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This summer, while applying for jobs, there was this one gig that was going to do a phone interview and ask for a time. I said it would either have to be before the day of a family campout (didn't mention the event, just that there was a certain time I could not do it and thus it had to be before or after. The family campout started Wednesday (didn't know what time, and my family is notorious for telling me details at the last minute). Well, we agreed on Tuesday afternoon or something. Note, I had told them, it would either have to be BEFORE Wednesday or the following Monday. So, lo and behold, Monday night (before the campout, not after), I got a phone call saying, oh, we cannot do it Tuesday, can we go to Wednesday afternoon.
I told them, "No, as I said, I have a prior commitment, and, like I had said earlier, it will have to be next Monday at the earliest now."
Well, I call back Monday and they said "So and so is out of the office, call back on such and such a date." So I do that and then, on that date they said "Oh, we already have the job filled."
I told my job coach this and she said that I should have changed MY schedule and "been more flexible" and changed my schedule to, on a personal, prebooked time (where I wasn't even sure if I'd get a phone signal, as I hadn't in the past there, though lately I think I do), to call them as you have to show them that "you really want the job."
I had told her that, if they want me to show that I'm flexible by messing with me like that, then likely they would screw around at work and this would NOT be a good place to work.
Do you think my job coach was right or do you think that I was right in my assessment?
(Note, I'm more of a no-nonsense type. I recall that when I had sent in my resume for a PHP position at another place (I had registered on Indeed.com so I know they were offering the position and had written it down in a job log.) and then they contacted me, but when they sent me the email about the position and to mention an interview (phone) about it, I noticed that the job description and title were totally different. I called them back at the number they gave me, and they said "Oh, sorry, we don't have that position available and we gave you the position that we had.") So I told them "Sorry, not interested." and ended the conservation pretty quick.
Interestingly enough, about my job coach, who works for the Department of Rehabilitation Services and she had recommended a call center job. I had started the application process, but, when noticing that I might have to deal with annoying callers, remembered my wariness of call centers and what I'd heard about them (I only started applying because it had been about 2 years since I graduated and no job and so was willing to give it a shot.) Just out of curiosity, I looked up said company and place. Both Indeed AND Glassdoor gave it NEGATIVE reviews up the wazoo. So I decided to call it off. Funny thing is, since I had started to fill out the online application and had saved part of it, I still got calls from the company (3 total in all, in fact.) The fact that they called so fast, without me even finishing the application, seemed that they were desperate, which further jibed with what I read online at the employee reviews.
When I went to meet with my job coach, my mother, who went with, mentioned that she knew two employees there who didn't like it either. Nevertheless, in spite of all of this evidence, but the job coach and her assistant suggested that maybe Indeed, Glassdoor, my intuition, and the two employees that my Mom knows that work there were all wrong and that maybe I shoulda applied anyway. It came to an argument, but it didn't last long.
Anyway, after these two incidents, I became wary of my state job coach and figured that she didn't have my best interests at heart. (BTW, was that the right assessment about her too? I'd hate to judge someone the wrong way due to youth and lack of real world experience.)
Do you think that I made the right calls with the phone interview time change thing and also turning down the call center job or should I have listened to my job coach?
Sorry I have to be blunt. You are the embodiment of the millennial stereotype.
Anyway, go ahead and keep feeling entitled. May be a company further down will invite you to be a manager.
Added by edit.
Let me tell you a story that my brother, a hiring manager for a multi-national corporation that employs tens of thousands of engineers and other workers.
One time, interviews for several college grads were set for the same day. The night before, there happened to be a blizzard. Most people in the company just stayed home. My brother went to work in the morning, but when he saw the parking lot still hadn't been properly plowed he turned around and went home.
The day after, he found out that all but 1 college grad that were scheduled to interview had also decided to stay home. The 1 guy that went anyway walked like a mile from the train station to the building and he waited there to be interviewed. Talk about persistence. Finally, one of the office workers showed up and offered to drive him back to the train station.
Afterward, they rescheduled everyone. Take a wild guess who eventually got the job. Yup, that guy that proved to everyone how much he wanted the job.
No, I'm not saying employers demand that you bend over backward to get a job. But a little persistence goes a long ways.
Last edited by MetroWord; 01-12-2016 at 08:47 PM..
The OP has encountered questions that every job seeker has to ask at whatever stage of life, so calling this person "an entitled millennial" is a little strange. It is also not unusual for new job seekers to hit the brakes on jobs that they aren't sure about. (I, too, bailed out of a call center position which would have been my first job out of college - and I had GOTTEN the job! I didn't even show up for the first day, I just called in and said I couldn't take the job after all. Shockingly, I got another job a few weeks later and wound up gainfully employed for 25 years.) Has nothing to do with "entitlement" and everything to do with trying to find your way in life.
Lessons for new job seekers:
No employer truly has your best interests at heart. Yet, they have the money and you don't.
Throughout your life, only you can answer these questions for yourself - not a job coach, your mother, or anyone else.
