WIBU to contact this recruiter asking WTF

[Anotheronebitthedust]

Applied for a job several months ago and heard nothing back until I got a message late on Monday night, starting

"Hi there

[short message missing basic grammar and punctuation, apologising for the delay in getting back to me, and asking if I was free to talk sometime in the next day or two to discuss the role]"

I was a bit at the unprofessional email, but replied saying I was in work all week but could do after 4.30pm that day (Tues). He emailed back about 11am saying "4.30pm great, speak to you then".

Left work early in order to be available on time and waited...nothing. Several days later and still no word. WIBU to email back and a) politely ask what is going on? or b) send a more strongly worded email asking why they feel it is acceptable to waste my time in this way. It's not as if they had time to reconsider, or to forget, it was less than 6 hours later?

This was a huge, national company by the way, for a professional role (not that anyone should be mucked around like this) and the man emailing me was from the HR dept, so not someone who should be unaware of formal recruitment procedures.

Or should I choose c) just let it go as I definitely don't want to work for the company at this point, and there's no point in making a fuss. I know this is probably the most sensible option, but after a few months of job hunting (both my own experiences, and those of friends), with employers not bothering to give feedback after interviews, or even send basic acknowledgements for applications, I am feeling seriously irritated at the moment. What happened to common decency and politeness?

So I suppose my second AIBU is 'AIBU to be disappointed about the way many job-hunters (and employees, as my current job is pretty crap in relation to attitude to staff, part of why I'm trying to find something else) are treated by employers?'

You are not being unreasonable to feel this way however I advise you to keep the moral high ground and either ignore him or send a short, polite message asking if he wants to reschedule. (It might be worth doing the interview as practice for future jobs that come up). Vent your very reasonable rage at this useless HR practice through something unrelated such as kickboxing or wine.

Good luck with your ongoing job search.

Email back with option b) of course!

Find out the name of head of HR and copy them in on both the unprofessionally written original email and your reply, for good measure.

Are you sure they were not expecting you to contact them after 4.30? Maybe they were waiting for you to ring and getting annoyed at you for being a 'timewaster'.

Not having a go at you, just from what you said about the email ("speak to you then") could it have been a simple misunderstanding?

I did think of that as a possibility, Pixel, but tbh it's never something I have experienced, for previous roles recruiters have always called me if they want to interview me! Particularly if they were the ones that sent the initial email?

Also he didn't actually give me a phone number for me to ring in the email, although I suppose I could have found something on the company website if I tried?

Happy36, hmm, I wonder what the dangers are of venting with kickboxing and wine (simultaneously!)