Disappointed and shocked about the experience I had. Was very poor and unprofessional.
After submitting my application, the HR team emailed the very next day asking to arrange a call to discuss this and pressurised me to have this call the following day, implying it would be a preliminary call to discuss the role as interviews were happening later that week. Despite asking if I should prepare anything, the HR rep assured me not to and that the call would take only 15 mins and would just be to discuss the role.
I was incredibly surprised that the call turned out to be a telephone interview!
To my amazement, the HR rep even admitted it was a 'screening call' to select candidates for interview - none of which was mentioned in their emails.
After I went to lots of effort to submit quite a detailed application for this level of role (CV, covering letter and answering 2 questions) two of the HR reps first questions on the call - a) 'are you currently working?' and b) 'what's your current notice period?' - showed they had not even read my application. Especially as a specific question about notice periods is one candidates had to answer when submitting their applications!
The rest of the call was bizarre and frustrating. Even though the HR rep's diary invite allocated 30 minutes for the call, they hurriedly rushed through a serious of questions to finish the call as quickly as possible and on several occasions cut off me off mid-sentence and interrupted my response - justifying this by saying they 'had to move on' to another question. One question they asked was simply, ‘can you influence?’ where they provided no context or explanation about what my answer should relate to or cover until I prompted them myself.
Because I was speaking to a member of the HR team - and not the hiring manager - I wasn’t expecting to be interviewed and especially in such an inconsiderate, unprofessional manner. I certainly was not given the opportunity to answer questions to the best of my ability.
I’m a hiring manager in my current role, have sat on countless interview panels and would never treat a candidate like this.
After my experience on that call, I was surprised once again to be sent a generic, automated response from a ‘no reply’ email address - not from the HR rep's which would have been best practise - informing me of not being invited for interview on this occasion. Not only did they not have the consideration to email directly about the decision, I was frustrated to read that this decision was made after the HR team consulted with the hiring manager. A hiring manager I had never had any contact with throughout the process.
And even after I emailed the HR rep directly to ask for more detailed feedback about this decision, I never received a response.
As a hiring manager who has worked in the NGO sector for 6 years, I was shocked and angry with how I’d been treated throughout this process, from start to finish, especially by a charitable organisation.
After this experience, I certainly will not apply for a role at Motability Foundation again.
