A few days ago I had a recruiter for a small NYC-based company reach out on LinkedIn and request a Zoom meeting. He was impressed with my skillset and experience and let me know of a new position that was opening at the company. It wasn't a FAANG style company or anything, but it was far from small, and he actually told me the salary for the role. As I'm looking for a job, I thought “sure, why not?”
We schedule a Zoom meeting for yesterday and everything starts smoothly. The recruiter joins with his assistant shadowing the interview. A change of pace for an interview in my opinion, but hardly unusual. The recruiter begins with their usual spiel about the role and the company and so on, and I explain my history and skillset, all while the assistant is taking feverous notes.
About 10 minutes into the interview, the recruiter's internet connection starts to go in and out. His camera and audio feed suddenly becomes laggy and distorted. His assistant asks if everything is okay, and then the recruiter's connection drops entirely, leaving the two of us alone together. The assistant, who's awkwardly sitting there not knowing what to do, also apologized and abruptly left. So now here I am, sitting alone in the Zoom meeting wondering what the heck just happened.
Roughly a minute or so later, I get a text from the recruiter apologizing profusely saying his internet had apparently died. Interestingly though, instead of offering to reschedule or hop back on via Zoom's mobile app, he said he would just submit my information to their hiring manager. Ok, cool, no need to waste any further time. Today, I get an automated email saying I was rejected… for something I didn't even formally apply to.
At this point I should start responding to recruiters saying I charge $100 per hour for interviewing and share my PayPal link. At least then it'll make interviewing less painful.