if they thought you weren't perfect,
but they just never find perfect and decide they DO want you? Do they just
think because you need a job you will completely forget about all of that?
Even if they never need anything from you in their lives, I don't know how
people sleep at night knowing that people like you are out there, just
wondering what happened, at their mercy. {O.K. Apparently, I got a little
fired up.} I don't know...fine if they don't want to hire you; fine if they
don't have time to spend hours telling you what would have made their decision
different; NOT fine to not respond at all. Period. Silver lining: Just be glad
you DIDN'T get hired because you would have found out what they were really
like when it was too late!!!

~~~
wishiknew
Ahah, your friend is fun in the way he's passionate about this. But I agree
with him on absolutely everything he said. Thanks for sharing your story, too,
at least now I know my interviews were pretty short compared to what I may
have been through!

------
chipsy
Either go tit for tat or don't waste any more energy than necessary. I've
mostly encountered situations where there's bad-faith negotiation, in which
case I either walk or (if I'm in the advantageous position) actively make the
process more tiring and frustrating with delays, bumping the quote, etc.

People, in general, have trouble sticking to promises surrounding
interpersonal plans. This is not just a business thing, it's a "I can barely
deal with the world" thing. People have their issues, and operate at the
selfish, reptilian level the majority of the time(regardless of self-image).
Rather than call them jerks for behaving like what they are, figure out how to
tame them instead. That's the most noble thing you can do.

I'll use ample amounts of time to socialize and give advice. But when it's
time to discuss paid work and livelihoods are at stake, I cut out the flake-
outs really quickly. Filtering and hedging happens at the stage of these early
meet-and-greet communications: If they say they're interested, do they also
indicate that they'll work to reach you? If they want to schedule something,
do they actually give date and time options? Red flags of effort/reward can
appear all over this stuff. If they want you to do a test project and the
scope and spec indicates some possibility of theft of work, either walk or
design in a (non-destructive) time bomb that forces them to contact you again
to negotiate payment for a fix.

I got introduced through a mutual friend to someone who had a minor
programming job - something so trivial that outsourcing would actually be the
appropriate choice, but I gave him a quote anyway. He got back to me almost an
entire month later with a vague voice mail message saying "uh, tell me when
you're downtown next so we can meet." I haven't replied - because in those two
interactions, he's signaled a lack of research and poor ability to efficiently
move things forward. It might be for a friend, but for the money, it'd take
too much of my time to get to the invoicing stage relative to other things I
have going. If I have to meet him again, I'll point him to eLance.

------
b0o
Instead of being mad, you should be glad for having dodged multiple bad
employers/partners because sometimes having a bad employer/supervisor is
poisonous to your work environment and will lead you to hate your work and
burn you out.

~~~
wishiknew
Yes, this is something I've been telling myself. Somebody who's disrespectful
at this point will be painful to work with. However, I nevertheless need a job
so that I can get on with my life, you know? Being on pause and watching time
go by without knowing where I'll live in one month's time sucks.

