I'm working in a public sector role, within a large organisation.
A couple of months ago, I applied for an internal vacancy, in another department.
I know that the application I submitted was sub par and knew at the time, had a lot going on and not enough time to commit to it by the deadline. So wasn't at all suprised when I didn't get invited for interview.
Then, not long after my current boss held an annual performance review. In it I received a 100% positive review. Not one thing I could improve on. I had put together a detailed plan for how to stretch myself and meet objectives for the next year, contributing to the job/department I currently do, this was met with approval.
However, when it got to the bit in the review about the future, my boss simply said she wasn't going to waste training budget on someone who was going to leave.
I fudged the response to this in the meeting.
Since then, all I can think is that internally someone from the other department has informed my boss that I applied for the job. There are people who know my boss from there, so it isn't a far stretch of the imagination. Though I would be shocked if they did this and would never have put in an internal application if I thought for a second that was going to happen.
I haven't applied for any other vacancies, internal or external since starting there.
So questions: reading this, do you think I'm paranoid that someone told my boss about the job application, and if you think that sounds like a reasonable conclusion and work in the public sector, are there not laws that should protect my confidentiality in a situation like this? - or at least best practice? - HR isn't my area. i'm concerned that even if I stay in my current role now, it appears to have jeopardised my career anyway.