WSJ takes on "companies behaving badly" in the interview process

Even The Wall Street Journal's Joann Lublin is talking about "companies behaving badly." After a recent column in which she discussed interviewees behaving badly, Lublin received 120 emails from people, including me, letting her know that hiring managers are often more discourteous and rude than the candidates they interview.


Among Lublin's choice observations in today's "Managing Your Career" column:

• Job hunting is a two-way street. How well you handle candidates may affect your own career.
• ... Polite behavior might help companies attract top staffers.
• "Walk in a job seeker's jittery shoes. Hiring managers must realize 'they have people's hopes and dreams in their hands, often at one of the most vulnerable times in their lives,'" Lublin quoted me as saying.
• "Bad manners have long-term consequences," warns Peter Dowling, a Stamford, Conn., sales manager at a finance and accounting consulting firm. Wooed by a recruiting software concern this past summer, he was stood up three times for a telephone interview with a vice president. Now, whenever someone mentions that company's name, he says, "I speak of the discourtesy."

Also, check out an article I penned in 2001 for the Christian Science Monitor, "Why more job hunters cry foul."
Chicago headhunter Wendy Tarzian details a survey she conducted of job seekers and also explores the link between a company's hiring process and the health of its brand in a 2002 article for Strategic HR Review.