to think this person should have been more upfront with me when I sought career help if she was going to stick the boot in?

[quesadilla]

I had a situation happen to me recently in relation to my career which has constituted a significant setback and has really upset me and I'm still stewing over it.

I'm trying to get a new job and have been trying after nearly a year -- obviously its tough out there. The industry I currently work in is in the toilet and isn't going to get better fast and there aren't many satisfying senior roles. I'm the breadwinner in my family and I need to think about increasing my earnings before my dd starts school and just to protect my future. So I'm trying to move into a similar but related (and hopefully better paid) field, meaning I hopefully won't have to retrain at great cost. Or I was.

A couple of months ago I took a former colleague who has successfully moved into this industry out for a coffee to ask for help and a bit of mentoring. This person and I had a good working relationship (I thought) and have remained in touch since and and were friendly and I thought she would give me good and frank advice. We had a nice chat and this person gave me some supposedly sound advice and a few contacts and wished me good luck and then followed up with an email asking how it was going. I contacted a few of these contacts, one of whom was a headhunter, and met this person and had a series of discussions with her. All was going reasonably well, didn't get offered any jobs but I thought I was making progress...

Until a job came up at the company this "mentor" (the former colleague) works for. I applied. Heard nothing for several weeks. When I chased it the headhunter told me, (not in so many words but it was pretty clear) that the "mentor" essentially had said I wasn't going to be appropriate for any job in that industry. So this person has basically put the kibosh on my working with the headhunter in the future.

Now, I understand that the mentor needs to be true to her instincts and do the best by her company and shouldn't feel compelled to recommend me for a job she thinks I'm not suited for. But AIBU in thinking that s/he should have told me to my face first if s/he thought I hadn't a hope in hell of getting into this industry and that she should have had the guts to contact me to let me know she was effectively giving me a bad reference which would have significant implications for my ability to find another job?

I'm really trying not to be precious about this, I realize she was in a difficult position etc, but I feel quite let down by her behaviour and that it was handled in a way that was two-faced and a bit spineless. And I know I need to be thick-skinned but my self-esteem is really in the toilet now. Should I get in touch with her and ask her why she did it, or just ignore, write her off and move on?

It is possible your "mentor" is actually trying to avoid you getting a job in case you are competing for the same roles. Don't be too quick to assume you are not suitable.

It may be worth having a chat with her to find out why she didn't tell you that she thought you weren't suitable, but I really reckon she didn't want you getting the job, not that you weren't suitable, or she wouldn't have put the boot in behind your back.

Sounds more like she sees you as competition!

Wow - how under hand. I'd be very tempted to ask why - you could argue you've got nothing to lose. Just an email giving the feedback from the headhunter and asking if this is correct

Quote from Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State "There is a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."

FryOne that's flattering but I don't think so. This person has risen very rapidly and is now quite senior. So I think she genuinely felt I wasn't suited to the industry, for whatever reason. I kind of want to know why but I don't trust myself to contact her without being nasty or upset when I speak to her.

It may be that the mentor was asked to vouch for you and didn't feel comfortable doing so. There is a big difference in giving someone advice and wishing them well and being asked to stick your neck out and recommend them for a job. There are definitely people I would happily help to find a job through advice/headhunter contacts but if my boss came asking for a personal recommendation, I wouldn't be willing to give one.

That doesn't mean that the mentor wasn't trying to help or doesn't think well of you. It could mean that they don't feel they can recommend your work. And that could be for a variety of reasons, not necessarily bad. I wouldn't recommend someone's work unless I had worked closely with them, knew the quality of the work they produced and knew their general attitude towards work.

Yes but how has she risen very rapidly? It not always the people best suited to the job that rise rapidly, it's often the ones who are most ambitious and happy to trample on people to get to where they want (although rather depends on the industry).

quesadilla rapid rise doesn't always correlate with being very good. especially if it is in public sector work?

I would think more that she doesn't want you in the same field.

voice of experience talking here!!!

Oh ha ha Wiley - cross posted, and I initially had, but removed NHS management as an example.

Ants I understand that and I know she must have felt put on the spot. But if she really thought that I was so unsuited to the industry that there was no point trying, surely she should have been clearer about that at the outset rather than being nicey nicey to my face?
jimjams its possible, but I actually think she genuinely felt, for whatever reason, that I wasn't suited. In my experience she wasn't particularly macchiavellian, certainly not nasty. I think she did what she did out of a genuine belief that I wasn't someone who should be hired. But if it were me, I'd have got in touch at that point to say "look, I've been asked to give a recommendation and I don't feel I can do it."
Instead she's just been really two-faced.

Oh I agree - if that's how she feels.

But don't let it put you off. Even if she thinks you're not suited - who is she to say? And tbh most people are suited to most industries because usually doing a good job is about interest and willingness to work hard. Unless it's something like dancing or modelling or acting/singing etc where there might be a reason why someone isn't suitable? I wouldn't be suitable for anything that needed a bit of glamour or some performance talent, but I'd be a bit surprised if someone ruled me out of other industries where all you need is a bit of intelligence, common sense and willingness to work.

Are you sure this is what's happened? Seems to be a lot of assumptoons etc

I'd ask her why she has that view and is there anything you can do that might change that. Are there courses you could go on, for example, or other ways in which you could improve those skills she feels are lacking.

And I'd say that it would have been nice if she could have been honest with me, I would have been able to accept the criticism.

