Is this unprofessional?

Do people really only give themselves 1 hour for an interview?

I would have thought most people try and leave themselves a good 2 hours before going back to work etc.

Obviously if you’re a single parent then you may need to leave but if I was OP and the interviews were only a few minutes each, then I would have waited 30 minutes more to at least have been interviewed.

I wouldn’t have been pleased sitting there for an hour or more but if there’s only 1 staff member then it makes sense why she didn’t stagger it.

The irony being people don't attend due to the long waiting times and not being seen at their appointment times.

Very inefficient not to be able to sort out a sensible number of candidates. 6 would have been enough surely. Doesn’t sound like a very well run HR department.

Of course it’s that big a deal. It’s extremely rude. This is not a several hour interview process where several candidates can be kept busy doing different things at different times during the day, it’s an 8 - 15 minute interview. You do not need to have particularly high intelligence to space the interviews out a bit, rather than invite 15-20 people along at precisely the same time and not even explain why you are not interviewing them in order of arrival, or what your logic is. This process is clearly 100% for the employer’s convenience and utterly condescending towards the candidates.

"I don’t think having the interview time at the same as the other candidates is that big of a deal"

They should have at least explained it. There will be people who only have an hour free and can't be siting there for half a day.

That’s ageist
Whether someone is 27 or 77 it doesn’t matter if they are capable of doing the job.

You're talking about a recruitment day kind of thing. For just an interview, I've never seen everyone invited at the same time. There's not reason why everyone has to wait like a drop-in at the doctor's.

Yes of course it’s completely different but I’m saying I don’t think having the interview time at the same as the other candidates is that big of a deal and makes sense when there’s only 1 staff member available.

They should have had it over 2 days but the interviews were very short and I wouldn’t have left after only an hour knowing it was going to be my time soon.

Good luck to your son.

He can definitely expect to be at the interview with the other candidates for the majority of the day (which makes it harder when you’re not successful).

Oh I have had some shockers in my time worst was a lady who turned up for 9.30 interview, clearly hadn't washed, and tried to cover up her body odour with perfume. Out of politeness I went through the interview with her as quickly as possible, as the smell was making me feel ill

They don’t put much thought into their recruitment do they!

Or make it like having a filling - it’ll just be a little prick (interviewing you).

very bad and unprofessional.

Just a small point, in your email you say "a hour". I think it should be "an". Also it's practice with a c for a noun. my spelling and grammar are shocking so not trying to be an arse.

Probably expect you just to grin and bear it?

It’s obviously nothing like an interview for a teaching position. For a teaching role, you would expect information in advance on the likely length of the day, whether lunch will be provided, and be told, eg, to prepare a presentation about x subject, a 20 minute lesson to x year group, and to expect an interview with the Headteacher and head of whatever, and/or a governor, etc, etc. You would definitely not expect to be told nothing more than to turn up at midday for an interview and to then sit in a waiting room with 14 other teachers waiting to be interviewed, then be given no information on arrival and watch the others be called in in apparently random order, one after the other, to be interviewed for 8 minutes before leaving the premises.

Absolutely disgraceful and unprofessional! Well done for not allowing them to waste any more of your time!

I used to be a Chair of Gov’s and this didn’t happen at my school. To be fair, the Head was super organised and the school administrator was even better. Individual interviews there.

If this is common across education, (it’s definitely not in other sectors) I’ll pre-warn my son, who has just started his PGCE primary.

I'm glad you reviewed them and sent them a message explaining how incredibly rude they were to the people applying ... especially since they were clearly interviewing way too many people for the role. He's looking for a 'look' not someone who will do the job well is my take, hence the high number of interviewees.

My experience of this has been in education/teaching.

Everyone arrives at the same time as it’s just easier to sign everyone in and walk them to where they need to be.
Then we’re there usually all day with a break halfway, but it’s always a good 3 hours.

It sounds like this person was on their own and so it would be quite difficult if people were coming in at different times.

No idea what sector you work in, but this has never been my experience. I worked in a job centre for 8 years, then worked in HR/Learning and Development, managing and recruiting large teams. I now work in early careers and take on graduates and apprentices. I will invite them to an assessment centre, where they work in groups on different tasks. There is no sitting around waiting. If they are successful, they are called back for a 1-2-1 interview on a specific time and date with the hiring manager.

The only time I have heard of this happening (apart from the dodgy dentist today) is for chugging or cold call sales.

It’s blatantly unprofessional to invite someone to an interview with no explanation of what to expect. In the absence of clarification, at the very least candidates should have been interviewed in the order in which they arrived, rather than be left to hang around as though they had been forgotten.

I don’t really see the problem tbh.

I think the majority of interviews I’ve been to have you all come at the same time.

Usually they take at least 3 hours but often have tasks involved so it runs more smoothly.
They usually do a group thing like a group tour instead of doing it multiple times for multiple people.

No way would I have left after only 1 hour.

If there was only 1 person then I assume having people come in at staggered times would be difficult for them.

It seems ridiculous that they didn’t have it over a couple of days though.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, someone just asked me on another thread if I was using AI - I should direct them to you to comment on my spelling. 😁😉🤐

Threadbare

AI made them all sound amazing. Or he was combining job interviews with speed dating.