Want opinion on work matter

Dots1982

Want people to comment on a situation that arose in my workplace which is in the funds sector as I want to gauge if other peoples opinion is the same as myself.

A senior position came up in my job. The two people who went for it were existing employees. One had already stepped in to do the position for a year and half although it wasn't their official job title obviously. This person had done an excellent job in circumstances where his senior manager had gone for an extended period of sick leave so he done great to manage the workload.

The other person got the job.

She got it because she interviewed better.

I'm not involved in this but it's a decision that is so ungrateful on the part of the employer that it sickens me.

What do people think?

Thanks for reading

Bepolite

It my experience jobs almost always go to an external or the person who interviews better. If you step into a role expecting to get it, there is almost always a reason found to not give you the job; probably down to a mistake made when you first start - the same mistake then made by the new guy.

Irish management and HR and the worst in the developed world if you ask me, hence the reason I working towards being self employed. That way I only have to hate the clients.

ongarboy

OP, as someone who has worked in the funds industry for many years and been involved in many recruitment decisions, I would say that the powers that be must have decided that the unsuccessful candidate did not do as excellent a job in the role as you and the losing candidate are led to believe (competent maybe but not excellent - there must have been performance factors that the decision makers were concerned about that you wouldn't necessarily be privy to or aware of). I believe they would not simply pass him over otherwise and go to all the effort of seeking alternative candidates for the role (they would have promoted him to the role if they had no doubt he was the best candidate).

The successful candidate must have demonstrated her management ability in her past role within the organisation that gave the decision makers no doubt that she was the best person for the job. The interview element would just have been a reinforcement of that as well as endorsements from her former managers.

This is just my opinion of course as I can't categorically confirm what happened and am relying on your version of the story only.

Dots1982

ongarboy wrote: »

OP, as someone who has worked in the funds industry for many years and been involved in many recruitment decisions, I would say that the powers that be must have decided that the unsuccessful candidate did not do as excellent a job in the role as you and the losing candidate are led to believe (competent maybe but not excellent - there must have been performance factors that the decision makers were concerned about that you wouldn't necessarily be privy to or aware of). I believe they would not simply pass him over otherwise and go to all the effort of seeking alternative candidates for the role (they would have promoted him to the role if they had no doubt he was the best candidate).

The successful candidate must have demonstrated her management ability in her past role within the organisation that gave the decision makers no doubt that she was the best person for the job. The interview element would just have been a reinforcement of that as well as endorsements from her former managers.

This is just my opinion of course as I can't categorically confirm what happened and am relying on your version of the story only.

Both candidates came from inside the department. The successful candidate had much less experience in this role. The unsuccessful candidate was told they had not done as good an interview. Performance in the role up to then was not a factor in their decision. End of.

Bepolite

Dots1982 wrote: »

End of.

Why post if you're then going to be rude or off hand with the people who reply?

Dots1982

Bepolite wrote: »

Why post if you're then going to be rude or off hand with the people who reply?

Ah no, I didn't mean to be rude. "End of" meant in the context that the only factor was performance in the interview rather than any other factors like the previous poster suggested. It was just to be clear.

biko

We can guess and speculate all you want here but to be honest, they chose whoever they thought would do the job best and that all she wrote.
They may have other considerations than "interviewed best" we don't (and won't) know about.

Ray13

You may be too valuable where u are.... Just a guess...

Bepolite

Dots1982 wrote: »

Ah no, I didn't mean to be rude. "End of" meant in the context that the only factor was performance in the interview rather than any other factors like the previous poster suggested. It was just to be clear.

My mistake. Sorry.

Dots1982

biko wrote: »

We can guess and speculate all you want here but to be honest, they chose whoever they thought would do the job best and that all she wrote.

I would say they chose who interviewed the best. I am having difficulty convincing posters of this but that is the case.

Dots1982

Ray13 wrote: »

You may be too valuable where u are.... Just a guess...

Valuable? In what way? Too valuable in the current role to promote? BTW it's not me in this situation. It's colleagues.

sabhail

Dots1982 wrote: »

I would say they chose who interviewed the best. I am having difficulty convincing posters of this but that is the case.

But 'interview best' means she convinced interviewers she would be best in job. So thats why they picked her. Maybe the guy doing job didn't perform as well as he thought he just had to turn up

The Bishop Basher

Dots1982 wrote: »

...the only factor was performance in the interview rather than any other factors like the previous poster suggested. It was just to be clear.

