She came to us to be interviewed for a job. She had reasonable details in her answers but was very nervous and her answers were quite weak. No examples of competence. The other interviewer was very rude, looking bored and uninterested and checking her phone throughout. This clearly made the woman nervous but she did soldier on. I actually liked her and was considering giving her a job. I felt the interview went badly but I could see she was just nervous.
Anyway, the decision came that there were stronger candidates. You could tell she was upset on the phone but she thanked me for interviewing her. I felt particularly bad afterwards and it never really left me as she seemed a very genuine person.
A year later she got a job on an adjourning team. To cut a long story short she is probably the best worker I have ever met. She is extrovert, confident, assertive but kind and honest. She is a pleasure to be around. She is just about the perfect employee and her boss always talks about how it's a pleasure to work with her and how he will never know how we did not select her and gave the position to the dishonest employee who lasted a matter of weeks before his bullshitting ways were found out. It honestly haunts me because after speaking to her I found out she was nervous as the position was her absolute dream job and she was so desperate to get out of unemployment she had considered suicide.
She had been unemployed a year and just couldn't even get a job interview so when she got one she was almost paralysed with nerves.
But we never helped her, tried to encourage answers or give clues. We just let her give poor answers. I realise now just how rubbish interviews are for choosing candidates and we now have an entire assessment day with written and group exercises.
I see her a lot now in my day to day life and for no reason that I can logically understand, it plagues me that on that day, I chose not to employ her. I never feel like this about other rejected candidates. I don't really understand it. AIBU?
AIBU?
To be plagued about not giving this woman a job
user1483474832 · 03/01/2017 20:22
She had been unemployed a year and just couldn't even get a job interview so when she got one she was almost paralysed with nerves.
You couldn't reasonably have known these things, could you? You have a limited amount of time to select the "best" candidate from a small pool of interviewees. You can't be sitting there thinking maybe he/she is nervous because a/b/c happened to him/her x years ago.
Perhaps giving her one example of the answer you were looking for when she was clearly struggling would have been kind.
Anyway, I think this may be a case of 'all's well that ends well' because your fellow interviewer sounds like a grade A arsehole and the woman probably dodged a bullet if not getting the job means she doesn't have to work with him. 
YABU and need to give yourself a break. Some people are wonderful at interviews. Others are not. Interviewing well is a totally different skill to being great at the job.
You came to the best decision you could, based on the evidence you had. There was a huge amount outside your knowledge.
Just be thankful the lady in question has a job in your organisation and is doing great. The story has a happy ending.
I think a good interewer will do their utmost to engage with the candidate, phrase questions clearlyand put them at ease but ultimately the only fair thing to do is give the job to the person who performs best on the day. If you don't do this an start second guessing then a sorts of subconscious (and otherwise) prejudice gets a look in.
Shame on your fellow interviewer on their lack of interest and phone obsession though. That was really shifty behaviour on their part and totally unfair.
He understands she did badly at interview but I think he feels if she is as good as she is we must be have done a good job of interviewing her. But he's never said that
Nice guy maybe, but have you ever been in a position before where the candidate you selected sucked hard, the candidate you didn't select later excelled themselves a different role in the same company and you have their current manager constantly giving it I can't believe you selected a fuckwit over ms perfect employee?
Those three factors combined may explain why you feel bad now.
But really, it's time, in the immortal words of Princess Elsa, to let it goooo...
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