Didn’t get job

[tiredsotired6]

I’ve been working as a temp for one company for over a year. They’ve been very happy with my work, giving me a lot of good feedback. A few people (including the manager) have said they would really like me to be on permanent staff as I do a great job.

Anyway, a few months ago a perm role came up, which was essentially my role to the letter. Having had the good feedback I decided to apply as felt I had a very good chance.

As I’m sure you’ve already guessed, I didn’t get the job. I’m now feeling like my confidence has been shot and my manager was just leading me on.

The new person has now started and seems fine but no better than me at the job. Worse still, I’ve been asked to help them out if they have any questions about how to do the job that I’ve been doing for over a year.

The result is that a job I used to look forward to every day has now left me feeling deflated and upset. I now dread work and generally just feel my confidence has been shattered.

AIBU and WWYD?

So you're still there, still in a temporary role??!

Why on earth??! Go temp somewhere else, and then at least get something permanent!

This happened to me. Temp for 6 months, a couple of perm roles came up. I applied even though the role l was doing as a temp was more junior than I previously had.

I didn't get the role because they didn't think I wanted it enough.

The day I got the rejection I quit, left 2 days later. I just said if you can't see my enthusiasm and experience for this role, I'm going.

I was devastated because I really wanted to work for the company. I didn't have another role and I sat at home for 2 weeks feeling dejected but another temp role came up, and a couple of years on from that experience im bloody glad I told them to shove it.

I have experience of being temporarily in a job and not being allowed to apply for a full time position, as I was covering maternity leave, on the contract I was on.
So I left for a permanent role elsewhere, then they asked me to stay and I didn’t.

It clearly is a complete waste of time “ process”

When younger I quit a job when they asked me to apply for the full time role that I was already doing.

I was on a part time contract, I’d boosted their sales quotas, and worked full time, I had their business keys, could be called out if there was a break in, yet I had to formerly interview for a full time position.
I said no, and walked straight into a new job.
I was a lot younger and much in demand .

The process was a waste of my time and frankly insulting.

Why wouldn’t they show bias to an excellent internal employee who was already doing a great job? Are they mad?

This is crazy talk. It’s turning recruitment from a common sense-led, pragmatic process into a silly, counterintuitive game.

It ignores the overwhelming fact that the internal candidate is in a totally different situation from externals and tries to treat them the same. Treating people in different situations exactly the same doesn’t result in fairness.

@Shitstix

They sound ridiculous. “You didn't show you wanted it enough “!?

Why do recruiters make grown-up people play their silly games? As a pp said upthread, it’s as if they want a RADA audition, not a sensible, bs-free, adult interview.

But…this is what worries me! Do people really have to learn to spout set-speeches and insincere rubbish to impress the interviewer? If I was interviewing that would be a red flag. I’d want their own words and their own ideas and avoid anyone who had slick answers off pat. But the awful cliched questions we hear about seem to favour this kind of corny, inauthentic response.

It’s not acting if it’s true though. Why can’t you identify what makes you good at your job (to the people who are saying they have to ‘learn a script’)? If you don’t understand what it is that makes you good, how would you know what makes you bad, or is it blind luck?

that’s what being able to demonstrate things at interview means. Being able to explain why you are good and why you are the right person for the role. Otherwise you are just a random person who fortuitously makes good decisions through chance.

Sure, but in your own words and with no penalty for something like ‘not being passionate enough’. Everyone’s an adult in this situation - so no need for phoney games.

Yes, it seems they do 🫤 I went online to see how other people felt about it (Reddit) and everyone pretty much hates it. (The ‘star’ method, that didn’t even exist when I did the bulk of my work years, how on earth did I and everyone else manage to get jobs before it).

So instead of going to uni to do a degree it’s probably better for everyone to just go to a drama or performing arts school and nail those interviews every time!

I really think this is rubbish, sorry. Everyone who does an interview has to know they may be unsuccessful, it's part of life. The idea that your employer should then have to make arrangements including you having nothing to do with the training of the new recruit is ridiculously infantile.