You'll get a job. You'll move on from that job and get more. Somewhere between your 20s and your 40s, your desirability to employers will lessen, and lessen. One day you'll be my age and no one will touch you with a ten foot pole. You'll still be you, with all your skills and experiences, but that won't matter.
(2) I was responding more to his first thing, which was going about his personal plans rather than going in for an interview. Unless it was a funeral or wedding, he should have treated the interview like a job.
When you don't have a job and are actively seeking a job, your job is to find a job. All other priorities are secondary.
(3) Think back to all the cries of anguish by forum members about how they never even got a chance for an interview.
(4) Of course companies never look out for your best interest. That is a given. I think everyone knows that.
However, you can level the playing field by making yourself valuable enough so that companies will give some to get and retain you. That's the whole point of the capitalist system.
When my current company wanted to interview me, they wanted to interview the following day. I told the hiring manager I had work to do at my current company and I did not feel comfortable taking the day off. He said that's fine he will wait for me at his office and I could come after I was finished with my work that day. The following day, I left at my usual time and went to my interview at 5:30pm or so. Got the verbal offer right after the interview and the offer letter 2 days later.
I'd only been working for them for 5 months. I talked to my boss recently wanting a raise. He said ok because all my evaluations have been very good.
At about the same time, they recruited another guy from another company. Very good guy. I've been working with him and he is very intelligent and efficient. When he interviewed, he told the hiring manager, nowadays my boss, that he and his family had been planning to go on vacation for a couple weeks. The manager said no problem. So, he started working in my company right away. And after just 2 weeks working here, he took a 2 weeks vacation with his family.
Like I said, if you prove yourself to be valuable enough, your company will be more than willing to accommodate your needs.
I'm not saying put your life aside and just work work work. But at least put some effort into it. Especially when you are unemployed and looking for work. Sure, his dream job might come along a couple weeks from now and all of this is moot. But if he ends up still being gainfully employed a couple years from now, he will regret blowing off an interview for personal plans.
When I first started wanting to go into engineering, I applied to everything from surveying jobs to technician jobs to engineering positions. I only heard back from a small number of the places I applied to.
BTW, I wasn't entitled. It was more of I wanted to set it up a time when it would work. When they rescheduled it, I wasn't sure what I would be doing at that time of day. While it would be better to try and call for the job, and I thought of it too, I didn't want to be talking with loads of noisy people in the background for instance or something. Also, it literally was the night before and it was summer, so no blizzard. I had told them in advance that if it couldn't work out before that date, it would have to go after. So I called back after like I said I would. They said they were out and to call back later. When I did, they said they already had the position filled.
What I was arguing about with the job coach is that it seemed annoying to have to change everything because of planning, or lack thereof, on the part of the job place, and it was only for a phone interview mind you, not an in person one. (I would have made more allowances had it been one of that type.)
Also, some in my family, like my Dad, are the type to gripe if I were to do things like that instead of family time. Plus, as I said, didn't know where I'd be at what time that day and the place we were going to I didn't have a best history of cell reception. I mean, I might have had to halt EVERYONE just to make a phone call to get a chance to possibly get a regular interview to get a chance to get a job. Also, the fact that they filled so fast makes me wonder if it even was for real.
(BTW, I think I even had offered to have it TWO days before the thing but they said it either would have to be the day before, the day of, or later. I chose the day before. They changed at the last minute and I had little choice, other than to inconvenience myself, but to move it till 5 days later, the next earliest that I and they could make it, or so I thought.
Also, it wasn't like the place was local either where I had a huge shot of getting it. It would mean moving an hour or two away if I got it. It was already not the most ideal situation.
I think the company was American Access Casualty Company. Working there is so-so, Has 3 stars and a 55% recommend rating, which is more than half, on Glassdoor. Was also given about 3 stars, or so-so, on Indeed.
Doesn't seem fancy enough to go out of my way for. I had already tried to get it earlier, had to pick the day before, they changed it, so I picked the next available time, as I told them, but they were out then, and so I came back again and they said that they had had it filled.
Also, I don't, at the moment, have any aim of being a manager of a company. Just so you know.
How many others applied for the job? It sounds like you really didn't want the job, so why bother? I'm sure there are others who would be as flexible as needed to get an interview. Hiring managers don't need to be flexible, they already have a job...you don't.
As a teen many many decades ago I had a part time Sat job at a factory that had punch presses that women worked at. Each did a function that supplied the next worker down the line etc....etc.
When a woman needed a break, the foreman would take over the machine until she returned.
Now this has nothing to do with the OP situation but shows that a company needed somebody today and NOT after Monday or another day (maybe) so the Job was FILLED.
As a former business owner of 36 years I have seen a few of the OP description cross my doorway.
Few are financially supported enough to go two years post grad without employment. If working meant the difference between having food and shelter available you'd have a better understanding of your job coach points.
That said, you need to start somewhere and removing the notion you have to love the work you do or given flexible work/life balance will make building a career much more successful which can allow for those wants.
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