To wonder what the point in interviewing is when you already have someone for the job

[Florasnotin]

I work for a big organisation, one of the main employers in the UK

We've recently had quite a few staff members leave and then their jobs go up for interview. The last three jobs all went to internal staff from our unit. We all knew who was going to get the job before it even went to the application stage.

I had to bring all the candidates to the right room and give them their pre interview tests etc the other day. I felt awful making polite conversation with people who had gone out of the way to prepare for a job interview when I knew damn well they weren't going to get the job. I know its for 'fairness' it has to be advertised but it's such a waste of everyones time.

I overheard my manager coaching our internal candidate in the kitchen ten minutes before she interviewed her.

AIBU to think this is a waste of time and to wonder why they have to go to interview in the first place?

When you're not working and are paying out for travel and dry cleaning or a new outfit, it is soul destroying when you realise there is no job available.
It is utterly immoral that companies do this.

There is nothing wrong with in house promotions, if there were none then staff wouldn't stay anyway.

I have had this situation before but at least I have been the only applicant shortlisted so nobody else had to travel to interview.

My better half has generally also been the only person shortlisted for jobs.

We do both work in fields where quality candidates can be hard to find in fairness.

we rarely advertise without having a strong internal candidate for the role. When people ring up from outside to ask about the role I always tell them that we are expecting a strong internal candidate, but that we will appoint the best person for the job

I have been the external candidate when an internal candidate was meant to be a shoo-in, and didn’t even know the company had gone external. Except I got the job and then had to work alongside the dagger looks, snide comments, being ignored when they all went off to lunch together etc from the rest of the team until they accepted me as the better option.

I actually don’t think ‘nepotism’ is the right word because these processes are shit for the internal candidate too, or at least they are where I work.

In my line of work most people are on short contracts with no long-term job security. Very often people find themselves applying for an internal vacancy when they’re right at the end of their contract. In many cases they’ve been doing the job in question for months already, maybe even ‘acting up’ in a more senior role, and then they get put through all the stress of having to apply and interview (with people they know well and see every day) while knowing that if they don’t get the job, they’re going to be unemployed from Monday.

Also, where I work, there are often multiple internal candidates, so even when one person gets the job there are three others who end up disappointed. Usually the interviewers have known right from the start who they want for the role, which means the other candidates are unknowingly just there as filler.

After being the ‘filler’ candidate more times than I can remember, I finally got an internal promotion where, behind closed doors, I was ‘strongly encouraged’ to apply (nudge nudge, wink wink). They advertised anyway (to be ‘fair’) and I only found out afterwards that one of the other candidates interviewed was a good friend of mine who was about to lose her job. I felt so, so awful that she’d been put through that when the job was always mine.

It’s all bullshit and it makes me laugh that we’re put through all of this in the interests of the company being ‘ethical’. There’s nothing ethical about continually leaving your employees in a state of anxiety not knowing if they’re going to have a job next week.

From my experience in a Civil Service department, a university and in banking - jobs are always advertised internally first before going external.

People who are “at risk” or a MoD “priority mover” have preference at stage one. MoD jobs only go external at stage four.

I understand legally they have to externally advertise a role.

No law about it. Public sector is expected to advertise externally for transparency.

The public sector doesn’t always advertise externally. Loads of NHS jobs are marked internal only and you can’t even see many Civil Service jobs unless you are internal and logged in.

I said “expected”.

It can work the other way too. I'm leaving my current organisation where I've generally been really happy because they almost always give roles to external candidates in order to show that they are bringing in new skills even if the internal candidates have been doing the job and have all the skills and experience.

It happened to me recently, I'd been doing loads of work in the area, had an exceptional performance review and they gave the job to an external candidate with no experience in our sector. It would have been a sideways move for me too not a promotion.

I'm sure they had their reasons and the person might end up being good once they've got up to speed but it was absolutely crushing and morale sapping for internal applicants.

Like many others I've got a great promotion in another organisation and I'm off, so they're losing their skilled and experienced staff.

I had had what I thought was a pretty good interview and test for an NHS role so when I was phoned to say I hadn't got it I asked for feedback. The Chair of the panel said "Well, you actually did really well, you scored top in the interview and the test but we gave it to the temp who's covering the job at the moment". To which I asked why didn't I get the job if I scored highest? And she mumbled something about "Oh, that's not quite right ... emmm, I need to remark these papers ... emmmm" And I said, don't bother, I had decided the job wasn't for me. Yes, I know I could have made a formal complaint but it put me right off working for the NHS. Haven't applied for a job there since. Numpties - couldn't even be bothered to try to cover up their favouritism!

I had the opposite experience in the NHS. Following a restructure into the civil service , my job was assessed as one band above my pay band. In the NHS I would have moved up. In the civil service I got moved into a placeholder job at my band. The job I'd been doing (well) for several years was advertised externally and an excellent external candidate got it. She really was good. I was left to train her to do my job. Fortunately, she didn't know the background as we worked together closely every day. I left quite shortly afterwards.