Would you acknowledge that you know about these unfair practices? Or would you just keep quiet?

[MeantToStopAtTwo]

In a nutshell, I dislike the company I work for for quite a number of reasons (in fact, deep down, I disagree with its entire ethos) and am in the process of arranging my exit.

There's a new department opening shortly which will involve several new jobs (we think 4 or 5 but they're being cagey about details). They would be promotions for the people who got them. This was first announced to us at a company-wide meeting at which the new department's appointed leader (let's call him Peter) said that everybody was welcome to interview for them and would be considered on an equal footing but that he did have a few particular people in mind.

It then quickly became apparent that he had had private words with these people, persuading them to apply for particular roles and had even made some informal 'confidential' offers*. Meanwhile, the official word remained that it was a totally level playing-field with everyone invited to interview. This led to a paranoid, bitchy atmosphere in the office for weeks with everyone trying to suss out who'd been told what.

I had considered applying but quickly decided against it. As it seemed like a foregone conclusion, I figured I might as well spare myself the humiliation of an interview. If they were not going to play fair, why would I want to play? As I'm in the process of planning my exit, it's obviously not hugely important to me plus I've only recently returned from mat leave.

Anyway, decisions were announced at the end of today, although I had to leave early and don't know what they are (I'm not really the type to go pumping others for that kind of info). This morning I happened to find myself in the lift with someone from senior management. Obviously knowing what the big gossip topic of the day would be, he immediately got onto, 'You didn't apply, did you?' 'Why not?' I told him honestly that I didn't think I was one of the people Peter had in mind.

He rolled his eyes at me in a way I found quite unpleasant. I honestly don't know whether his thoughts were, 'You are so pathetic, just take a chance woman!', 'I'm fed up with all the gossip and complaints surrounding this!' or, 'I can't believe Peter has handled this so badly!' Somehow I doubt it was the latter. Actually I suspect it was the former.

'Look,' he said crossly, 'EVERYBODY was invited to apply. I can tell you that the decisions Peter has made are VERY different from the ones he thought he was going to make, based on how the interviews went. Why wouldn't he have had you in mind?' I said it was just a feeling I had. Damn, I should have spelt it out, shouldn't I, and said I knew he'd made verbal offers way before the interviews even took place?

Should I be more upfront, do you think, and let on that I know what's happening? Or is it best to just play along?

*I do know this for a fact as one of my best friends was offered one. Although she is of the same mind as me, also planning her exit, and unimpressed with the very exploitative package offered. It's one of those, 'The contract says you work X hours but really we expect X+20' deals.

Yes I think you should have said what you knew. Why are you being so loyal to such a w....ker, when you have nothing to lose?

With respect, I think you are being a bit naive. The 'unfair practice' is the manager in question making his mind up which internal candidates he wanted for roles in his department before going through a recruitment process. That happens all the time in internal recruitment, of course it does. In a situation where a manager knows all/many of the candidates beforehand of course he will know who he wants, or at least have a very good idea.

Scenario goes thus:

Manager with vacancy/ies: I have these jobs vacant, I know I want to promote Jane Smith and John Brown into them - I know how well they perform/that they have the right skills and experience - so rather than going through a dragged out internal recruitment process which is a waste of time for everyone, can't I just appoint them and we can all get on with it quicker?
HR person: No, we have a strict policy that all vacancies must be advertised blah blah blah
Manager:

What the manager in your case did that was stupid was telling the relevant people beforehand. It was stupid because a) anyone with half a brain would know that people don't keep their mouths shut, as happened in your case, causing all sorts of problems, b) it is conceivable his mind might have been changed due to a stellar performance by someone else at interview, leaving him in a sticky situation, and c) there is the potential for complaints and possible discrimination allegations depending on who applies/how they compare on paper/in interview

You can't prevent managers deciding beforehand, or virtually deciding beforehand. You can tell them they must go through a fair process, and you can advise them to keep an open mind because you never know what might come out of an internal process, particularly where candidates not well known to the manager apply from other departments or whatever. But ime when someone internal is appointed to a post, and the candidates are known to the manager, it's unrealistic to think minds haven't been virtually made up beforehand.

He was wrong to tell people, of course he was. You could speak to HR and say one of the reasons you didn't apply was because you knew he'd offered the jobs verbally already, and you felt they ought to know he was doing that as it caused problems and bad feeling within the department and undermined the recruitment process. HR will slap his wrists and tell him to keep his preferences to himself in future.

Do you know if the people appointed were the people that Peter had been tipping the wink to? The manager in the lift's comments suggest that they may not have been. As it is possible that Peter was spotting people who would genuinely be a good fit, then unless all the appointments had been pre-offered it may be hard to show unfairness in the actual appointing. And as you acknowledge that everyone was told to apply, it may also be hard to prove undue influence at that point too.

Good luck on your exit plans!

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

Flowery, agreed, of course it would be naive to think that preconceptions don't come into play in internal recruitment. I realise that's inevitable to an extent, no matter how open-minded one tries to be. What I so object to is the way that management have pretended to make it such a fair process and the way in which I was treated when i dared to point out that it actually wasn't.

I've just heard though that somebody who had been tipped and who everyone thought was a 'certain,' has in fact been turned down. She's in a mess now as had originally planned to return to her home country this summer but then decided to stay on because of the promotion and is tied into a new tenancy agreement, etc. (apparently she had specifically asked them whether she should be committing to this). I don't know about others yet but overall it's clear that the whole thing has been a shambles and there's probably a lot more bad feeling yet to come.

Thankfully, I'm optimistic about my exit and have an interview lined-up for this week.