Hong Kong candidate fed up with interviewer dropping the ball

Most HR professionals understand providing a great candidate experience is the first step to attracting talent. But there are a handful of incompetent members of hiring teams who scare candidates away with rude questions or reject them for living in a poor area of the city.

Besides the unprofessional behaviour of interviewers, poorly prepared hiring managers who waste candidates's time are even more frustrating to deal with.

A candidate shared in a post on Hong Kong Discussion Group how the hiring manager screwed up not once, but twice during the interview process, leaving him with a bad taste in his mouth and swearing to never to work for that company.

The writer of the post said he was given a computer skills test after a 10 minute chat with the head of the department. He was required to type three documents, prepare an excel file and a power point presentation in one hour.

He completed all the tasks on time, but then had to wait for an hour before the hiring manager attended to him because another applicant who was also taking the test kept asking the hiring manager questions.

When the hiring manager finally came to him, the candidate was stunned to find out he had been given the wrong set of test questions and had to retake it. The candidate ended up spending four hours on the interview.

To make things worse, he was unable to get to another job interview planned later in the day. "It is very frustrating. The second interview was only two MTR stops away from the first one, but I was not able to make it," wrote the author of the post.

A number of respondents to the post showed sympathy for the candidate, but there are also people who think the candidate was too timid. If he really wanted to go for the second interview, he could have refused to re-take the test.

Whether the candidate in question made the best decision is up for debate, but for employers there is no excuse to be so unprofessional during the interview process. The writer of the post commented the terrible interview experience has led him to think the company has a toxic working culture. Even if he was offered the job, he would not accept it.

Candidates do talk to one another and providing them with such a horrible experience can be very damaging to the reputation of the company.

ALSO READ: Evil HR: The worst thing you could do to candidates

Photo/ 123RF