So why don't companies tell you that they do not want you?

A friend of my wife (well more accurately the husband of one of my wife's friends) told her yesterday that the company for whom he works might well be interested in hiring me for my wealth of IT knowledge.

Sounds good.

Of course you would have to cut your hair to make yourself look younger (this does not sound like like my wife's friend - it sounds like her. It is her perpetual whinge, and anyway I look years older with my hair cut short - end of nonsense!).

Will it happen? We will see. Like Samson of Jewish legend (but not of fact from anywhere) cutting my hair could have drastic consequences, but if it did get me he job .....

This brought me back to the thought of my last IT interview. Back in February it was. I have my details listed in all sorts of places - LinkedIn, XING usw. A company based in Frankfurt found my details of one of these and invited me directly to an interview. No forms to fill out, no send a CV/resume in advance. Bring wharrever you have with you, we will take it from there usw.

All well and good. I do not like interviews. Doing it well and getting right is never easy. You can be too positive, too negative. You can say too much or too little. As a basically very shy person, I tend to prepare for a couple of hours in advance to cover all the bases. If anything I then tend to be a bit too positive, but on this occasion I think that I got it about right. No complaints about my German accent or anything.

"We will let you know", I was told. 3 weeks later and no reply, I emailed them and got the same comment. Good that they want to consider you for so long.

In fact 5 months later they have never sent me any information telling me that they are not interested .... And if not, why not. If they do not have the budget eventually and have to withdraw the vacancy (often the case these days), they should tell you that. Leaving the situation unanswered?

Yes, well. People who know this blog will remember the piece that I wrote (still out there) about my experiences with the Inttra Corporation in the US. After taking the trouble to interview me nine times by telephone, you would imagine that they would have been very interested, and as to why they did not send me a "sorry but" email or telephone call if they finally lost interest, I do not know to this day.

It strikes me as being unprofessional. Writing a polite email does not take 5 minutes. I would still be interested in a position with the firm in Frankfurt that interviewed me last February, or the Inttra Corporation even now. Quite why they could not show the common courtesy to explain what was going on though, I will never understand.