AIBU to think that something's fishy re. job opening

[LateAtTate]

inspired by another thread
Friend applied for job at a large company about a month ago. Immediately after receiving CV got emailed by recruiter, who arranged interview with a few members of the actual team (not HR themselves). Actually wasn’t marketed as an interview, just told it was a ‘chat with team to see if the role suits’.
Day of interview only one person turned up, went very well, interviewer mentioned he’d talk to colleague for a second interview.
It’s now been 3 weeks and crickets. Emailed recruiter but no response.
Today she saw that the job she’d applied for had been removed. Another, exactly identical job had been put up on website a couple of days ago. Same team, person spec, everything.

AIBU to think that something else is going on behind the scenes...they don’t really want to hire anybody and she should just accept it?

I’m very interested because I quite fancied applying for the same company myself but this has put me off. If anyone has any idea as to a reasonable explanation..share your wisdom with us

Also forgot to add it was actually an interview, not a chat - as interviewer asked my friends lots of technical questions.
I presumed ‘just a chat’ would be friend asking about role and maybe some personality questions but this was an hour long grilling.
They seem to want to interview people for show ... maybe to fulfil some criteria of having interviewed enough candidates

Whatever is behind it, if I were her I’d accept I wasn’t right for the role and move on. If it’s still being advertised or has been readvertised it’s a clear sign they haven’t found the right person.

I work in a PLC in a busy team and when recruiting, we would do the same - the team members would meet/chat/grill/assess technical capabilities of candidates before deciding if they move to the next meeting with HR. The lack of response is a real shame for your friend, to not get feedback, but if only one team member was available for the initial interview it may be that they’re a super busy team who haven’t had chance/have now totally forgotten to respond to the recruiter about how the meeting went. Whatever the explanation, it does indeed sound like your friend and the team weren’t a match.
Organisations are huge though and every team will be different. Don’t let it stop you if an opportunity exists.

@Hopdathelfb that makes sense - but it’s the attitude of the company thats off putting. Since they had to fit an impromptu interview in they’re not exactly overrun with candidates. So why ignore emails / not tell people they’ve been unsuccessful?

Also to add very few people would meet all the qualifications for this role and the location is undesirable. I’d have thought they wouldn’t be that cavalier in retaining candidate goodwill

@BobLemon but the interview went very well - the interviewer was very impressed and told friend that he’d arrange for further interviews with rest of team.
As job has been readvertised position is still open.
So the interviewer blatantly lied. If they didn’t want her for some reason or he didn’t have the power to decide he really shouldn’t have said that. That’s what’s leaving such a bad taste.

Sounds like a blunder from the interviewer or miscommunication and she just didn't get it. Not necessarily shady.

No, I don't see anything particularly fishy. Disorganised, unprofessional maybe, but not suspicious. Recruitment is often poorly managed in my experienced.

It doesn’t look remotely fishy to me, I cannot even fathom which part you think looks weird. They obviously didn’t think your friend was the right fit, didn’t get the right candidates and so have continued to advertise. All perfectly par for the course.

Agree it looks like they may feel your friend is not the right fit. May also be they want a wider pool to choose from.

If I was your friend and still interested in the job I would send a v polite follow up email saying something along the lines of that you enjoyed the interview and just wanted to check when you would hear about next steps.

Hopefully that will either bring closure or possibly even something more positive.

@Aprilx shady the part where the interviewer actually told her that they’d arrange a follow up. Not her imagining, not her assuming, but actually being told point blank to her face.

If she’d had an interview and no response, all normal. Nothing shady there. I’ve had that loads of times.

But I’ve never experienced nor heard of someone being told they’d made it to the next stage and then been left hanging. I have however been in orgs where the entire recruitment process was for show - they already had a candidate in mind but needed to meet diversity quotas...

[quote LateAtTate]**@Aprilx* shady the part where the interviewer actually told* her that they’d arrange a follow up. Not her imagining, not her assuming, but actually being told point blank to her face.

If she’d had an interview and no response, all normal. Nothing shady there. I’ve had that loads of times.

