SINGAPORE: A jobseeker who lost a job opportunity despite going through three rounds of the application process has questioned whether going through all the hoops she went through had actually been necessary, comparing the process to what her other friends had experienced.
A 24-year-old woman going by the handle ‘Inside_Butterfly9598’ sought answers on the askSingapore subreddit earlier this week, saying that the experience left her with mixed feelings, though she acknowledged that multiple rounds is “normal in the competitive job market.”
For the company she applied to, she was asked to make a personal appearance at the office for every interview round and even needed to research and prepare a case study and present this during the second round on-site, but the boss rejected her anyway in the final round.
“Isn’t this unnecessary?” the jobseeker asked, adding that she felt that she had wasted her time preparing for the case study. She also felt that she had done well at it, with the proof being that she advanced to teh final stage.
Her experience appears to have been very different from her friends, who were interviewed on the phone or remotely via Zoom. She added that they were only asked to make a personal appearance when the company confirmed that they wanted to hire them. For her, this is “less troublesome” than what she had to go through.
Many commenters told her that not only was her experience “normal,” in many cases, it’s the standard. Others have had to go through four rounds in the job application process, and one jobseeker said that they actually went through nine rounds when applying for a position at a multinational company, only to be rejected in the end.
“Welcome to corporate life where you have to accommodate others, not the other way round,” wrote one netizen wryly.
Nevertheless, sympathetic Reddit users validated the post author’s feelings and encouraged her to just keep going.
One commenter said that they had a long friendly conversation with the boss, who even told them that they liked their work, but they ended up not getting the job either.
Another commenter, however, said that wasting a jobseeker’s time should never be normalized, and even compared the process to the Hunger Games.
A jobseeker who got employed after handing in hundreds of applications wrote, “As someone who only just got a job after 600 applications and tons of time wasted on interviews. Sometimes if I’m unsuitable in an interview, I wish they would just say and just end it right there.” /TISG