To not wait any longer?

[AtTheZoo]

Got an email yesterday asking me to come in for a job interview at 10am today.

Arrived on time. Been sat in the waiting room for 30 mins. One glass of water. Told things are running over but no apology.

Weird feeling just want to walk out. AIBU?

On the other hand, if I have arrived punctually I expect to be seen punctually. A few minutes grace maybe up to 15 is acceptable. No longer. Their time is not more valuable or important than mine

Recruiter here. That's outrageous.

Leave a review on glassdoor.

I wouldn’t wait longer than 45 mins.

either they’ve planned poorly or some disaster has occurred this morning. The latter can be politely explained in 90 seconds with an apology. The former is unacceptable.

I'd be tempted to wait til they let the previous interviewee out the door and turn to me so I could say "I assume because you've made me wait an extra hour, that the candidate is the one you really want, goodbye"

In reality I'd be doing the same as you.

I had an interview for a senior role recently.

Asked to attend for presentation at 11am, facilitation exercise at 11:45am and then interview at 4pm. I had to double check that they hadn’t got the timings wrong.

They called at 8am on the day to ask if I could go for 10am instead. I agreed.

When I arrived they had someone else’s presentation up. After the facilitation they put me and the other candidate in a holding area together. Awkward.

The other person’s interview was then at 1pm and mine was moved to 2:15pm. They lock the reception area at 3pm but the person bringing me out took me there. I was locked in for an hour before security came and let me out.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t accept the role.

They don't care, because the job is promised to Beryl from Accounts, but they were legally obliged to advertise out of house. Bad behaviour though. should have been out with the offer of coffee for you, and pretend profuse apologies. Sounds like they aren't good to work for.

Punctuality is definitely two way, if they're not doing something to manage the time in a useful way, I would definitely be politely heading off. A good interview should be well planned out with a definite end time and gaps between to do admin breaks etc. An interviewee doesn't owe the employer their time.

That’s awful. No way to treat people but it does tell you everything you need to know

I would expect an interview schedule to run to time. It's not hard in a professional environment.

(Barring unexpected disaster obviously, which is thankfully far and few between)

If something had come up, for example, interviewer train cancelled and they are running late, I would expect an explanation and an estimated start time with the offer to reschedule if that doesn't work.

However, when I was younger, I did once have an interview with a director but I was left waiting for over an hour with only a brief, rushed explanation.

I'm glad I did wait as they really were dealing with a disaster (involving a death) and quite rightly, explaining and rescheduling with me wasn't top priority in that hour. I did the interview, got the job and worked with them for 9 years. Best job I ever had too!

I once interviewed for a role where they had an internal candidate in mind and I got the job instead so it doesn’t always follow Beryl from accounts will get it in those situations. I obvious had no idea going in and I get it’s shit for the internal candidate but what followed was the most painful year I’ve had in employment. I left in the end, I couldn’t stand the tension and him glaring at me day after day.

It’s a puss take to over run by that much and speaks really poorly if the people that work there. I’d leave too.

If its an all-day interview that makes sense. We interview in individual timeslots, and give each candidate an actual time. If I were delayed in starting the interview by more than 10 minutes, I'd be apologising profusely. I expect them to turn up punctually and respect my time, the same applies in reverse.

Op’s gone quiet! She must have been called into the interview around 11 and is still in there! Some other poor candidate’s been waiting outside 😂

@CoolShoeshine if you read the OP's post you'd have seen that she has a lunch meeting for her actual real job. Leave her alone.

What happened this OP? Did you do the interview and get clarity on why it took so long or did you leave?

The interviewers are either terrible at time management or wasting your time. I would have left after an hour for sure.

Teaching is not a good comparison here. Teaching interviews almost always require you to block out the full day, often two days for senior roles.

I hope you left, OP. I wouldn't want to work with people with such poor time management and so little respect for other people's time.

I really hope you left OP, that's really bad to leave you sitting for an hour.

What happened in the end? A 9am interview running over by an hour to 11am is maaaad.

I would be concerned that the decision had already been made and they were measuring the person up for an office chair and desk in there.

It's really bad they only invited you to interview the day before! How many people can just last minute drop everything for an interview like that? That alone would have put me off.

It was 4 hours ago - I think she's back at work now!

I think you were massively precious.
I work for the NHS. Things are unpredictable , some interviews run over. My clinic appointments fairly frequently run an hour late.

Not a reason to strop off especially not after 30 mins waiting as you initially suggested. Were you very very stressed?

Clinics are completely different to interviews, and if they'd have said "I'm sorry, the interviewer's clinic has run over" OP would fully understand if she was in that line of work.

It's not a comparable situation.

She didn't 'strop off'. She needed to get back for a meeting after waiting incredibly patiently well past her scheduled meeting time.

Did you miss the post where the OP said that they had been waiting for 1 hour and not just the 30 minutes you think they are being 'massively precious' over?

OP - I think you did the right thing. You have added a value to your time. They clearly hadn't. The very least they could have done is have one of the interview panel step out of the over-running interview and apologise in person to you and ask if you would be available at another time to interview or whether you were even interested at that point - give them face to face feedback on their process.