I first applied for this job in October 2022 and had an interview at the end of November 2022. The interviewers were lovely and very welcoming and friendly throughout the whole interview. I had to do a 5 minute presentation on how I would engage students with employability skills building which was then followed by interview questions. The interviewers were really nice and made me feel very at ease throughout the whole process. After the interview they told me they would get in touch with me by the end of the week but if they don’t then to just bear with them because they had a college inspection so it might be a little delayed. I didn’t hear back from them so emailed them the following week to ask if they had any updates on the job. I got a response saying that I would hear back by the end of that week instead. The end of the week arrived and still no update on whether I had got the job so I emailed them a third time. This time I got a response from a ‘do not reply’ email saying that I had been unsuccessful. I was very disappointed with how I was just left without contact and had to chase them up for 3 weeks until I found out the outcome of my interview. I found this to be very unprofessional and was quite annoyed that it took them so much time to let me know the outcome. Then, 2 weeks later (January 2023), I was looking at the current job vacancies on the college’s website and they were advertising for the exact same position that I had just interviewed for. To me this meant that they hadn’t hired anyone for the position so I applied again. I used the exact same supporting statement as I did for my first application and about 10 days later I got an invitation to interview for the position. For this interview I had to prepare a 5 minute presentation on how I would engage with students to develop their employability skills - pretty much an exact replica of the presentation I had to do for my first interview. One of the interviewers was the same person I had in my first interview and they clearly didn’t recognise me. I started by doing my presentation which was again followed by the interview questions. Both interviewers were friendly and welcoming and made me feel comfortable. At the end of the interview they said they would be in touch later that afternoon/early evening. I didn’t hear from them. I emailed the following day to see if they had any updates they could give me and they said the hiring manager would be in touch once they made a decision. I still heard nothing back for the rest of the week so I sent another email and was met with a fairly rude and short reply saying they have contacted the hiring manager to get in touch with me as soon as possible. 1 week after my interview I got an email (not from the hiring manager) to let me know I had been unsuccessful. This is the outcome I had expected but it was still annoying that I had to chase them up for a response yet again. Overall, I am extremely disappointed with how both of my interviews were handled after I had interviewed. I had 2 really good interview experiences with very friendly people which were ruined by a lack of communication skills on their part. It is also quite clear to me that they don’t properly read applications as I applied with the exact same supporting statement on my second application and still got an interview. If they were properly reading applications then they should have been aware that I had already applied for, interviewed and been unsuccessful. Interviews and any contact you have with a company are a 2-way process. Just like an interview candidate has to sell themselves and make a good impression, so does the company/organisation. Sheffield College have not made a good impression on me and the clear lack of communication skills is something they need to work on immediately. I will also be interested to see if they post the job vacancy on their website again and I will be looking out for it.
