<p>I have had several cases where companies have told me they are interested in talking with me and would contact me within a certain amount of time, then don't follow through with that. I know this seems petty, but how do I deal with these companies? I just don't like the power balance in these situations, and it makes me feel like I am the desperate one and they are in control. What is a good way to respond to these people?</p>
<p>If they say they’ll contact you within 2 weeks and don’t, wait an additional week or so and politely follow up. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that their time is more important than yours and you need them much more than they need you. Particularly in this economy, you can easily be replaced and they know it.
Every corporation has some sort of hierarchy and you are at the absolute bottom. All you can do is take their abuse while constantly reminding them how lucky you are to have them.</p>
<p>Send them angry letters made out of words clipped from newspapers.</p>
<p>Thank you for the reply angryelf. I understand the right thing to do is to suck it up, but I am really tempted to curse out the next company that does this…I mean if they aren’t professional about their appointments, why should I be professional with my behavior?</p>
<p>ThisMortalSoil do you have experience doing that?</p>
<p>Maybe you should take anger management classes?
This really is not a normal reaction.</p>
<p>You act as if they are giving you an interview and not showing up, which doesn’t appear at all to be the case.
Companies deal with tons of applicants. The odds are they simply forgot.
Generally, you can’t really expect to hear back if you are rejected, even after several rounds of interviews.</p>
<p>I don’t think you understand…I am not talking about companies that don’t respond just because I applied or because I interviewed with them…I am talking about companies that reached out to me AFTER I applied (and I don’t mean one of those auto generated responses either) telling me they WILL (not may) contact me. Why get someone’s hope up and leave him hanging with expectation?</p>
<p>Look, it sucks when you’re waiting for an e-mail that never comes. But the truth is, people get busy. They’re probably juggling a lot of applicants and they have a lot of things going on and though they’d like to respond to everybody quickly, it’s simply not possible.</p>
<p>Don’t respond angrily. NEVER burn your bridges, if you can help it. You don’t know when you’ll run into these people or this company again.</p>
<p>I agree that you just have to let it go. I have been the guy recruiting before and I have had several occasions where I just got too busy to get back to candidates. You are going to find out in the real world that a lot of stuff that is supposed to happen never does.<br>
The comment about not burning bridges is correct; you might be the next person on the list and if the current top candidate bombs out, your name could pop up; but not if you sent them a scathing E-mail about non-professional behavior.</p>
<p>I encountered that many times during my application process, and it is very frustrating. What I wound up doing is this:</p>
<p>If a company says they will follow up, I thank them immediately; if they miss the date they said they would follw up, I wait one week and follow up with them. If they don’t respond, I presume that I am no longer in consideration for the position.</p>
<p>I would disagree with the way angryelf framed applicants; applicants are low on the totem pole, but they’re not as low as the first year employees! Don’t forget, even though most industries are employers’ markets, employers still need to hire, and that means there is something in it for them too. Nobody hires as an act of charity. You are hired because the employer thinks you will make him roughly twice as much money as he is paying you. If he doesn’t think you can do that, then you don’t get the job. Plain and simple. But he won’t know that you won’t be a rock star until after he’s interviewed you. HR departments are, more and more, understanding this, so the better companies will always treat their applicants with respect.</p>
<p>THAT SAID, it is not standard practice to notify applicants that they did not get the job if they fail to qualify. It’s not standard practice NOT to notify them, but it is certainly not standard practice TO notify them. As a recruiter, you need to assume that anyone who does not already have a job they are happy with (i.e. anyone who applies) is looking at many more companies than just yours. It makes no sense for someone to stop applying and going through hiring processes at companies until they have accepted an offer, so it should make absolutely no difference to you if a company informs you that you are no longer being considered for a position.</p>
<p>@chrisw
I’m not saying you’re wrong, but something to keep in mind.
If a first year analyst says they can’t work with an applicant, the potential applicant will not get an offer. If an applicant is rude to a new employee, they will also not get an offer.</p>