Charles Cohen

The Times today has a long interview with Lord Mandelson. His manners, according to the interviewer, are “not that brilliant”. He’s also about to find himself unemployed, with no idea how he’s going to earn a crust. I suggest he goes into recruitment, where he will find himself surrounded by people just like him; people with no manners, and an answer to everything.

My own experience of job hunting has, thankfully, been limited. I’ve had two “proper” jobs in twenty years and have spent the rest of the time making up my own jobs and creating them for others.

The first time I actually applied for one, though, was a salutory experience which I had forgotten until quite recently.

There was a job going as speechwriter for John Burt, Director General of the BBC, which I quite fancied. I never met the man himself, just a phalanx of HR people who interviewed me. Twice. At the end of the second interview, they told me that I was one of two candidates being considered, and a decision would be made soon. That was May.

I waited. And waited. I called. I left messages. Noone returned my calls. Eventually, I wrote a letter (that’s how long ago it was).

These letters are impossible to write. What’s the right balance between sounding confident (I don’t really care if you give me this job, but it would be nice to know) yet still interested enough to hope for their call (Please give me the job. Please. Please.) This all has to be achieved without grovelling.

The BBC HR people never did tell me what I already, deep down, already knew. Eventually I found out they’d hired someone who had been working for the Labour Party and was therefore better connected to the (then) incoming government.

It was humiliating, not because I hadn’t got the job, but because I had been systematically ignored. One call or letter would have done it. The silence was crushing.

I thought, it can’t always be like this, and quickly forgot it. Until this week.

A friend is looking for another job. She already has one, but it isn’t going anywhere and is quite insecure. Now this person has a fantastic CV, is very good at what she does, and can spot roles for which she is completely qualified.They say that you are more likely to get hired if you are in a job. What could go wrong?

Recruiters, that’s what.

What I didn’t appreciate was that the lack of manners displayed by the BBC’s HR people, their complete lack of consideration for the candidate, seems to be almost universal in the recruitment world.

It seems perfectly acceptable now to ask people for an interview, take up their time, and then at the end say, I’ll get back to you within X days, and then not do so. Why do they say that? I doubt they mean it.

It also seems perfectly acceptable when you have broken this promise to ignore requests from the candidate for an update.

Or to simply re-advertise the job.

This has happened not just once to her, but three times.

I spoke to other people I know well, who have had similar experiences of late.

I suppose you could say, well, she’s a grown up: that’s the way the world is, get over it.

I don’t accept this, because making excuses for such behaviour amounts to justifying the worst kind of bad manners.

And it’s odd that it’s the HR people, the ones who deal with the most difficult conversations and issues which people have in relation to their work, should be such serial offenders.

They really have no excuse. If you can’t stand the sight of blood, don’t be a doctor, andiIf you can’t tell people stuff they don’t want to hear you have no business being in recruitment.

I doubt that most companies realise what a poor reputation they get when they, or their recruiters, behave so shabbily. But even if there were no pragmatic, business case for being polite and considerate, there is a human one. “Don’t be an arse” should be the 11th Commandment.

It’s a cruel world, and heartless – that’s business. It doesn’t have to be rude too.