Given how long the unsuccessful candidate was in the role, I very much doubt that. All factors would have been taken into consideration but if you can't prove your ability within an 18 month timeframe, you need to have some frank conversations and figure where it went wrong.

Dots1982

sabhail wrote: »

But 'interview best' means she convinced interviewers she would be best in job. So thats why they picked her. Maybe the guy doing job didn't perform as well as he thought he just had to turn up

I would have thought that doing the job very well already for a year and a half in difficult circumstances with no extra reward as a favour to the company would be more informative than a good interview. The company thinks otherwise.

Ray13

Dots1982 wrote: »

Valuable? In what way? Too valuable in the current role to promote? BTW it's not me in this situation. It's colleagues.

Apologies, depending on type of company, and dynamics, some small and medium sized companies try to prevent valuable employees from progressing, however it can also happen in any company, its important to look at the management structure overall, I know that sounds vague, I'm of the option, if u don't feel appreciated, its most likely your not.

Dots1982

Swanner wrote: »

Given how long the unsuccessful candidate was in the role, I very much doubt that. All factors would have been taken into consideration but if you can't prove your ability within an 18 month timeframe, you need to have some frank conversations and figure where it went wrong.

No, he proved himself excellently honestly Some departments are just badly run and make illogical promotion decisions.

That's why I'm posting here. Because the decision was so shocking I just wanted to see do people know of other company's make these kind of daft personnel decisions or is it unusual.

Dots1982

Ray13 wrote: »

Apologies, depending on type of company, and dynamics, some small and medium sized companies try to prevent valuable employees from progressing, however it can also happen in any company, its important to look at the management structure overall, I know that sounds vague, I'm of the option, if u don't feel appreciated, its most likely your not.

I agree with your last sentiment. The rest may be true but doesn't apply in this situation I would say since He's already doing the job that he wasn't promoted to.

Ray13

Dots1982 wrote: »

I agree with your last sentiment. The rest may be true but doesn't apply in this situation I would say since He's already doing the job that he wasn't promoted to.

Sounds like a tough situ, hard to gauge, does not sound like a good company to work for tho...

lillycool

Hi I think it's very significant that it relates to a position that arose following someone being on extended sick leave, where presumably the company couldn't officially make any decisions/changes regarding the role until a)that person returned to work or b) that situation was otherwise resolved and the role became officially open for another candidate.

The company may have been more than happy that the work was being covered during that time but may have had other ideas all along about the outcome.. stepping in and doing a great job 'as a favour' (which I'm sure he did) doesn't mean anything unfortunately in terms of securing a potentially open job role..
Sometimes (depending on the culture within the particular company, and I'm not saying I agree with this), being the hero and taking on extra workload doesn't always pay off where company politics are involved. I hope your friend can move on and chalk it down to experience, at least he has that for his CV, managing and taking on those extra responsibilities.

tatli_lokma

OP what is the normal recruitment process? Is it usually mainly interview based?

Where I work we have very strict rules about recruitment and it has to be based upon a set format of interview. Our last recruitment round involved and existing member of staff applying for a role she had been acting in temporarily. We know she can do the job but we still had to advertise and interview and score every candidate. This person is quite nervous in stressful situations so we were worried she might not sell herself well enough in the interview. As it happened she did really well and got the job. But had she done a bad interview, despite us knowing she can do the job, our hands would have been tied.

Also look at it from the other candidates point of view, if what was really going to matter was the 18 months where the other person was filling in then why bother interviewing? It would have been an insult to the other girl knowing she was being interviewed when the other candidate had the advantage of already doing the job and more or less the decision being made. Then we would have a post on here complaining that someone was interviewed when the job was already decided to be someone else's.

As others have said, the guy acting in the role may have done a good job but didn't use this advantage during the interview. In which case what is the interview panel to do? Say well he did a crap interview, never mentioned x, y, z which he should have known because he's doing the job. But regardless I will ignore his pants interview and just give him the job any way? It really can't work like that.

Nody

Dots1982 wrote: »

No, he proved himself excellently honestly Some departments are just badly run and make illogical promotion decisions.

That's why I'm posting here. Because the decision was so shocking I just wanted to see do people know of other company's make these kind of daft personnel decisions or is it unusual.

Sorry but what's daft about it? Clearly said person did not actually show in the interview that they were the better candidate. Yes; they may have done the job before but the other candidate showed more ideas and improvement potential then the other guy and got the job.

I've gone through the exact same discussion with an employee before who went through the exact same thing. They lost the job because they came in to sure in themselves that they had the job sewn up because they had done some of it before. I stressed before and during the interview that the position would be decided based on the interview only. Did not matter a bit; the answers were flimsy, short and not very productive and they were unsuccessfull in getting the job (the person who did has gone up three levels so far in the company as a side note).

