The internet is full of articles on how not to fail an interview when you apply for a job, what to do if you want to make a good impression on recruiters and employer representatives, and what could happen if you don’t follow these tips.

On the other hand, materials about what to do are much less common if it is the employer who behaves completely unprofessionally, and the candidate themselves can become a valuable asset for the company. Yes, these cases are less common, but they also happen.

Like, for example, with this hospital job candidate, whose post on the Reddit Antiwork community received nearly 59K upvotes and about 1.2K comments in just a few days, and many of the comments contained similar stories from other people.

More info: Reddit

The Original Poster came to the job interview assigned to 10 AM

Image source: c***my_devil_doll

Actually, the Original Poster’s story is just a note they left in the lobby of the hospital after their failed job interview. Failed due to, as the OP themselves note, the unprofessionalism of the potential employer.

Nobody showed up to meet them and the OP left after an hour waiting in vain

So, the OP showed up at the hospital lobby at 9:58 AM (apparently the interview was scheduled for 10 AM), but no one came to meet them. In the end, the candidate waited just over an hour before deciding to leave, leaving the failed employer a note reminding them that “professionalism is a two-way street and their time is also valuable.”

According to the OP, “they could be a valuable asset for the hospital.” Of course, this situation is very unpleasant for any candidate. But could events have developed in a different way? With this question, Bored Panda turned to Olga Kalashnikova, HR Director at DIGIS (an international IT company with headquarters in Milwaukee, Puteau (France), Daugavpils (Latvia) and Larnaca (Cyprus)).

The expert says that the OP could probably make an attempt to clarify the situation themselves

“The candidate lost an hour of time and did not make an attempt to clarify the situation themselves,” says Olga. “They just sat and waited, and based on their behavior, one can draw a hypothetical conclusion about how they saw this situation from their point of view: the recruiter miscalculated the time, they were late and would be invited soon, perhaps thoughts about the unprofessionalism of the employees came into their mind.”

“On the part of the company, placing a candidate in a long wait state can sometimes also indicate that this employer uses provocative recruitment methods. But there are other likely reasons that could take place: force majeure with the employee responsible for the interview, force majeure in the unit, as well as the candidate themselves could mix up the time, and maybe even the place of the meeting.”

Image source: Bob n Renee (not the actual photo)

Some employers, in fact, use provocative methods in recruiting which don’t seem so fair

“Personally, I do not support using provocative methods in recruiting, unless we are talking about recruiting personnel for some very specific types of jobs and occupations, where the activity is associated with the safety of something or someone, and I believe that most of the skills can be clarified in more open and humane ways,” says Olga Kalashnikova.

“If this situation arose due to the incompetence of the recruiting department employees, this happens sometimes. The human resource, unlike all resources, has a distinctive characteristic – the unpredictability of behavior, even in the presence of an automated system for accounting for recruiting processes.”

The OP perhaps should have called the contact person to solve the issue

“I believe that the candidate should have called the contact person and clarified the situation, since I consider the employment process to be a mutually beneficial open contractual process, where each participant has equal rights and responsibilities,” Olga continues to comment on this story.

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“By showing initiative and clarifying the reason for the long wait situation, the candidate would not only save their time resource, but also get the opportunity to draw more informed conclusions for making a decision on further cooperation with this organization (as opposed to an emotional decision).”

Image source: Marc van der Chijs (not the actual photo)

People in the comments, on the contrary, state that even fifteen minutes of waiting is clearly enough to leave

Most of the commenters on the OP’s post, of course, supported them massively, arguing that it’s generally worth waiting no more than fifteen minutes. According to people in the comments, if the interviewer makes the candidate wait more than this period of time, then they simply express disrespect.

In fact, the situation in which a candidate has to wait a long time for an interview turns out to be rather common. At the very least, many commenters told their own stories in which they felt extremely uncomfortable due to the long wait for a job interview – and some even had to wait several times.

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Of course, disrespecting a candidate looks very unprofessional on the part of a potential employer – although, of course, force majeure situations also occur. If something similar has happened to you too, we would like to know your own story. Or just an assessment of this tale from your point of view.

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