I have read a thread on here recently from someone who was actually asked by someone she knew to put a good word in for him. She agreed because she felt she had to, couldn't bring herself to be honest with him, but also couldn't actually do what he wanted!

Perhaps she felt that she couldn't hurt you by being honest with you and never thought you'd find out what she said?

Personally, I prefer honesty but I know a lot of people value saving hurt feelings above it. Maybe she's one of them?

Hecate yes I remember that thread, in fact that's partly why I posted here. I think you're right, she probably felt really awkward and couldn't face telling me first. But what she apparently said to the hh was quite damning, she essentially said, if I understood right, that I wasn't a "good fit" for the industry (management bollocks speak for I wasn't any good at it). Now, admittedly this is second hand and some interpretation on my part. But if I thought someone was so hopeless that they basically weren't going to be in with a shout at all then I would gently tell them at the outset. Also its slightly strange that she's making the assumption as I've never done this job, I'm aiming to make a transition she made a few years back. So she actually can't know whether I'm up to it or not, she's purely going on my personality (I assume.)
I can understand how the whole thing came about and I don't think she's been deliberately nasty, I just think its very spineless and if she had any idea how much she's knocked myself-esteem I think she wouldn't have done it.

I really think you should ask her.

Really, you need to know if she meant what she said or if she just doesn't want you there.

Don't be so quick to rule that out! As others have said, it could be that she has some other motivation.

Don't let her put you off.

I was thinking about this while on the school run.

I think I would have to talk to her about this. Given that you've not worked in this industry, I can't see how your friend could say that you were not a good fit, especially as you've said that she told the headhunter that you wouldn't be good for any job in this industry.

That's far more than just saying she couldn't recommend you as she's no experience of working with you in the industry, in line with the comments by AntsMarching and others. This seems beyond that.

Because she hadn't said she'd recommend you, from your first post, she gave me some supposedly sound advice and a few contacts and wished me good luck and then followed up with an email asking how it was going.

I am dying to know and would love to ask. The trouble with this is that I will drop the headhunter in it if I do this as the HH is not supposed to relay this information to candidates and in fact technically speaking she didn't tell me, she just made it very clear. In fact the HH was clearly a bit taken aback at what she said. But if I go direct up the mentor I could get the HH in all sorts of trouble. I think I will ask the HH and make it clear that as I am obviously not ever going to be able to work for that firm and will almost certainly not grt one through thst hh the only thing to be gained now is honest feedback and she may as well give it to me unvarnisged.

The thing is these HHs have quite a lot of power in this industry as far as I can tell and I think this woman (the HH), will now quite reasonably conclude that I am unemployable. Which is how I feel now despite my (largely unblemished) track record. I guess the lesson is not to assume that because you got on well with someone at work they will necessarily recommend you for another job.

I would email her and say you've been trying but getting feedback you're not a good fit for the industry. And that you'd really appreciate her candid views on whether it is a good idea to pursue this further or look in other areas. Would allow her to be a little more honest with you if she wants to be.

That's not a mentor. That is a complete bitch!
Are you able to find other headhunters to help?

I've had a job in the past where I've been recruiting but wouldn't wish working there on my worst enemy. So although I personally wouldn't have actively scuppered someone's chances, is it possibly she's misguidedly done this?

Could it be related to the setback you had at work? Perhaps someone at your previous company has mentioned this to her (or been stiring) and it changed her view of you.

Frosty sorry, perhaps wasn't very clear. This is the setback. There hasn't been any other specific problem at work. I mean my work is a bit of a nightmare at the moment and my motivation has been sapped but I'm not in any trouble or anything like that. That I know of, anyway.

A former colleague of mine did this to her mentee. She was seeking promotion herself and knew that her people management skills were somewhat lacking. The company we worked for set great store by senior people mentoring juniors so my colleague appointed herself as mentor to a woman in another team, but whose job was complementary to ours, at a more junior level.

When the mentee discovered that a job was coming up in our team, which would have been a sideways move for her, but with better prospects than where she was, my colleague told her that she was surprised she was considering an application as she didn't have any of the right skills and didn't fit the profile . I have no idea why she that, because the skills gap was not unbridgeable, and the result was that the junior woman left the firm.

I can only assume it was a creepy kind of power trip, and that may well be the case here OP, difficult as that may be to imagine.

So, you are seeking to make the same sort of transition as she did. But she thinks you are totally unsuited for an entire industry and she wasn't. Even though, you worked together before. I wouldn't rule out jealousy and insecurity. Because the reasonable thing to say to the headhunter would be," I worked with X before. She was very good at... I don't know what she would be like at Y..." It sounds as if she is trying to keep out people with similar career paths and skill sets.

Op how horrid. I asked previous boss to be a referee had always been I had got all jobs I applied for. Wanted a job in same place think NHS. At interview I was told I would have got the job bar the reference from this person hr barred them giving me the job. I had worked there for a yr and some more. Was suggested that I asked to see reference.

His secretary was amazed she had a reference on but he had not used this one had done a hand written one. I did challenge he tried to avoid it and the answer was basically he was doing a reference for someone else as well and thought if they were both good I would get the job! And I would have no problem getting another one.

That was true but changed my career path. Makes you feel really worthless

I would challenge

Yes I would email and say that you have received feedback from HER company via HH that you are not suitable for the role. Explain that obviously you have appreciated meeting her and her previous emails but can she clarify what her thoughts are on your suitability.