I joined The Ladders and applied to a job that it recommended as a match based on my profile. A couple of days later, the recruiter contacted me about my application. We had a productive conversation and spoke for nearly an hour. At the conclusion of our call, she said she was going to forward my resume to the hiring manager and recommend we move the process forward. I was excited about the prospect and grateful for the guidance she gave me in the days to come. She could not have been better. She suggested questions for which I should prepare and gave me some direction in what I should ask the hiring manager. It was really ideal.
Then the morning of the interview came, and everything changed. I arrived 15 minutes early and called the hiring manager to let him know I had arrived. The call went to his voicemail. I called again, a minute shy of our meeting time and he was essentially wondering where I was. We figured out where exactly to meet each other since only badged employees have access to the office. When we met, he seemed rushed and in a hurry, and I noted that I had called him 15 minutes prior and it had gone to voicemail. He said he had been on a conference call, but did not offer a reason why he didn't try calling me back, or acknowledging that I had called.
I wanted to move past this and settle in for the interview. We started at the earliest point in my resume, and it became quickly apparent that he and the recruiter had had minimal communication about me as a candidate and my resume. The first several questions were all things I had discussed with the recruiter and I did not get the impression that he had heard any of it before.
He wondered about my earliest tenure, and I explained it as best I could, given that it was over a decade ago and I've had two other employers since. I thought it would reflect well that I held several positions during my tenure and had clearly advanced. He wondered where the sales numbers were for this time. I was absolutely confounded. This was a position I had left 8 years ago (and I was not been asked by either employer since for these numbers).
At this point, I knew the interview was over. We continued on this part of my resume for what I felt was a disproportionately long period of time. He was clearly frustrated that there was no way to for him to measure me, in his words, in this position. The company I worked for is a Fortune 500 company and there (a) would be no way I could get those numbers now and (b) would be no chance anybody at the company would confirm/refute said numbers for an outside party. Should I have saved them elsewhere? Probably. But I didn't think of it almost a decade ago, and as I said, no one in the company would be willing/contractually able to verify them anyway.
We finally moved on to my current position and quota achievements. I had discussed these with the recruiter as well, and she led me to believe they spoke well of me as a candidate. He essentially said they weren't good enough and that if he hired me, it would reflect poorly on him and weaken his position in the eyes of his team. He also did not like several things about how my company manages its sales team, which is obviously something I cannot control.
I knew by now that he was not someone I could work for, so I just got through it as best I could. I have always thought of ADP as a solid and well-respected company, but the fact that this manager is evidently one of the stars in the company made me realize it simply is not the kind of corporate culture I seek.
I wrote a follow up e-mail to him and copied the recruiter thanking them for their time and removing myself from consideration.
