Message to HR Depts and Recruiters

Stylehutz

Just enquiring for arguments sake, what would you do if you advertised a job vacancy and then invited several people for an interview.Then due to unforeseen circumstances you had to withdraw the vacancy .

Would you contact all applicants letting them down badly and making you look really stupid or would you go through the motions interviewing people as if the job existed but knowingly waste the candidates time.

hcb42

let them know. Got better things to do than waste time interviewing

Uncertain

Sadly there are many occasions where people have their hopes raised and are brought, often at considerable expense, to interviews for jobs that are only ever going to one internal candidate.

The civil service were masters at it with academia not far behind!

Emmzi

I wouldn't do the interviews, I have better things to do and so do my co-interviewers. I'd send a polite email advising things on hold/ changed etc.

Why do you ask?

Sambucus_Nigra

Stylehutz wrote: »

Just enquiring for arguments sake, what would you do if you advertised a job vacancy and then invited several people for an interview.Then due to unforeseen circumstances you had to withdraw the vacancy .

Would you contact all applicants letting them down badly and making you look really stupid or would you go through the motions interviewing people as if the job existed but knowingly waste the candidates time.

Depends on when I knew. Why?

an9i77

There's absolutely no reason to interview people for a job that doesn't exist, unless there is some chance that it will come back into existence pretty soon, and the candidates are likely to still be on the market (will depend on how specialised the role is.) So 99% of the time I'd cancel the interviews. Although it would be unfortunate to let the candidates down, if the job was pulled due to unforeseen circumstances then we would have to do that. I don't really care too much if the candidates think I'm stupid, I don't work for them I work for my boss and the managers who need our services. So so long as the procedure we followed was agreed by / ok with them then I would be ok with that. I have a busy job, no way would I spend a day interviewing candidates for a job that didn't exist! I don't want to sound unsympathetic to the candidates, of course it is not nice to be told you have an interview and then that there is no job, but in this situation the HR person is usually the messenger not the decision maker. I can't think of many busy HR people who have the luxury of a day to spend on a business activity that was non essential (ie interviewing candidates for a non existent job).

Combover

Stylehutz wrote: »

Would you contact all applicants letting them down badly and making you look really stupid or would you go through the motions interviewing people as if the job existed but knowingly waste the candidates time.

Making you look 'really stupid'? Are you for real?

I tell people if the role has been withdrawn. Sadly it happens at times, and then the roles are re opened a couple of months later.

It doesnt make the company look stupid, it makes them look realistic.

Any hirer who continues to interview for a role that has been withdrawn is stupid. Plain and simple.

heretolearn_2

Neither. I would contact the candidates and explain, and as normal professional people they would feel disappointed but understand that this happens sometimes in the world of business, and hope to hear from me about future vacancies.

If someone were so unprofessional that they would see it as a personal slight, feel 'let down badly' (how exactly? sorry, am I supposed to give someone a job anyway even if there was no need/budget for it?) and think I was really stupid, that attitude would have been quickly picked up at the interview and they wouldn't have got the job anyway, so they haven't actually lost anything they would have had.

jfh7gwa

an9i77 wrote: »

I don't really care too much if the candidates think I'm stupid, I don't work for them I work for my boss and the managers who need our services. So so long as the procedure we followed was agreed by / ok with them then I would be ok with that. I have a busy job, no way would I spend a day interviewing candidates for a job that didn't exist!

Exactly my thoughts. Piles of work don't go away whilst you waste time interviewing people for a role that doesn't exist.

"letting people down"? "look stupid"?

If the candidate felt that, they'd be taking things far too personally. Of course i would do my best to minimise disruption or mucking them about. That goes without saying i'd hope.

but you work for your employer - to waste time interviewing when there's no job would probably land me with a warning if it was my decision and i'd decided to go ahead...!

InsideInsurance

There are certainly cases when interviews happen when there is a "good chance" that the role will be withdrawn but generally as the hiring manager you are wanting someone for a reason and so you are optimistic of being able to get the decision to actually go ahead and recruit.

I would certainly not waste my time interviewing someone after the role has already been withdrawn for that role. I have before had the situation where I was recruiting for one role and was about to start recruiting for a second role. The first one got pulled but one candidate was a good match for the second role too. In that instance I gave the candidate the option of coming in for an interview for the second role on the understanding that the role had not yet been signed off. They did accept but ultimately didn't get the job.

westv

Uncertain wrote: »

Sadly there are many occasions where people have their hopes raised and are brought, often at considerable expense, to interviews for jobs that are only ever going to one internal candidate.

Why do companies do that? If the internal candidate is a preferred choice (no agency fees for example) why waste other people's time?
Seeing as around 50% (a figure I was quoted by someone at the Job Centre ages ago so I don't know if it's correct) of jobs are never advertised they can hardly hide behind the excuse that they must advertise vacancies to everybody.