To think being 50 minutes late for an interview isn't acceptable?

[DareToCare]

This is from the employer...

My interview was scheduled for a certain time, I got there 10 minutes early and announced my arrival etc. All fine. 20 minutes later, someone comes and tells me "sorry, but they're running a bit late".

45 minutes later and I'm still sitting there.

They shoved quite an extensive few tests in front of me before the interview started, after being 50 minutes late.

Needless to say I was quite frazzled but done them anyway. They weren't very apologetic and didn't seem bothered that I had to wait, as if it was them doing me a great favour.

AIBU to say this is highly unprofessional?

hmmm I think this depends on the employer....people are often stupidly late around here..although even we would make an effort for interviews!

I DO think it is indicative of their general attitude though - so if you don't want to work somewhere that people will routinely keep you waiting for 50 mins then they have given you a useful heads up!

Ex HR Director here, I don't think you're being unreasonable at all. Remember they are on interview by you too and if this is how they treat a potential employee I'd be concerned how they treat their actual employees. Unless you really need the opportunity, I'd step away from the process with them.

Incredibly rude and unprofessional. I think sometimes employers forget that an interview is a two way process. I withdrew an application once when an assessment centre went on for 2 hours longer than it should have - with us just sitting around doing nothing for those two hours between tests. They seemed surprised that I wanted to work somewhere that people had respect for other people's time.

Very. It would give me a red flag about whether I'd want to work there, actually. A bit late is fine, something could have happened, but once it goes beyond 15 minutes, that's appallingly bad without a real apology and an explanation and an assurance that you'll be seen within X minutes.

I think I'd have actually walked out to be honest! It's extremely unprofessional and you could have had (for example) children left with childcare that wasn't organised for an extra hour etc.

Very rude unless there was an incredibly good reason - ie: serious traffic/travel issues & then the interviewer should have made genuine apologies.

Years ago I had a boss like this .............. he was late for everything, i often had to 'cover up' for him or make excuses. I was secretly delighted when he was made redundant - he was generally useless as well as always being late.

Ridiculous, disorganised and entitled. If you are offered the job consider whether you want to work with these people. If you refject the job or aren't offered it, I'd be tempted to tell them why .

Very. I was once kept waiting for an hour, then on my third interview told I lived too far away. A detail which they were aware of as a) it was on my cv, and b) I had discussed at length during my first interview that I was viewing places to rent that afternoon.

Three interviews for a poxy entry level job. I'm glad they didn't offer me it as I would have probably taken it in desperation.

I wouldn't accept the job even if they offered it to you op.

It speaks volumes about how they treat staff and the arrogance levels to think they aren't accountable

It suggests that they think you need the job more than they need the worker. Which is probably true.

This happened to me many years ago when I attended an interview for a pre school assistant. The pre school manager didn't turn up to interview me and after 1/2 hour wait 2 committee members tried to interview me. I ended up tying to explain what EYFS was all about and telling them why we had certain staff to child ratios. ( they honestly did not know) Needless to say at the end of the interview I withdrew my interest.

YANBU! I was just at an interview myself this morning and if that had happenned to me I would have left after 30mins waiting because I had left my toddler with the babysitter. Luckily mine was exactly on time!

I would be wary about working at a place that gave me such a bad impression from the start.

Nope, YANBU.

Very occasionally, something will happen to hold them up - traffic, sickness, etc. but they should apologise and explain if they're more than 5-10 minutes late and offer you the choice of waiting or rescheduling if they're going to be a long time.

I've always arrived at interviews early, and I've always been seen either early or bang on time. I wouldn't be very impressed if I'd made an effort and turned up somewhere on time and the interviewer was late.

That's awful OP. It's completely unacceptable and I would've walked away.

I applied for a job once (a side-step for a change of scenery) and they took until four months after the closing date to shortlist candidates for interview. Oh and they gave me only two days notice for this interview.

I sent them a frank but polite email stating that due to the length of time they had taken to get back to me I had no desire to attend this interview or work for them.

I had this the other day; I was told to arrive half an hour before the interview time for vetting procedure which I did, which in reality meant I was in the car park before that as I didn't want to be late. The vetting procedure didn't happen so I was just hanging around doing nothing and then they were running half an hour late. Which meant when it came to the questions section of the interview, I felt rushed. I withdrew my application as I felt it was disorganised and indicative of how the department was being run.

Thanks for the replies. The employer is NHS and the excuse was they were seeing someone else first so ran late

I don't know, these things happen. Just as there will occasionally be a poster who is unavoidably late, despite having left early and taken every precaution - due to awful traffic, or an accident on the way, or whatever, there will occasionally be a panel that is late for the same reasons. Not everything is within our control all of the time. I wouldn't rule out a great job at a great place just because of it and I would hope that I would be shown tolerance in the (awful) event that I was ever unavoidably detained myself. I hate being late - I'm the person who through airport security 3 hours before the flight.

Sometimes it is poor planning though, as it was in my case and a lack of respect for the time of others which I have seen my employer do.

YANBU, the same thing happened to me - I was left waiting for an hour just sat at some random desk in the middle of an open plan office. Particularly galling as I had taken annual leave from my existing job in order to attend the interview. I was utterly fuming to be honest.

I sent them an email afterwards to explain why I was pulling out of the process (the interview was a joke as well) and they seemed surprised! And not especially apologetic. A lucky escape I think.

Probably not coincidentally, this was also for a public sector employer.

Exceptionally rude and unprofessional. I'd withdraw from the process, as it just shows that they treat people with contempt.

It's not ideal, but there could be very good reasons for being late - of which seeing someone before just might be one. We overran once because we hadn't been made aware of a reasonable adjustment that an interviewee needed (which was piss poor, but in no way the fault of those the candidates would have been working with so I hope it wasn't held against us too much).

I was once left waiting for an hour when it finally came to light that the person who was supposed to be interviewing me wasn't even in the building! Eventually they wheeled out someone else to do a makeshift job, but when she said that the director (it was a PA role) often worked through the night and tended to call their PAs at 3 in the morning, I thanked them for their time and left! The job was with a very well-known charity...

Excuse is unacceptable. Very rude and unprofessional.