Hi,
I have been a Librarian and Manager for over 9 years (actually more than that if you count way back to college :)) but anyway. I was going to be interviewed for a position at a public library. I had agreed to travel out of state, take a day off of work, reserve a hotel room, stay overnight, interview and then go back home. This is at least a six hour drive for me. The director of this library then emailed me a few days ago and asked since a candidate had dropped out and she was going on vacation soon (that next week) if I would do a phone interview for that Friday during the day. I am still working and told her we were not well staffed that week (and it was only one day's notice) so would it be possible to do it after 5? I do not have a one hour lunch break at my present job otherwise I would have gladly taken the time to do the interview and given up my lunch. She said fine how about 5:15? so the time was set.
I rushed home and waited. No phone call. Cell phone was on, home phone was working. Finally checked my email hours later since I didn't want to be a pest and call and there was an email from this director stating that they had interviewed a candidate the day before who had "wowed them" and they were ready to say "you're hired" but knew they still needed to interview me. I have years of experience and 5 years of management experience and 2 years of experience in the position they were hiring for. Apparently the candidate they had interviewed the day before called and said she had been offered a job someplace else and didn't want to take it if she was going to be offered the position I was also interviewing for so the director offered her the job without even interviewing me and just sent me an email about this and said "Sorry".
Now when I did hiring (and firing) I always interviewed all candidates even when I think I found "the one" and had others to still interview. To be that is just business protocol. Plus you never know when someone else you interview might be a good candidate until you meet them. Also if a candidate were to call me and present me with the same scenerio (I was offered a job someplace but don't want to take it unless I get this job) I would not just offer them the job, I would tell them I still have other candidates to interview and should be wrapping it up in a day. Unfortantely that is there decision to make. If I were the candidate in that position I would have just asked the library that offered me the job could I please think about the position and get back to them in a few days? If I felt the need to find out the status of the hiring process at the other library I most interested in I might contact the director and ask when a decision would be made, would it be in the next few days?
Is it me or was this unprofessional? I realize some libraries do this and that some libraries are worse and just interview people when the position is already filled but I just find this unprofessional. What makes this even more complicated is I vaguely knew this director years ago when we worked at the same library and she was a reference librarian. We were not friends, we really did not work togther, just talked from time to time about her divorce at that time. I wasn't sure if it was her and asked her as such in my email to her against my better judgement (I thought I recognized the name but I had just seen her at a library conference and recognized her and saw her new name and the library she was working at- my gut told me not too and I should have listened to it) because now I think she thinks I see it as a personal thing. Honestly I barely knew her and it was over 7 years ago and would expect her to remove that from the equation. I would have no problem with not being hired if I had been interviewed because who knows who else applied? Someone with 15 years of experience and 8 years of management experience who is fantasic okay fine. But if you set up interviews should you at least keep them? I did as a manager because I was always surprised by who I met and it wasn't always what was on paper and I once even had a sitution where a co-worker's daughter applied for a position and did not hire her so I can be objective. Can't other managers?
Would you speak to a trustee member about this?
:d/ :d/ :d/
