Company behaving very oddly (and rudely) after phone interview [closed]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

In August 2013 I've applied for what I can only describe as the job I've been dreaming of for the last 20 years. It should be noted that this is a big and respected company, but it is on the other side of the world.

On October 2013 I was granted a phone interview, which I thought went alright, and that's when the trouble began.

First of all, despite their promises to be in touch by the end of the following week, I haven't heard anything until I contacted them about it. I was then informed that my candidacy is being temporarily suspended because I'd require a work visa, which I can only apply for in April, and which I can only start using the following October, and therefore they will be contacting me in 2014 should the position still be open.

Fast forward to March 2014, when I decided to contact them about it ahead of time for safety's sake. The person who had previously informed me about the visa stuff has ignored both emails I sent, and after I emailed another person in HR (the one who set up my phone interview), somebody else emailed me to say that there has been a mistake, the deadline for the visa application was in January, and there's nothing else to do until 2015. I've emailed this person twice with further questions about this, but received no reply.

Two weeks later I gave up and once again emailed the person who had set up the phone interview, who apologized profusely and promised to contact both the other people the very same day and have them contact me and explain everything.

This was the last contact and it was 8 days ago.

Now, while I don't think anyone has ever explicitly said that I passed the phone interview, I've said at least 3 times that I assumed as much (considering what else was said) and nobody corrected me or commented on it. I've definitely answered correctly all the questions on the interview, and it should be mentioned that the job description and requirements look like they were copied off of my CV. And the position, by the way, is still open.

The question: what should I do? What can I do? I sure wouldn't want to give up the job I've dreamed about my entire life just because their HR department is horribly unprofessional, but I have no idea what my status is, nor what can be done about it.

manpreet 2 years ago

As a job applicant, you can't make a company hire you, nor can you make them reply promptly or professionally.

If you're at their mercy for the work visa as well, then you can contact them occasionally to find out the next steps (providing the job is still open), but you risk annoying them if you contact them too often.

If you can get the work visa without them, then I recommend you research ways to do so without their help, and try to get that. That still won't make them hire you, but it can remove one of the barriers.

Other than that, all you can do is wait. Their timetable can be affected by internal processes you don't know about, people taking leave for various reasons, budgeting issues, and a lot of other reasons that have nothing to do with you, other than it makes you wait longer.

The other thing to do is to apply for different jobs. Dream jobs can be nightmare jobs once you are really in them -- from the outside you really can't tell.