Are employers really rude lately? Or have they always been?

That actually happened to me last year, and I was very irritated. I was under the impression that the job was pretty much a done deal – and then I never heard from the guy again. I thought it was just that. Rude. At least tell me no, I can handle that. Don’t just disappear and stop returning my calls/emails.

Probably the ones you are talking too (that are rude) are not making any money. Besides, if they are rude, you would not want to work for them anyway.

I think yes, and I can think of two reasons immediately: certainly the lousy ecomomy is one; it’s a buyer’s market. Companies are getting qualified resumes from people than they can keep up with.

And two, so manyexperienced senior and middle management employees have been laid off that junior people who are not experienced or particularly well trained are popping up in the HR ranks.

I feel for you trying to break in, and I wish you luck. And by the way, as one who hires, I always return calls and emails of people who interview with me, and never leave them dangling about my decision. I remember all to well what it feels like to be treated poorly by inconsiderate HR people.

I don’t think anybody is being rude here towards you in particular. As @Austinlad pointed out good jobs are scarce and HR people are inundated with resumes from under qualified and worse overqualified people all whom think they deserve the job! Just being patient and professional is all you can do.

Whatever you do don’t seem desperate. Because I am pretty sure that is a death sentence in this job environment. Some employers aren’t even accepting applications from people who don’t have a job.

If you study the law books you will find that the employer/employee relationship is directly the next form of the slave/master relationship. As such, employers have pretty much always been rude overbearing and cretinous.

A year and a half ago, I had three interviews with an employer and was told I was a finalist for the position. The only caveat was that they wanted to assess once more whether their budget was sufficient to fund the position. After the third interview and one follow up e-mail, I heard nothing.

I noticed this week that the position has reopened(no idea whether they hired someone else or didn’t hire at all), and the f@#%ers told me to reapply if I’m interested.

@Ltryptophan Really? How ridiculous is that? I have applied for several jobs and I got an email from the home office of one place for an interview. That email went straight to my spam box. Luckily, I check it every day because I had that happen once before. Well, after my first interview, the office emailed me for a second interview. That too, went to my spam box. Can’t they just pick up the phone and make an appointment like they used to prior to email??

Hirers almost always underestimate the time it will take them to make a decision. That is why it always takes longer to hear back than they tell you initially.

My husband interviewed for a job initially in July, went back for more interviews in November and got the job at the beginning of December!

Oh, and something I know for sure is that many people who have good high paying jobs today, have them because they lied on their resumes.

This country rewards the liar. The problem is that they are only called on the lie when they begin to fail. I think that this sort of thing should be addressed, and treated in the same way that plagiarism is treated in academia. It is a fraud that costs other people real money and opportunity.

I don’t think it’s necessarily employers per se who are rude. You’ve just been unlucky in having had to deal with the ones you’ve dealt with.
I’d say that in general, many people’s decency skills seems to have flown out the window as of late, and i don’t know what could be causing it.

I have to go through that next year if I dont go back to college. I know what you mean I went through three interviews, and did not land the job. I have anxiety just thinking about it. My child goes to school next year and I have to figure out what do with the extra time. I think I might enter the world again either in a job, or college.

@Austinlad and co. bring up a good point I think. I would attribute most of this to simple forgetfulness. To be honest, if someone else is hired and you’re waiting for a message that doesn’t come, I always figure that the hiring person did their job and hired someone. Once that’s done, follow up with declined candidates is essentially superfluous…and there may be too many to deal with. I would just keep in mind that even if you had a good interview, there probably were others, and you are more likely going to remember the interviewer, cause there was only one of him – but there were several of you. So if you feel like you’ve waited too long, contact again.

I also feel like this may partially be due to concerns over pre-employment communications. The less communication there is, the less likely that something actionable will be inadvertently said. Unfortunate, but silent interpreted as rudeness may be the result of CYA behavior.

At the present time, it is an “employer’s market”, meaning that there are so many people out of work that an employer can demand more from the individuals they hire & they can be a great deal more ‘picky’ as to who they choose to hire. There is no drive for them to be polite in today’s limited job availability atmosphere.

They might very well be too tired to handle pre-employment politely. HR in this market has got to be monstrous.

I work in an environment where, as the hiring manager, I go through all the necessary steps and communicate all the information to an HR department, but I have no control over what they do, how long they take, etc. We had a lady in HR die unexpectedly and that really set things back—the remaining staff were grieving and had to explain this lady’s lack of call backs, etc. It was a horribly difficult time for them.

Considering that most employers get about 2,000 applications, it could be that the employment manger is weedling out the best from the mix. It can take up to 2 months for a high profile firm to make a decision whereas a business just looking for general warehouse staff or sales people may make a decision with in a week or two.

It’s not rudeness, per se, but a lack of communication. Most businesses do send a reply to applicants whether it’s a “Sorry, not this time, there were many other applications that offered better qualifications” or a “Congratulations, you’ve been short-listed and we’ll contact you soon for another interview” or “Happy days, you’ve got the job! You start Monday” letter.

The dicision to employ someone can be arduous and pain-staking as workforce laws do sit on the employee side more often than the employer meaning that if they hired you and your performance was not as expected, they would need a better reason to dismiss you rather than that they don’t like your attitude.

The example you have given has nothing to do with rude, but rather with the huge disparity between jobs available and job seekers. For one opening, employers are reporting thousands of applications, and only a small fraction of them are even close to the qualifications they need.

From what my out of work family members are reporting, when they say they will call you within the week, that means they will call the successful applicants, and not the rejects.

Some employers have the courtesy to call me back or send me a letter when they hired someone else. The ones that don’t I usually do not bother with again. I work in a field where there are not many people who qualify to work at my job so I expect at least some notification (if the employer is respectable). I also tend to watch for the ones who are hesitant on mentioning pay rate/salary (I usually make an hourly rate rather than salary). It seems with times being very tough many employers can afford to be disrespectful since there are many desperate people without jobs. Many factories have closed down where I live so you have alot more people applying for limited positions (this is a factor too I think).