I know that one is supposed to stay calm and dignified even in situations where one might like to respond to someone – justifiably – with the exact opposite. Otherwise there is a risk of making things worse for yourself as everyone gets muddy in a mudfight, no matter who started. Do you agree?
Sometimes, however, I ignore that guideline because the urge to shake something loose and a chance to make it better seem too lucrative. Sometimes I feel I have to stand up for myself and others.
Therefore, today I won’t be silent. Instead I want to share with you an experience related to bad communication that completely ruined the reputation of a company in my eyes. Anyone else here who ever feels like not keeping bad things always to yourselves?
So… today I got an unexpected email. From a company where I had applied for a job. Over a year ago.
It took a few hours for me to compose myself and to organise my thoughts into concrete but polite answer but I definitely wanted to answer. You tell me if I succeeded.
Here’s my reply:
Hey Fredrik,
In a way I am glad you wrote to me as I can finally give you some feedback about your recruiting process. I tried to do it once already, after applying to a position with (should I publish the name?) but it had been made absolutely impossible to reach a real person. Perhaps that has changed now!? Either way, it doesn’t matter to me anymore.
I must say that at first I was very impressed with your way of online testing. I spent hours watching through the videos you asked me to and more, and even longer preparing answers for the open questions. I seemed to do quite well despite not being a native Swedish speaker and time pressure on execution as I got through to the third test. At least to me it seemed that I was doing well but from that point on everything went downhill and now I can tell you that unfortunately you ruined your reputation in my eyes so badly that you would be my very last choice of employer.
It is very disrespectful and absolutely not okay to treat someone the way your company treated me.
After all the tests and hours of work I put in, following a recruitment for an open position, I never received any feedback. When I tried to contact you again I received again the same automated email asking me to start the flow of same tests again. Do you have any idea how disappointing that felt?
I am not taking time to tell you all this right now for an apology or for you to make it up to me. It takes hard work to build a reputation and sometimes seconds to flush it down the toilet which is what happened in your case. I am already doing you a favour by not sharing my experience very publicly. Yet I am giving you a chance to learn from this and treat your future candidates better because you never know where your paths may cross again.
I, on the other, hand have quite recently started a new digital marketing job and am happy there because I respect my colleagues and they have treated me respectfully from day one of recruitment.
I ended the email with just my name as I couldn’t figure out a signature which would be sincere but polite. I don’t want to send them kind regards nor am I looking forward to their reply. I have no more faith left in them and I don’t believe in always turning the other cheek.
What would you have done in the same situation?