Very interesting thread here. A couple of comments through it have interested me, mostly along the same lines.
extopia said:
It's frankly astonishing that anyone at a large international company would ask these
ci1 said:
They are a big international company I assumed their interviewing techniques would be better.
From recent experiences, it amazes me that people will always assume the best from "large international companies". Just because they're large, or international, doesn't mean they're in any way perfect. In fact, in many situations, these kinds of companies get so big and impersonal that the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing, and more than that, doesn't care.
Dr.Moriarty has it spot on, I think.
I get the feeling that a lot of these inappropriate questions are attributable more to benign ineptitude
Having worked for 3 "large international companies", each of them the number 1 company in their line of business, each time it was a result of such ineptitude on the part of managers or HR that I decided to move on. I can't say that Irish companies are better, but I'm working for my first Irish company now, and so far so good.
With regards to the specific situaion mentioned here, regarding next steps for ci1 if she's decided that this isn't a place to work - a conclusion I would have come to after the initial interview, not matter how much I wanted the job. The kind of company this is has only been reinforced by the lack of response. There's no reason for such a lack of communication, full stop. If the boss is on holidays, there's someone else in charge who can make such contact, or there's HR, or there's minions around. No communication is a simple lack of respect.
Back to next steps. ci1 needs to determine whether a complaint about this interview will cause them difficulties in the future. The HR and recruitment circles in Dublin, and Ireland, are pretty enclosed, where everybody pretty much knows everybody. While there may not be any official communications between people working in companies, there's always the conversation over a beer where the question is asked "didn't your people have an issue with person x making some complaint about you?" and the answer is "that's right, I'd give them a wide berth". You'll just be left hanging for weeks with no response to your job application, and you'll never know why.
And this won't be written down on any interview documentation, so even if you demand feedback on your application, they're not obliged to tell you the actual reasons why - unless they're really stupid and write it down - which, lets face it, on the basis of my post already, they're quite likely to do as well.