to think former colleague’s behavior was duplicitous and appalling?

[RobertTheDoggert]

I have recently discovered by accident that a former colleague and (supposedly) friend, interviewed for the role I currently have while I was also interviewing for it, and never said a thing about it. I am shocked!

We worked together for years and became good friends. She invited me to her wedding, we hang out one-to-one regularly, we confided in each other, etc.

When I applied for my current role, we were working at the same company. I immediately shared the news with her, as I thought she was a friend. As I went through the 4 months process of interviewing, working on an assignment, meeting with the team, etc, she kept asking how things were going, to share updates, how the interviews were, and I told her everything. I was totally honest and open, as I tend to be in friendships.

Well, I eventually got the role and started at the new company a few months ago. Last week I was chatting with my team and by complete accident I learned that my former colleague interviewed for the role alongside me!! Apparently she went through the first couple of interviews and then she was rejected because of “personality fit”.

AIBU to find her behavior duplicitous and horrendous? What kind of person behaves this way? It serves me well as a lesson not trust people so freely.

Oh my god the drama.

Being hung out to dry indeed.

She has done absolutely nothing wrong. You, however, have behaved very badly by trying to extract confidential details about her from your ‘team’.

If OP was part of the search committee for the contractor role, it may not be a breach to share that this person was already vetted and rejected for another position within the firm.

But this is not a legal thread.

The evil eye is real. I don’t tell anyone anything any more until it’s a done deal.

I recently had a friend try to block me from a professional opportunity which she couldn’t even use, just because she didn’t want me to have it. Crazy behaviour.

I have to keep telling myself not to assume people will treat me the way I would treat them. It always leads to being let down.

@RobertTheDoggert how did she respond to you getting the job?

Really? Pumping your friends for info that would help you and harm them is “nothing wrong”?

YANBU, I think your friend has been very underhand. If she was doing it for privacy reasons and wanting to behave ethically and morally, she wouldn’t have asked you any questions about your candidacy, and would have changed the subject in a subtle manner if you brought it up.

If she made an active choice to question you about it, while keeping her own candidacy private, that says a lot about her.

I certainly wouldn’t describe it as ‘horrendous’ but it’s dishonest and I would distance myself from her.

Wait, so she’s a freelancer?

It clearly didn't help the friend as she only got to the second stage of a four stage process, so she can't have been 'pumping' very effectively if she was pumping at all.

It clearly didn't harm the OP as OP got the job.

That’s isn’t the point though. Would you trust this person and still consider them a friend?

She was as entitled to apply for it as you surely.........

It depends on your definition of trust. Excepting your immediate family (and even them, not always) most, if not all people you encounter in life will put their interests before your interests - whether they are friends, 'best friends', colleagues, bosses. If you don't expect that to happen, you are naive.

That doesn't mean you can never trust anyone, but you have to be realistic about the limitations of trust. You might trust a friend to keep a secret, to be there for you in a crisis, to return the item you lent them, not to turn against you, to give you good advice, but 99.9 times out of 100, if there's a conflict of interest about something major such as a job, your friend will put themselves first, and you are probably fooling yourself if you think you'd be any different.

Interesting split in responses here OP.
I’m with you and would reevaluate friendship.The secrecy has changed the trust.
i had similar with a friend a few years back sabotaging my promotion once she moved to level above. It was only when i resigned that seniors panicked and outed my STBXF’s duplicitous hexing of my promotion. Looking back she enjoyed manipulating me and watching my paranoia try to figure out who was blocking all the while knowing it was entirely down to her.

onwards and upwards to happier green fields and left her behind and I know she is sad about losing the friendship.
Another friend concealed a fab opportunity from me 20 yrs ago - again I think she lost out as there was room for both of us and she would have had more fun with me there but I let that one go as yes it wasn’t her duty; 20 yrs later she would remain the most selfish of the people I call friends so maybe a lack of closeness with friends is a price she pays.

She is now freelancing, yes. At the time of our interviews, we were both employed at the same company.

I agree with this, which is why often friends made through work aren’t often the best to have.

There is nothing wrong with putting oneself first. But competent people don’t need to gather intel on another candidate to be offered the job.

I wouldn’t do this to a friend or a stranger.
It’s kind of pitiful, no? I think that’s true of everyone I call a friend. If I learned otherwise about them, I’d distance myself, too.

This mindset is not naiveté, just moral standards. I don’t need conniving losers in my life.

Mumsnet answers are completely baffling to me.

Yes, if be furious. You have a level of honesty in a friendship and she led you to believe she returned that. You told her things you’d never had told her if you knew she was applying. This is a lie of omission. She knew something relevant and chose not to share to get one up on you.

she would no longer be my friend. I’d ask her if she applied, make out like your not sure (don’t want to get anyone in trouble) but explain that you suggested her for freelance (as a good friend and colleague!) and you can’t see any other reason that they’d say no than she went for the job you got. Ask her and see what she says.

I'm not convinced that was what the friend was doing.

Presumably the OP volunteered the information that she'd applied in the first place - what was her friend supposed to do, if she wanted (which was her right) to keep her own application confidential? Was she supposed to show no interest at all, not ask how things were going, as you would expect of a friend? Or was she supposed to accept her hand had been forced into disclosing her own application?

(OP hasn't said whether her friend's interest tailed off after she had been rejected at stage two - if it did, that might change my above opinion.)

I would find this very odd.

I think that you are being a little bit unrealistic about how life plays out, especially as you get older/more senior.

Organisations are generally triangular in shape with fewer roles available the further you go. So the likelihood of other colleagues going for roles at the same time as you will only increase. You were working for the same employer so there was probably a bit of overlap in your skills and experience anyway. Is it so very surprising that she also applied?

She was somewhat false in trying to get information from you, but why are you so upset, given that you got the job and she didn’t?

This.

And no, she probably didn’t tell you because it wouldn’t have been relevant if neither of you got it or, as happened, avoided conflict if one of you were successful. She was probably trying to avoid that conflict and any possible recriminations that you seem determined to direct at her. Crowing over her not being the right ‘personality’ fit, as though this means you are somehow more superior, seems spiteful and immature.

TBH, it seems she was being considerate and mature… and more of a friend than you are being.

Yeah they shouldnt have shared this with you. Let it go. You got the job.

It's work. People are entitled to compartmentalise it. It's hardly life and death.

Of course she was duplicitous! She had every right to apply for the same job but actively pumping you for information while hiding the fact that she had also applied for the job is the very definition of duplicitous. Note the number of posters on this thread who are “dancing on the head of a pin” in their attempts to justify your colleague’s behaviour. These are the people who would also hide their application and pump a competitor for information and no doubt call you a fool for being open. I would also have been open about the interview process so it’s a timely reminder for me too!

How was she when you announced your appointment?

Will you let her know that you now know she also applied for the post? I wonder if she’d ever have the nerve ask you to support a future application to your new firm? I suspect she wouldn’t have a problem! But I certainly wouldn’t be helping her.

So when she asked for the whole cheat sheet for the interview, you didn’t have an inkling she might have applied too?

Ridiculous that you care when you got the job.