If you can't figure out why then let me spell it out to you; all candidates have to be given a chance to prove themself which is why you're interviewing them. The person who've done the job previously should use this experience in their answers during the interview to show they are the right candidate and how they can improve further if they are given the role officially (the fact they done it should clearly give them a edge in ideas etc. and how to pitch it); they should not rely on the fact they did part of the role before as some sort of gurantee that the role is theirs (the fact there's an interview alone clearly stats the role is up in the air or said person would have been offered the role directly).

Dots1982

Nody wrote: »

If you can't figure out why then let me spell it out to you; all candidates have to be given a chance to prove themself which is why you're interviewing them. The person who've done the job previously should use this experience in their answers during the interview to show they are the right candidate and how they can improve further if they are given the role officially (the fact they done it should clearly give them a edge in ideas etc. and how to pitch it); they should not rely on the fact they did part of the role before as some sort of gurantee that the role is theirs (the fact there's an interview alone clearly stats the role is up in the air or said person would have been offered the role directly).

The approach that the company took that you advocate would lead to a situation where an extremely lazy worker who interviews well could have a very senior position in the bank.

Is this good for the bank? Is this going to motivate or demotivate better performers at the job who are passed over in favour of the lazy good interviewee.

Any company with any sense will use all information to hand not just one interview.

Nody

Dots1982 wrote: »

The approach that the company took that you advocate would lead to a situation where an extremely lazy worker who interviews well could have a very senior position in the bank.

Is this good for the bank? Is this going to motivate or demotivate better performers at the job who are passed over in favour of the lazy good interviewee.

Any company with any sense will use all information to hand not just one interview.

And said lazy worker would already been fired before getting to their second position if said bank had any managers who actually did their job (you know actually manage people, setting clear deliverables etc. and then get said person up to shape or ship them out); so sorry if I don't buy it (and yes I've done that several times previously and I got no issues with letting a poor performer go if I can't get them up to scratch).

And no; if it is to be a fair chance for all candidates you can not use the fact they worked the position earlier to be anything but a tipping scale decider if they interview relatively equally well because you should never call a candidate to a interview if they are not seriously considered for the position. The fact they did work previously should work in their favour during the interview in how they can answer the questions; if they don't use that fact it's their own failure in selling themselves and their ability to do the job.

Dots1982

Nody wrote: »

And said lazy worker would already been fired before getting to their second position if said bank had any managers who actually did their job (you know actually manage people, setting clear deliverables etc. and then get said person up to shape or ship them out); so sorry if I don't buy it (and yes I've done that several times previously and I got no issues with letting a poor performer go if I can't get them up to scratch).

Lazy workers don't always get fired especially if they don't start lazy but get lazy over time as the majority of lazy workers do.

I take your points but don't agree.

compo1

A few things could have happened here;
1. A great interview by the successful candidate
2. Senior management with different ideas on how to run the department
3. Extreme cockiness by the temporary replacement
4. Mistakes made that other staff aren't aware of.


In my last job, however, I saw a lot of appointments which appeared to be made thanks to bias or a purely illogical approach to the job.
There are, indeed, quite a lot of thick managers in Ireland. I think I've met most of them.

Mrs OBumble

Dots1982 wrote: »

I would have thought that doing the job very well already for a year and a half in difficult circumstances with no extra reward as a favour to the company ....

This is gonna sound harsh - but the bold bit simply shows that all he proved is that he's a sucker with poor capacity for strategic thought and/or negotiation skills.

Stepping in / Acting up / whatever you want to cal it for a week or two, maybe even a month at the outside, is doing a favour. Doing it for 18 months is just proving that you're willing to work that hard for that long for your current salary.


What's more the company are probably now thinking that having done the job for 18 months, he won't stick around for much longer. Whereas by promoting the other candidate, they will last for a few years while they learn then execute the job.

And if anyone really believes that "X interviewed better" is the reason for the decision ... then I have a bridge for sale, going real cheap.

Eoin

I don't think I agree. You'd certainly be a sucker for doing it solely as a favour to the company for that long, but if it strengthens your CV then you are getting something out of it too. Lots of people step up for maternity cover for no extra cash for this reason.

It's also quite possible that the other person did interview better. Maybe the temp person did a good job of keeping things ticking over, but the panel felt that he wasn't strong on strategy or whatever and came across as more of caretaker than a long term option. We really don't know enough to say for sure.