Employers attitude.

[Lallydallydune]

An employer contacted me earlier this week.

They'd seen my CV on some website (I'd forgotten it was there, I'd been on that website a long time ago).

They sent me an email asking me to do an online interview for a position.

The positon seemed good. I decided to do the interview.

The onlie interviewer was so rude. After grilling me about different things for a while.

He said

"Why did you apply for this job". I said

"I didn't. Are you aware that the company contacted me and asked me to interview"

He then said "why should we hire you over all the over people that applied for this job"

. I again said "the company contacted me to do the interview for a start. Then I did answer the question and I listed my "qualities".

He was so rude. And I couldn't understand why he kept saying "why did you apply for this job" aggressively, when the company had sent me an email asking me to interview.

Why ask someone to do an interview and then be rude to them? I felt upset afterwards.

Weird experience

Even though they contacted you you are still applying for the job. They would want to know why you would be interested in that job or company.

A recruiter can be an internal recruiter for the company. Unless the hiring manager specifically asked you to apply, the employer did not ask. You are still very unreasonable in your manner.

You've had your CV on a website looking for jobs, been contacted and asked if you'd like to interview and said yes. That's you applying for the job. Obviously it's not the job for you so I'd just move on.

The interviewer was rude and you sound like you were abrupt and rude too. And no that's not victim blaming or bullying, it's just an opinion based on the information you've provided here.

OP, the interviewer sounds like he wasn’t clued up on how you were contacted, and it went downhill from there. Do something nice for yourself this afternoon, and let it go. Have a good weekend.

Yes it's not that he asked me. It's that he asked me multiple times and his manner was rude and dismissive throughout.

What annoyed me is just his whole manner, everything.

But I'll move on.

Thank you!

I hope you have a nice weekend too.

Some unkind replies here.

It does sound strange and agree it sounds like a third party tick box exercise to show it was "fair and open competition" as this doesn't sound professional. If genuine the interviewer would have thanked you for agreeing to interview at short notice and asked questions like what could you bring to the job?

Glad you have a good job :)

You agreed to an interview, which is a tacit application, so the question was valid. You were a bit pedantic and abrupt. I doubt they'll employ you.

Is this serious? By the very nature that you were interviewed you applied for the job. Why did you apply you should have just answered as why did you decide to go for the interview. What qualities do you have, yea you were approached but you would bring more to the table than what they can see on your cv.

To be fair, your interview answers on this longer post have very different vibes and tone to the short OP and your subsequent answers, so you can’t blame posters for thinking you were snappy with the interviewer.

But this whole set up is how recruiters work. They find people, reach out to them (you) and just put you forward to the hiring company. The interviewer at the end of the chain will have no idea how your application came about - whether you were already on the agency’s books and activity looking or whether they’ve scraped your data from god knows where.

I’ve rung people to invite them for interview and they’ve had no idea the agency had even put them forward! There are some useless recruitment companies out there.

The interviewer was rude. I would have stopped the interview the second time he rudely said that though.

Inviting someone to interview, and them agreeing, doesn't mean the interviewee is begging or even asking for a job. They are talking to the company about what the job is, and both sides are seeing if it is a good fit.

But, OP, in your shoes i wouldn't have agreed to an interview with that short notice. I'd probably have asked them to send me details, and then looked them up. I'd want a minimum of 4-5 day for that.

Interviewers like this need to wake up though, it's a tough market out there to get good people, and as OP said the employer is also being interviewed.

I'd reply to the person who invited you to apply telling them you didn't appreciate Mr Agressive and not to contact you again.

Wtaf do you want from this thread OP?

If you replied as per the OP then your response was weird. You did apply. You said yeah sure ill interview. That's your application.

The OP has explained how she responded. The interviewer was clearly an arse.

For certain jobs, it's a very competitive market and employers are trying increasingly to identify candidates via non-traditional means for speed and to reduce their recruitment costs. Large companies have specialist recruitment teams scouring social media, networking, etc to find candidates.

It's quite possible the company has either an internal candidate or has seen someone they want to offer the job to, but is going through the motions of seeing other candidates to validate their recruitment process or confirm their choice. No need for rudeness though.

I didn't say you were contacted on LinkedIn. I said I often am. Your CV was up somewhere with your contact details. It doesn't really matter where.

if someone asks you to interview for a position and you agree, you are essentially agreeing to apply. You're telling them that you'd like to be considered whether the word apply is used.

That's not necessarily true. If you get head-hunted you might agree to an interview to see what they are offering.

Good god OP you've got some live ones here today!
Creative reading maybe? They certainly don't seem to be reading the same words I am, maybe they all work in recruitment 😂

He then said "why should we hire you over all the over people that applied for this job"

That’s a pretty standard interview question. It’s not particularly graceful, but it’s not rude.

Presumably, there was something in the post which led you to apply, even if they approached you. You could have declined when they approached you.

I think your replies were quite cheeky. I would think you would be difficult to get on with as a colleague. If I was the interviewer that is.

It sounds to me as though the 'why did you apply for the job' question is one he had on his list. Maybe it was his job to interview for the position but did not want to admit to further up the company chain that you had been asked to apply, so he kept repeating the same question in the hope that you would give a different answer that wouldn't let on?

Somebody was using you for interview practice.

I think asking "why did you apply" is essentially "why do you want the job". The interview is basically you applying for the job, so it's reasonable for them to ask.

However he does also sound rude and abrupt and I think some interviewers like to try to wrong foot or put off interviewees. I had an interview where the guy spent a long time delighting in telling me how, when he had discussed my CV with his boss, he could see from his boss's face how wrong the boss thought I was for the role, and how he'd had to convince the boss I was worth interviewing. This guy would have been my direct manager so I called the recruiter and withdrew my application as so as the interview was over.

Oh! Sorry this changes things then. He's a penis

I agree. An interview is a two way process and both sides need to be satisfied that it's a match. No one's committed to anything but there's a reasonable expectation that a person is at least notionally interested in the role and will engage in the process.

I've had this before. Exactly the same thing, asked to interview and then giving a going over about why I was there. I ended up cutting the interview short.

When I did some digging it was an agency that offered the interview, but the employer that did the interview. Because the agency were cutting out the application stage it was causing a massive difference in expectations between the myself and the interviewer (who assumed I'd knocked on their door).

I've come across it again several times since. It's usually when it's a specialist role that agencies find difficult to find applicants for. My cynical interpretation is that they trawl their CV library and the usual online source for candidate to maintain activity levels to earn their fee. For a while Principal People used to offer me an interview with a different employer every couple of months - I was in a SHEQ role and that's their specialism.