This is my first time posting here and I just wanted to vent a bit about how absurd some of the things you have to go through to get a job are.
I graduated last year and since then I've been trying to get an office job to start my career but I've been struggling a bit. Finally, in February a friend who works in recruitment for a company saw that there was an opening for an entry-level job that could work for me so he sent me a referral. I did all of the initial tests (math, logic, English, and such) and passed.
After that, while I was preparing for the first interview I decided to ask another friend, who went through the same process, about how he prepared for it. He wasn't much help and just said that I should google what to do, so I did, and I googled “X company interview” and found this guy on youtube who used to work there in HR and had this complete series detailing everything they were looking for in a candidate. It was mainly specific points that you had to prove while answering common interview questions like “Tell me a time when you had to assume leadership for a project” (the company even sent you a PDF saying the same thing but in less detail). I watched all the videos and prepare myself using those tips.
The first interview was fine they asked everything the guy said on the videos and I answered with as much confidence as I could. But when it was time for the second interview I was interviewed directly by the HR Manager. She asked similar questions but fixated on different details of the questions, to the point that I felt I was being accused of something judging by how tough she was during the interrogation. I defended myself as best I could since all of my anecdotes were true so I didn't mind her doubting me, but in the end, I felt so nervous I thought I had blown it or that I had screwd up somehow.
Some time went by and I didn't hear anything until one day my friend texted me that the position was probably going to be taken by someone inside the company. I thought, well at least I'm still in their system for any other position, but a few days after that my friend called me again and told me that her boss (The HR manager) had a meeting with him in which she was pretty much accusing him of helping me and telling me what to say during the interview. I knew that was complete BS and told him to mention the videos I had watched. He didn't have any repercussions and told me that her boss said if in the future I wanted to opt to other positions in that company I would need to do another more “technical” interview to prove that I was really qualified because I did so well in her interview that she felt I was told what to do by someone from the inside and that she had conducted hundreds of interviews and ALWAYS knew when someone had been prepared and therefore could not give me a grade.
I was so mad about the whole thing. How the fuck does someone with so much “experience” doesn't even know that everything she “knows” is basically internet knowledge and that there are hundreds of videos explaining how to prepare for an interview. Why does that immediately means that it must have been my friend?