Husband failed interview for own job, panicking!

[UpsetAtInterview]

Name changed for this one. My husband has been on fixed term contracts for 4 years and interviews came up for permanent positions. He placed high in last years interviews and just missed out on a job, but the wait list ran out so there was a new round in interviews. He was in a pissy mood leading up to it, annoyed at having to re-interview again. He just found out he failed the interview. We're now facing a cliff edge financially as we can't get by on just my wage and his contract finishes in 6 weeks.

I'm so angry at him. I was the breadwinner until our first child turned two. Then he got this job and it was great, he doubled his salary just as the cost of living increase hit so we were okay. I worked so hard for years, I even did interviews heavily pregnant to get us in a good position financially and he's just thrown it all away because he couldn't get out of his own way and actually apply himself for a few days. He didn't take the prep seriously and was blindsided in the interview.

He's devastated, doesn't want to go back to work for last few weeks of his contract, doesn't want to complete his remaining projects. I am trying to comfort him and can see he's emotionally fragile but I just want to scream at him 'Why did you let us down? Why didn't you do the work to make sure your family is looked after?'. I wouldn't mind if he tried his best and it didn't work out, but he didn't. Am I unreasonable to be so angry? Should I tell him? Should I just try and help him get a new job first?

I think you are unreasonable to be suggesting he has 'let you down' on purpose, it isn't really about you, he didn't do it 'to you' ( though i understand that it impacts you)

Internal interviews are the worst, it might be that they already knew who they wanted, If he has interviewed and not got it before then maybe he isn't quite what they are looking for longer term? he probably feels bad enough as it is. FTC are a huge risk. Hopefully he can find something else soon.

I understand your frustration, it seems like he was annoyed at having to reinterview so didn't take it seriously enough and that's what has led to him losing out on the position. I imagine it feels avoidable and that hurts especially in the current job market instability. The stress this will bring to your lives is not insignificant.
Get your frustrations out privately but try to do your best to support him in this next stage, because he probably knows and is kicking himself for making this mistake. I think most people would really struggle to handle their emotions around this kind of situation so he's going to be challenging for a while I imagine.
You're not wrong for being angry, but it won't help now so focus on what can be done to improve his chances of getting a new job.

Newsflash: not all parts of the CS operate “perfectly”. I spent 12 years there trying to fix stuff!

Read OP’s posts. It’s extremely simple. Objective justification is all that is needed to prevent any automatic rights and there’s 2 perfectly obvious options for that here

1. Project work
2. Covering maternity leaves & gaps

Even from the brief info given you can clearly see that there is no automatic rights, CS also know that.

you are a team. something has gone badly for him in what seems to be a quite unfair situation.

do you really not think he knows about the financial requirement to provide for you and his children. i am sure he does which is why he is distressed and probably why he was stressed in the first place.

take a breath, get him back to work so he make sure he gets a good reference and help him start looking for roles. if push comes to shove you may need to increase your hours if you can.
better to be solution focussed rather than attribute blame for him not getting a job he was already doing!

@UpsetAtInterview

"I'm just angry and annoyed at being put in a precarious financial situation beyond my control when he could, and has in the past, done better"

You are angry at the wrong person.

Do people, really not recognise, that employers have zero loyalty to their employees?

Do not let this impact your life by blaming your husband.

It is not his fault, it was a corporate decision!

Your frustration is entirely valid. Ignore those criticising you. Supporting your DH does not mean enabling them not to take responsibility for their decisions.

Did he receive feedback?
What was the actual reason for him failing?
Did he not have the requisite knowledge?
Was he unfriendly?

Maybe he's not doing very well in the role he is in and that was a reason for him failing to get on the wait list. Perhaps the role is beyond his capabilities and he'd be better suited to something else.

I'd want to know more about why he had failed before berating him for letting him the family down.
And then you can discuss with him ways forward because this job looks like a non-starter for getting a permanent contract now that he's failed this interview. Maybe he should look for something else.

Eh? What? Are we reading the same OP?

He was a sulky manbaby who didnt give his all in the interview, didnt prepare enough, didnt think of his family's need above himself and was so sure of himself he thought he had it in the bag. Is now needing an emotional supportive wife while he continues to sulk - and HER attitude is terrible???

What are you on?

I can only hope you are male, as if you are female, I despair at your sillyman-enabling attitude

He needs to find another job. He will need the final six weeks for a recommendation.

But I’ve been in his position. I didn’t get the job for something I was already doing - exceeding targets, working late etc. After this I just stopped.

There was no point. I underperformed until I left. I was eventually just appointed to the job I was already doing but it really pissed me off as they only did that so they wouldn’t have to make a huge payout. I still worked out every day of my notice period and lined up a new job to start on the Monday after finishing on the Friday.

My next job was at a company my former employer was in intense litigation with. Working there was the ultimate F-you.

Came here to say this.
First port of call should be a phone call to ACAS.