OP, you may just not have done a great interview, get feedback on your interview performance, you need to know exactly where you could have done better for next time. It's all about improving your chances in next interview you do.

Not in the UK, no. It's perfectly legal to give someone a job without advertising it at all; however other laws might come into play if someone else is "passed over" for a role/promotion and could claim discrimination against a protected characteristic. Advertising a role and having an (in theory) fair competition with a documented hiring decision evidencing the successful person was the best candidate is a defence against any allegation of unfairness based on protected characteristics.

It's company policy that usually dictates whether jobs are advertised internally, externally, or both.

If the external candidate was excellent at interview and had loads of relevant experience that they could demonstrate at interview, it is reasonable for them to appoint ahead of an internal candidate that didn't perform as well on the day.

However, in the interview feedback that OP requested, they basically told her that she wasn't appointed due to a small issue with a part of her job, that they hadn't raised with her previously and that she has now taken on board and immediately rectified. If they knew that OP was doing something wrong, they should have provided feedback at the point this issue came to light, not to let it continue and then use it as the reason why she didn't get the job.

It is also unfair of them to expect OP to train the new hire, i.e. you are not good enough for us to appoint you to the permanent role, but you are good enough and knowledgeable to train your replacement to do this job.

Why is it back in the 80s and 90s if you were a temp and you were good at the job they just got you to sign a bit of paper to transfer to permanent? They can see with their own eyes and their own common sense that you can do the job. Fair enough, interview outside candidates if the temp isn’t up to scratch but if they are just give them the job!

That may be the case I worked for a company which had two levels of temporary staff - some from an agency and some who were contracted directly to the company.
The process was work as an agency temp, work as a direct contract temp then get a permanent job if one became available.

I have always wondered that myself. The interviews where I work are very strictly structured, and yet there have been some terrible appointments.
Can the interviewer actually say 'Oh that's absolute bollox Fred- you've never been a team player!' ?

I think probably key to this is that those jobs don’t exist to the same level they did before. PAs usually do a really different role to the old “admin” and also support multiple people. I started in admin and it was easy and didn’t require much more than being organised polite and learning basic software systems. A lot more is expected now, for fewer roles.

also you can’t have it both ways - accept a persons excellent feedback then decide they’re clueless when they feedback and make interview decisions. The workplace is tough really, especially nowadays

I’m a bit miffed by people who follow a strict process to the point of ignoring obvious red flags, but I suspect it happens less than we might think. This has never happened to me for example and I probably do 30 interviews a year

I agree it’s very tough. Even casual work like Saturday jobs don’t really exist anymore. No more randomly walking into places asking if they need staff (pubs, cafes etc) and they just say sure, pop in tomorrow for a trial day, with no asking for a CV or how passionate you are about clearing dirty plates 🥴

And I was out of the workplace a long time (16 years) (sahm), I think I still haven’t come to terms with how much the job landscape has changed. I’m still stuck in the 80s/90s mindset of job hunting.

Ask them why you didn't get the job, a chat with your manager or a more formal sit down to see what you have to improve to be a better candidate in future. Are you agency staff? It is sometimes very expensive to pay off the agency to take someone on directly, I remember my company having this problem they were pretty much held to ransom.

I'd leave.

Why couldn't they just change op's contract to perm and recruit for a temp.

Exactly. Simples!

That’s what I’m not getting.

So if I’m understanding correctly, a good interview from a stranger trumps a proven record of competence in the post by the internal applicant?

If the organisation is very happy with the temp, why not just appoint them to the permanent post?

I've seen this happen in the NHS. Seems pretty normal thing to do sadly there from my experience!

The temps then left, sometimes on the spot.

IME temps are usually lower quality hires than perms. For the reasons I’ve spoken about re lack of investment from employers.

this is why standards are often lower for temps, they’re recruited on a more casual basis and to a lower standard, and often less is expected of them. There is no long term investment or commitment either side