But I’ve never experienced nor heard of someone being told they’d made it to the next stage and then been left hanging. I have however been in orgs where the entire recruitment process was for show - they already had a candidate in mind but needed to meet diversity quotas...[/quote]
So? Maybe the next person decided from the CV that she was not what they were looking for. It was certainly unwise for the first person to say they would line up an interview, but it isn’t remotely shady.

As others have said it just sounds quite disorganised and badly managed more than fishy. Maybe the interview didn’t go as well as your friend thought or as the interviewer implied. But it’s poor form not to respond to say they won’t be moving forward with the application. Could she send an email to her contact asking for feedback?
Maybe it’s more that team than the general company but I admit it would put me off applying.

Tbh that's not a formal offer if a next stage or anything like that. I can see this being annoying, but nothing shady.

@Sparklesocks exactly
My perspective is probably because diversity hiring is a big deal in my field. That was what I meant as ‘shady’. But apparently nobody else thinks this is even a possibility

At least someone else also agrees that it’s off-putting. Of course it’s all lip service (for example if I really needed a job I wouldn’t be so picky) but it does strike me as rather rude

A well known payments fintech did this to my sister. She’s the expert in her field and they aren’t and even spent 10-15 mins arguing with her to say she was wrong about something (she wasn’t). She stuck with the interview but they just advertised the position again. And keep on doing this. That role has been open for nearly 2 years.

My sister said some companies do this deliberately because they want to hire from India but need ‘evidence’ that they can’t fulfil the role locally.

@Ozanj it’s a similar field, could be that as well
Again I would understand if it was a position that lots of people are competing for or something generic but this role is very niche...with the geographic location not many would be applying in the first place.
There is indeed a lot of variance between teams in one company... but practices like this are beyond the level of just ‘not responding’ and usually indicate cavalier treatment of employees...

Anyway friend has other interviews lined up and I still have a job so just hope I don’t come across this 😅

@LateAtTate what does diversity hiring have anything to do with her not getting the job and them reposting it? What?

@cinammonbuns some companies I’ve worked for needed to meet recruitment targets for a ‘diverse candidate pool’. Meaning that their bonuses depended on having interviewed a certain number of diverse candidates.
A couple of teams in previous orgs already had a preferred internal candidate - but wanted to interview as many diverse people as possible for the above reason. None of them were ever going to get the job.
I’ve been lucky to have never encountered it myself but it probably won’t be long...

If it’s a big organisation, they may well have a scoring system that goes to central HR and they didn’t score highly enough. The last place I worked did that and often that meant candidates we liked, fell at the first hurdle. The interviewer (unless very experienced) would have been unlikely to promise a next interview but just explained what the next step in their process was if successful.

The re-advertising of the role can be any number of things - usually to do with internal processes or to see if they can get more candidates, they may have more than once post to fill. Usually advertisements have an expiry date on them, or even if they don’t, I probably wouldn’t apply to a job advert that’s a month old. Weird to suggest anything underhand is going on, seems standard to me.

Your friend should approach them for feedback.

some companies I’ve worked for needed to meet recruitment targets for a ‘diverse candidate pool’.

Ahh, right, that’s your angle. I wondered why you’d question it. You’re wrong.

@MintyMabel wrong about what exactly?

Wrong that this is all some nefarious "diversity" issue for you to get all hot and bothered about.

Sounds flaky but probably not dodgy. My guesses based on events when I’ve been hiring would be
A) interviewer routinely gives everyone a super positive feeling even if they think they’re shit
B) another manager has intervened and blackballed your mate based on something they know/suspect about them or their previous company
C) HR, with the best of intentions, impose such a mountain of paperwork following any interview that hiring managers will jump through dubious hoops to classify things as “chats”.

The new advert could be gaming the system to look “new”.

Sadly in my experience this situation which strikes you as very unusual is very common. I've experienced it a lot as a candidate and as a recruiter have had to push colleagues to communicate to unsuccessful candidates frequently.

The diversity issue could be a factor but equally they might just be rude and incompetent to everyone.

I'd encourage your friend to view this as a sad but not rare experience and to let future interviewers know "if I haven't heard from you in a week I'll email to get an update so I can keep other companies im speaking with informed. I pride myself on good communication."