Am I in the wrong?

[Stuckinthemiddle1990]

Interviews. 2 internal candidates.

I interviewed both on the same day and fed back to my manager a very brief, one did really well and whilst the other also did well it all felt very staged/scripted and that she wouldn't be successful this time.

Unbeknownst to me this individual as an assistant has access to my managers emails. Purely for when she is on leave/sick she can monitor emails and forward on. This person saw my email and read it even though my manager was on duty.

For personal reasons I wasn't in today and my manager called to say that the candidate pulled her aside today and was sobbing over the fact that she found out the way she did and that I was incredibly blunt, rude and unprofessional in my feedback.

I am of course mortified that she saw the email, but it wasn't HER feedback and would not have presented it to her in the same way to her.

I have messaged her to convey how sorry I was and that we would sit down tomorrow and I would give her the proper feedback I intended to, but the more and more I think about it I'm really angry.

It was not her email to read yet I am being made to feel absolutely awful and that I was completely in the wrong.

Was I?

This is what I do for a living and I have constant access to inboxes. I scan emails for my bosses to see if there is anything that requires actioning and head off requests for time before they see it and constantly moving/removing email requests and flagging documents etc.

If she shouldn't be looking then she's shot herself in the foot. Very unprofessional. Curiosity killed the cat and all that.

Why does she have access to the manager's emails?

Anyway, whether or not she should, you didn't know she had access, and it's not your place (necessarily) to have an opinion why your manager allowed that access.

You can do this, OP, you can patch up the relationship I mean. When you meet, let her say her bit until she's got it out of her system, try to end the chat by asking f she'd like you to help her develop skills to interview better next time. Nobody needs to feel bad that she didn't get the job.

Well at least you know your instincts were right.

Yeah, you had no way to know that she had access to the email.

There's a couple of things here. The first being very clear that she shouldn't have accessed the email at all and why isn't she being disciplined for this?

But also, it doesn't sound like you wrote anything unprofessional in your email. Is she upset that she didn't get the job or were you more candid with your feedback than you've shared on here? Written interview feedback can be requested (as a previous poster said) so always keep it professional and factual. It doesn't have to be bland but it should be as objective as possible.

If you wrote in the email what you've shared here, why are you upset and shaking? You did your job as an interviewer and her appalling behaviour is more evidence that you made the right decision. If you're upset because she's upset and you like it, you need to pull yourself together. This is business. She's been an idiot and completely unprofessional. Don't let your emotions get involved, you've done nothing wrong. She'd be on a warning where I work, and heading rapidly towards the exit.

She's got a lot of front looking at the emails when she shouldn't be- and if your manager was in then she had absolutely no reason to be snooping but she's got even more front to go to the manager and tell them and be upset. What the fuck?!

I’m also confused here, if she read the emails when she shouldn’t, why is she not being investigated, is something missing?

if you simply said it felt scripted and she wouldn’t be successful why is she saying it was blunt and she is in tears, is something missing?

I was incredibly blunt, rude and unprofessional in my feedback

so what did you actually write that’s caused the manager to take her side?