I’ve never posted to Reddit before (long time lurker though) but I’m just so flabbergasted by what just happened that I have to share.
Recruiter reached out to me about a position. I agreed to interview. Received calendar invite. Then received an email to complete a pre-interview questionnaire. A few hours later I clicked the email to fill out the survey and saw that both of my parents, as well a secondary email I use for myself for spam, were copied on the email? For reference, I’m 30 years old and love my parents dearly but they are in no way connected to my career lol.
I reached out to the recruiter about it and their response was that they use software to hunt down potential email addresses of prospective candidates, so I guess my parents emails came up as being associated with me and they just decided to add them all to their system? Instead of only using the email address I provided on my resume?
I’m laughing about it now because it wasn’t really the end of the world or anything, it just led to a bit of an awkward conversation with my parents since I hadn’t really told my them that I was looking for a new job yet. But when I first saw it I was pissed. I ended up cancelling because this whole situation felt very invasive and just overall put a bad taste in my mouth for a job I was already indifferent about.
But on a more serious note, it got me thinking. What if those email addresses were instead people with my current employer? What if I didn’t want my parents to know I was searching (I actually didn’t)? Aren’t job searches supposed to be confidential?
Not looking for advice or anything, I just wanted to share this ridiculous story lol