Well, I finally heard back from a job I was interested in. Let me clarify: I didn’t hear back. I stalked their office line dumping my story on the first poor soul who answered the line and was told what I think I figured out weeks ago. If they were interested in me, they would have called, they’ve started and almost finished filling the positions I applied for, and that email they went to the trouble to send saying I would hear from them by phone or email soon was, well, not true. Plus, they haven’t taken the jobs off their site to show they have been filled because then they wouldn’t get calls from girls like me, and who doesn’t want to hear from me? I did have the privilege of leaving another message for HR, a different woman than the first two who never returned my calls, just to verify that my resume is somewhere in a shred pile. I was told to leave a voicemail, but she’s a very busy lady. Apparently it’s busy work hiring people who aren’t me.
I’m not upset about being passed over for the job. Honestly, I was qualified. You could compare everything they asked for with my resume and I fit the bill completely. However, I’m sure about a thousand more applicants did as well. My issue is with the lack of any kind of follow up. I get it; if 10,000 people apply for a job, all of them will not be called and told they’re not needed. However, when you send communication over a two to three month period that says you will hear back, that’s another story. I have emails that say I will be contacted. If you’re going to go to the trouble to send an email, here’s one I’d like to see:
Dear Applicant:
We will contact you by phone or email if we are remotely interested in your skills. For the rest of you, if we don’t contact you by such and such date, you are never going to hear from us. Your resume has been shredded. You are either under or over qualified, don’t have exactly what we want, or the font on your resume gave us nausea. Better luck next time.
Sincerely,
HR
It’s honest. I could so get on board for a company like that. The band aid rip pain that would occur from such an email and never being contacted again would be so much quicker than the months of false hope offered by one line that was never meant to be taken literally. “We’ll call you…yeah right.”
The good news is this didn’t ruin my day. It actually didn’t even interfere with five minutes of my day unless you include the time I spent calling, being rejected, and leaving a voicemail. I think I’m growing a little, even slowly. I read a quote somewhere about God punishing us by giving us what we pray for. I’ll try to find it because it’s much more eloquent than my short version, but it basically says that if God really wants to punish you, He’ll give you what you think you want instead of what He has planned. This must not have been part of the plan. I’ve been blessed by unanswered prayers before, or prayers that were answered with a resounding no. I’m pretty sure I prayed to marry my first boyfriend. Nice guy, but he’s not Dennis who is my puzzle piece and father to Wren and Sammy. I am glad that one was a no. I’m sure I’ve prayed for a lot of things that have not come to fruition, and maybe I should remember to thank God for that. In my mind this was the perfect job. In reality, it may have been a nightmare. Or maybe I’m meant to work for this company at another time in my life. Whatever the case, I like answers. I can handle nos. I can handle the fact that I will not be what every person or company wants. Just tell me. I’m not good at reading between the lines. The only time I try to guess at what someone is thinking is when I ask my daughter if she needs to go poopy and she doesn’t answer one way or the other. Then I watch for signs. Even then, I’m wrong 50% of the time. I wish she’d just say yes or no or her famous, “oh, poop”.
Plus, I have a job I’m going back to in August. Though I don’t even allow myself to think about the pain of the daycare drop off again, it’s a job I love with people I like. I know how lucky I am to have it when almost everyone we know has been affected by lay offs at some point over the last couple of years. We’re just trying to future plan for when I will need to be home to homeschool the kids and still bring in income so we can both retire comfortably and our kids can go to college. And other opportunities have shown themselves in the last couple of weeks. It may not be the thunderbolt, arrow pointing confirmation I was hoping for, but I think we’re heading in the right direction.
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