That's not how academia works though. I could be a stellar Tudor historian, but if what's needed is an expert on the Restoration era, I'm not going to get the job. That doesn't mean my research skills, publications, classroom practice or whatever else is lacking.

First post nails it…

Wow. I've been feeling down lately, after a few unsuccessful interviews. My career plan is looking a bit murky right now. However, I am grateful that at least I'm not married to you. I feel like I should go and remind my husband how grateful I am for him not making my career success some sort of obligation to him.

The company (civil service) is to blame. How was he good enough to do the job for 4 years but not now?

You seem to have a bit of a blame culture attitude towards him and are unreasonable to be so angry. They may have made up their mind before the interview and you where not in the interview yourself anyway.

I think people are missing the part where OP said that he didn’t prepare for the interview. She has every right to be annoyed.

Also, that would have been very obvious at the interview, and wouldn’t have impressed anyone interviewing him. It would make me assume that he didn’t even want the job

Possibly pedantic, but I'd dispute what you mean by "good" enough. Surely we all know people who are great at ticking boxes in interview, but then rubbish at doing the actual job, and, vice versa, model employees who fall apart at interview.

I do have some sympathy with him OP, an interview process is designed to test how good you'd be at a job - the fact that you can be doing the job well for four years yet get marked below someone who might have never worked in the organisation suggests the interview is not a great marker of what is actually needed.

I'm also slightly confused about exactly what was going on - was there ever an option to have his temp. contract renewed again or were the only options score highly enough to be offered a permanent job (not sure how many permanent jobs there were) OR be let go regardless of whether you passed or failed the interview.
It sounds like last time there were interviews, the top people got permanent jobs but those that passed but didn't score as high got temp jobs. It was only those who failed completely who didn't get anything. If this is the case, I'd have more sympathy, because although he obviously wanted a perm job, it's understandable that he didn't think he'd completely fail to the point where he didn't get anything. Again, I don't think a process that 'blindsides' a candidate to the point where they completely fail an interview despite literally doing that job for four years, AND scoring highly in previous interviews for the exact same role, is a good one. What sort of scenario is so likely to come up that needs testing at interview if it's never happened in 4 years of work?!

However, if he knew going in that the only 2 options were score highest out of all candidates to get the sole/few perm job/s OR contract end then I'd be much more annoyed.

My reaction would also depend on his ownership - if he accepts he's screwed up and apologises I wouldn't kick him when he's down. If he's still blaming anyone else but himself I'd struggle to not give him some hard truths.

A friend in the civil service had this happen, though they did offer him another job BUT he’d been on about 40k for 5 years (working at a higher band) and the job they offered him was about £28k. I found it amazing that after that amount of time working at a more senior level
he seemed to have no rights.

It sounds like he should have left a long time ago, if your heart isn’t in it and you are frustrated with your work you are never going to succeed in an interview process like this
He needs to work out his last remaining weeks and start looking for a new position

My experience of interviews - especially interviews with people who are already working at an organisation - are that the interview has very little to do with it and hiring managers already have a strong idea of whether they are going to take someone on based on their actual work.

So I'm not sure your are being reasonable in being nagry that he didn;t prepare eneough - I doubt it would've made any difference.

The civil service interview process is based on behaviours and you have to answer in the STAR formula with an example. Each answer is scored based on how well it exhibits the behaviour the question relates to.

Your performance in your current role and how friendly you are aren’t relevant, although they could bias the scoring as people could be less or more generous with their scores.

@UpsetAtInterview YANBU but as you know you now need to move forward.

Give him the full long weekend to get over it then he needs to be pragmatic and start applying for jobs.

Given your update on his job the easiest is to apply for CS and NHS jobs. I would also be asking his HR which agencies the CS/NHS currently use and get on their books.

These are the websites
https://www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi

https://www.jobs.nhs.uk/candidate

What she said is "He didn't take the prep seriously and was blindsided in the interview."

He'd been doing the job for quite some time; it's not unreasonable that he assumed the questions would be ones he already knew the answers to. I probably wouldn't do a huge amount of prep for an interview for my own job either.

OP is blaming this guy for factors which might well be entirely out of his control, and is now finding that even his own wife isn't on his side.

If his productivity as well as enthusiasm went down over the years, It happens with a lot of employees, they get worn down and need a change
I personally change companies every few years as I need a change

I've read all your posts OP, just not everyone elses.

I was in a similar position, also civil service and on short term contracts. I had to interview for the role I'd already been doing 2yrs. Rather than just sending in a CV, I had to complete an application form with very specific details instructions about experience, why I fit each of the job specs etc. I thought I prepped and did a reasonable interview. i did get the job, but my boss was rather scathing about how I completed the application. She said that if she hadn't know me, I wouldn't have even got an interview! She also said my interview wasn't great.

Despite getting the role, I felt deflated and pretty shit about it all. Just saying that even with prep etc, some people just aren't at interviews.