The short stints on a resume is likely not the only reason you didn’t get to 100%, but unfortunately you should know that it’s seen as a pretty bad signal. The general expectation is 2 years minimum at a gig. If you have multiple short non-contract jobs it raises the concern that a candidate doesn’t commit to their jobs, or that they don’t do well at their jobs and are getting let go.
Company A got their funding pulled and shut down. Company B, where I was actually at for about a year and a half, switched owners and shutdown my entire office. Company C merged into it's main competitor and effectively fired most of us.
I will admit I was at one fantastic job and after around 3 years I probably could of stayed indefinitely. But back then I didn't recognize the value of a solid job. If you land somewhere and you're well liked by people, and able to do quality work, you really should just stay there instead of chasing slightly more money.
He wasn't my manager so I brushed over it and 6 months into working at DO they started 3 rounds of enormous layoffs that were handled so poorly even the executives doing the layoffs got removed by the board.
So I left and got to add another short stint at a company run by craven morons to my resume :)
That said, the general lack of emapthy from recruiting towards time invested and rejections is astonishing and seemingly cruel or emotionally negligent.
US corps are constrained I think by what they can reveal about denial reasons because they don't want to get sued for discrimination.
That said, it can often feel like, you were kept in the pool as an alt/negotiating foil if they didn't get their first pick, or needed to say "we have another candidate willing to take $YOUR_ASK-$BIG_DELTA.
I think we should approach the hiring gauntlet not as "workshop to see what it's like to work with these folks" but as "battle where we can divine the worst about the people we might choose to work with", but still remain sunny and positive while cannily noting any weirdness.
Hope that helps! :)
I don't feel disrespected or anything, just feels weird to spend that much time interviewing someone.
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Sure, but one would think then the rejection email would have specifics around the interview and where the candidate did not perform well. Not nit picking on the job hops. If job hops were a deal breaker then why waste the candidate's time putting them through full rounds of interviews?
i'm sympathetic to you, it sucks, why cant we all be nice to each other, and my answer to that all is lawyers.
A little while later, the same company reached out and encouraged him to apply again. Five rounds later, and he got passed over a second time.
Fast forward two years and they reached out to him a third time. He's basically convinced that because he's black he's their token DEI interview candidate to make them feel better about themselves while internally promoting the people they actually want, but of course they wouldn't actually say that.
Takes time away from the day job and other candidates.
That sounds like it was a terrible place, but it was a good department in a somewhat hard nosed company. He ended up staying there 10 years.