To think this is a weird response to not giving someone a job

[LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet]

Had a Teams interview last week after being head hunted. I wasn’t looking for a job, I’m happily SE but I think it’s always good to keep a beady eye out for opportunities. So I agreed to an interview on the basis I would be absolutely if I didn’t get it and if nothing else it’s always good to have interview experience.

I’ve done some bad interviews in my life and some excellent interviews - this was definitely the latter. I was confident and showed my competency well, gave good answers and I could tell they were impressed with my range of experience. They mentioned how they’d been looking for someone for 2 months but just couldn’t find anyone who’d be the ‘ideal fit’ but were ‘excited’ about me.

I took some time and decided if I was offered the job I’d turn it down. I’m happy as I am and whilst the role was well paid it just didn’t excite me.

The Headhunter rang back today to say thank you for attending the interview, the panel were really impressed with my expertise and experience and said I came across well but they “didn’t see much of a personality” and therefore had no chemistry with me and they think it’s important in their workplace to have a team that will really ‘mesh well together’.

I mean, No skin off my nose, it saved me turning them down I suppose but AIBU to find that a weird reason not to recruit someone? Also, I do have a personality but I’m not going to crack jokes and talk about my personal opinions in a professional interview. It seems like they wanted a new mate in the office and I didn’t fit the bill 🤷‍♀️ has anyone else encountered this?

Well they asked for my 3 main strengths and 3 main weaknesses

Well then, you don't want to work for them anyway. Ridiculous question and puts me right off the moment it comes up.

I did groan inwardly. It’s a universally and uniformly stupid question.

@GerbilsForever24 A fair point but I don’t think you needed to tell the OP she sounded bland just from her OP. Particularly because she doesn’t.

’I agreed to an interview on the basis I would be absolutely if I didn’t get it and if nothing else it’s always good to have interview experience.’

You weren’t really into it which might have come across as more laid back. Maybe they were looking for someone who really obviously wanted the job and was selling themselves.

Well, it was a response to your calling the OP 'bland' on the basis of a couple of paragraphs on a forum, when your own post was hardly scintillating stuff!

I get to the point of what I mean and I know this can come across as a little abrupt (though again no one minds when a man gets to the point).

While I am usually the first person to scream, "a man would not get this response" the feedback you got doesn't sound like it was about you being blunt. It sounds like they thought you weren't particularly interesting or interested.

I am blunt. For some jobs interviews, that has been a positive. For others, not so much. But it's good because if my bluntness isn't going to work, I shouldn't go work at that company anyway.

I'd find it difficult not to reply back something about wishing them luck in finding someone that sparkles

Yes I thought they’d have come back with that, I tried not to make my slight indifference obvious

@PuppyMonkey @RichardsGear If it sounded like a negative on OP, apologies. I certainly didn't mean it that way. I meant that the job interview and her approach sounded bland. That's what I was thinking as I read it. That we missed out on any personality.

I am 100% sure she has plenty of personality. And for me, in an interview, I want to see that. Don't tell me about the time you got wasted on 30 tequilas and shagged 2 barmen, but I like to see what sort of sense of humour a person has or how they approach a new task.

It's poorly worded, but I would guess that what they were trying to say is that you didn't show much enthusiasm for the role. Hardly surprising as you said yourself that it didn't excite you and that you had already decided not to take it if offered the role. Maybe that came across more than you thought?

Don't take it personally. You weren't excited about them and they weren't excited about you. It was mutual...a poor fit all round.

I think it must be as a PP said that they must have a preferred candidate in mind. Maybe they had to go through the process of interviews just because.

I’m sure you weren’t checking your phone in the interview . It’s not anything you did but maybe that your enthusiasm level wasn’t high enough for them.

That would be my thought as well. You dodged a bullet.

I like to see what sort of sense of humour a person has or how they approach a new task.

I see what you mean it the first part could maybe be seen as discriminatory if a ND person is being interviewed and the second part - how am I supposed to approach a new task showing my personality? Should I approach it by riding on a Hobby horse with a funky wig on screaming “I’m mad me”?

For the record, I once got a similar bit of feedback. And the truth is that I wasn't interested in the job. So I turned up for the interview, said all the right things and clearly had all the base skills they were looking for but they could tell that I was ambivalent and not particularly excited. Which was true, I wasn't. I had just arrived in the UK and was far more interested in doing casual work that would allow me lots of flexible time to go travelling and party. Which I did. Very happily. For 6 months. THEN I got a "proper" job!

For "sparkle" read desperate pleaser, you dodged a bullet there.

I’m surprised they were that honest in the feedback but I suppose it’s as good a reason as any given your cv would have already laid out your experience. Maybe if it was a job you actually wanted you’d cone across differently.

You are being deliberately obtuse now, albeit funny. That sarcastic sense of humour could have gotten you the job!

I think ‘didn’t see much of a personality’ is a) really fucking rude for feedback and b) suggests that they were looking for a particular type of personality i.e. hyper positive/‘peppy’

You literally said:

“Interestingly, as I was reading your post, I was thinking, ‘she comes across as very bland”

I think that’s pretty negative about OP.

I think the whole thing about “fit” is really interesting. My last employer had a big push on EDI and basically outlawed the idea of “fit” on the basis of promoting more diverse hiring. But the problem was we then did some more open minded hiring and ended up with people who were basically a “bad fit”. Maybe that’s a teething problem and that eventually more diverse hiring would change the culture. But in the short term we ended up with some people who just didn’t get on well with their colleagues which ended up challenging for both the organisation and the people we had hired.

I dont think it's strange, not sure I'd have been so honest about it like but personality counts for a lot when you are wanting a team that gels well as well as works well. There are a few people in my years of interviewing who have been good, but person B got the job over them because they seemed an all round better fit (and were obviously just as good on paper).

It’s weird that you think them wanting a candidate to show a bit of personality in the interview.
You’re being very hyperbolic. There’s a world between having some personality and screaming ‘I’m whacky’ on a horse.
It sounds like you wouldn’t have fit in with the existing team which is important and since you didn’t really want the job anyway I imagine the lack of enthusiasm came through, despite your best efforts to hide it.

Well, I guess that sentence should have read, "she comes across in the interview as very bland". I thought it was fairly obvious I was talking about how she came across in the interview as her entire post was about... the interview.

How on earth would I know how she comes across the rest of the time? Based on later posts, I'm guessing OP is pretty entertaining when she wants to be.

I know I’m only teasing