Need some advice from HR managers and/or hiring managers?
This is a bit long and I need a detailed answer. Please do not respond if you cannot and will not do so or even read everything before answering. All non-answers will be reported. Thanks!
Okay, around December 18, 2008, a recruiter contacted me from a printing company regarding an available position working for them downtown at a local power company (they’re basically a long-term contractor with the power company). I had about a 20 minute phone interview with the recruiter, and she sent my info to the hiring manager at the location. She said he "liked my credentials" and wanted to set up an interview. It took a month for him to respond. During that time, I kept trying to call the recruiter, who was the only one with his contact info at that time. After a week or so, she quit taking my calls (I didn’t call her that often, either). It became so that I couldn’t reach the recruiter – I think she was embarrassed that the hiring manager was taking so long. After that month or so, he finally called me for an interview. He skipped out on his interview by calling me 10 minutes before the interview, and told me that he had appointed another hiring manager to do my interview. She told me herself that she had honestly not even had time to look over my info before the interview, because she was called on so suddenly to take it over. I was extremely prepared for the interviewed (cover letter, resume, references – this was a very good job), did very well and received a welcome packet by mail that said the typical, "Congratulations! We are extremely pleased to offer you employment with – company – in the position of – position – at the – city, state- location (this location was listed as downtown in the city that I live in), effective on 02/02/2009.
I accepted the offer, filled out my paperwork and was ready to start on Feb. 2 at 10a.m. However, Feb 2. came and about an hour and a half before I was to start work (I was literally about to walk out of the door after spending like an hour getting ready), I received a call from the hiring manager. He told me to "hold off," and that he was about to go into a meeting and would be out around 10:30a.m. and would give me a call. He told me to hold on a minute, and then came back to say that he was just informed that I needed to go to training classes before entering the facility downtown. So I waited. He didn’t bother calling back that day. He eventually called back on another day and told me that training classes were to be on Monday the 9th and Tuesday the 10th, at a city 20 miles from me. I got this job because it was accessible through the local bus/train services, and it was. I got there and back to the building downtown just fine. Great hours, great pay, great benefits. Maybe he meant the actual print shop area I’d be working in is the facility that I "couldn’t enter without going to training classes." Because I had my interview at the building location where I’d be working, and that hiring manager had told me that I’d be training at that location with some guy for 2 or 3 weeks. We didn’t go down to the basement to the room where I’d physically be working in the print shop area. The original hiring manager informed me that the training classes were at a facility 20 miles away in a city that I’d have had to take a cab to/from on the two training days. I was fine with that. But nobody ever mentioned that ahead of time.
Yesterday, Friday the 6th, I received a call from the hiring manager. Eager to go to my training classes on Monday the 9th, he informed me that my position has been ‘cut’ from the company, and that other workers there are working 4 day weeks and have had hour cuts. I have no problem with this except he has been extremely slow and unprofessional in his contact over this time period; it has taken me nearly a month and a half to get ‘hired’. I went and had a drug test that came back fine, as well as a background check (I have a copy of the drug testing paperwork, too). But I have no position to start. He assured me that they are working on some other type of contract with another company, and that I’d basically be the first choice candidate for a job if they had that other opportunity open up. But I feel like he is bs’ing me and may have replaced me with another candidate.
My paperwork (welcome packet) came from Texas. I’m in Georgia. It came from a lady at an HR office – the HR coordinator at an HR Shared Service Center for the Southeast Region. Is it appropriate for me to call her and explain my situation, and just ask to to verify that someone else for that same job title/location wasn’t hired instead of me? This guy didn’t seem to like me very well at all, though I know how iffy some HR managers are about addressing any concerns with morality in their company. Since they are supposed to display "top notch professional demeanor" and are set in their minds to defend their company automatically, without verifying info. I wouldn’t put it past him. His ma
manager under him did the interview for me – and likely chose the candidate for him, because he didn’t go to his own freaking interview that he set up and missed.
Should I call the HR Coordinator in Texas and try to verify this? I don’t want word going back to the hiring manager downtown. Supposedly he is putting me on a ’standby’ if another job came up with whatever contract (I’m not waiting for him – I missed a lot of job searching days by waiting on him for the ‘hired’ position). But at the same time, I feel very cheated about this. I could have drawn unemployment for the time that I was “hired and waiting.” I have to start filling out applications and sending out Resumes all over again.
What would you recommend?
One Response
kaylee
26 Oct 2009
Let us know your thoughts!
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I think you accidentally got cut off at the end of your story.. but I’ll answer what I can.
Don’t wait around for them to call you. He sounds very finicky, and you probably wouldn’t want to work for a company like that anyway. Whether or not the cut of hours and lack of positions is true, they should have let you know that there was a possibility of that beforehand. Companies will know when they are about to cut back hours, and they won’t even call people for interviews, much less send them paperwork.
Find another job, and if they do call you, strongly consider it before taking the job. If they have already had a cut in hours and are cutting positions, it’s possible that it could happen again in the new future- and you would be the first to go, since you’d be new.
You’re right, he definitely was not very professional, and he should have had better manners. I’m sorry you waited that long to be told you have to wait even longer.. that just happened to my husband, and he had put in a 2 weeks notice with his current employer. Needless to say, he is stuck unemployed and very angry.
Edit: Unfortunately, contacting HR will do no good. Since you weren’t officially signed as an employee, and there was no written contract, all you could do is file a complaint. Someone with a little more authority than him will receive the complaint, and they may or may not care/say anything to him.