Bizarre and hurtful feedback after job interview

[Eralc]

So I thought I had done ok at the job interview I went for. However despite being told I would hear at the end of next week, I heard today that unfortunately there had been two internal candidates; one who had got the job. Fair enough, I thought. But then I get told my feedback...

Apparently when I talk I say 'fing' instead of 'thing' and 'fink' instead of 'think'.

It wasn't why I didn't get the job so why put the boot in and tell me something like that? It is now giving me a complex about the way I speak!

[anxiouslondoner]

That's very unprofessional of them. Where was the job?

[Eralc]

Funnily enough it was a school! I know you have to pronounce things properly when teaching phonics (this was pointed out) and in that situation I would be careful but in an interview with a dry mouth (no offer of a drink from interviewers) how could I stand a chance of putting on the cut glass accent they wanted?

[Metal Goat]

I had a similar situation. I trained to be a teacher and my first year of teaching was awful. I was constantly criticized by my mentor over everything.

I was teaching in London and am originally from Bolton. One time she told me that I don't "speak properly" - I had already lived away for a few years and lost my accent a little but still very obviously had an accent. All my kids could understand me.

I tried my best to speak "properly" but I really felt like a lot of it was an accent thing and not a grammar thing.

The problem is that when you've grown up speaking a certain way, it's hard to change it. Speaking is something you do without thinking and having to consciously be aware of every sound makes it difficult to speak. I understand things like "were" and "was" mix ups being a problem but I knew, after seeing many teachers from my home town, that if I'd spoken the same way in my home town, it wouldn't have been a problem.

As I've lived away longer, my accent has faded even more and now people can't usually identify that I'm from Bolton and I just sound generally northern. Now, in China where I live and work, the way I speak has never been an issue but when it was said to me originally, it made me incredibly self conscious and embarrassed. Honestly, I just ignored it because I simply couldn't change it no matter how I tried. I sounded ridiculous, like I was taking the piss, tryna speak like the queen.

Luckily I don't teach phonics because I'm in key stage two but obviously if I did I would be careful. One of the teachers who worked with me last year (australian) did teach phonics and had to go to a training. They were made to say everything in an American way. She was repeatedly told she wasn't saying her "o" sound properly and they made her say it more like "ah" like Americans do. She just couldn't do it and she was picked up on it constantly for the whole week training. Funnily enough, it was an outside training and once she started teaching properly, nobody cared how she spoke.

I think being told that the way you speak is the problem can be really disheartening. I think it would be a sensitive topic for many people. I personally would try more interviews. They may have just been fussy. If it's mentioned again elsewhere, then maybe try working on it.

[Eralc]

Yep I am going to keep trying. I think the Head was embarrassed that he had employed one of his internal candidates so had wasted my time. Hopefully it won't be an issue with another school but really in terms of feedback it was quite pathetic to focus on how I pronounce my words in a tense situation. It showed they weren't actually listening to my answers - they already knew who they were going to employ.

[Indigo_]

I work in a school and unfortunately I would assume this is the norm. It's probably easier to employ internal candidates, assuming they can do the job.

In terms of pronunciation, it is important, and not just for phonics sessions. Children need good language models at all times. I'm not saying that you wouldn't have been a good language model and your feedback does sound rather picky in my opinion. I've interviewed candidates for teaching assistant positions who weren't forming sentences and pronouncing words to a good enough level. The colleague I was interviewing people with literally wrote down word for word what a particular candidate was saying (in order to remind herself of this person's level of spoken English when reviewing everyone.)

[Eralc]

The thing is, I have worked as a TA for about 10 years and have taught phonics - but in secondary not primary so I suppose the skill set is a lot more different than I expected. I will have to make sure I speak slower so I pronounce my words correctly - easier said than done in an interview!

[Indigo_]

If that was the only thing they could pull you up on and the only feedback they could give you then you couldn't have performed that badly at interview. It's a tricky one. Accent shouldn't really play a part as how you speak is how you speak but for young children especially, they need to hear the adults around them speaking correctly.

[Eralc]

It has really knocked my confidence - I can accept the internal candidate thing but not the criticism of how I speak. I will try again and if it is noted again will try to take it on the chin and give up on primary. The Head Teacher should have been a bit more sensitive but thinking about it, why would I want to work somewhere where they don't know how to give feedback? I was always taught at the school I worked at previously that you gave positive and constructive criticism. He only gave me negative. I didn't see it as constructive at all - just judgmental - as if he was insinuating that I was beneath him!

[BritishPeace]

I cannot pronounce th either and say f. People always say that's not how you say it to put me down but it doesn't bother me any more. I also have some difficulty saying the letter r like I pronounce train twain often but I do have some facial injury and also went to a speech therapist when younger because I was a late developer in speech. What hurt me on a medical school interview was they sent back a letter of why I failed and said "I did not have the qualities needed of a doctor" despite not telling me what the qualities needed were or what I lacked and "joked too much". When I was in hospital once I was flirting with the nurse and she was flirting back with me quite heavily and then I read my medical notes which she said I was banned from reading and she said I was "sexually inappropriate and being lewd", people in authority are so two-faced.

[hollowone]

Internal candidates? Why do they advertise on the open market?

Clearly this is a bias in the selection process and nothing to do with you or how you speak my friend.Their loss, not yours. How one speaks is no indication what they would be like to work for. I will restrain myself from going off on a rant.

[anxiouslondoner]

^often companies (and schools, I guess, though they increasingly are companies) have to advertise their jobs externally for legal reasons, so they can claim to be non-discriminatory towards outside candidates, even though they basically get to tailor the job specs to the person they already want to give the job to, so nobody else has a chance anyway. It's a crappy unintended consequence of well-meaning but broken employment law.

(I am not a lawyer or HR person, I just know what tends to happen)

[hollowone]

^Companies say they hire externally just to look good, save face and keep their image? They pose to the open market and practice thid kind of active discrimination just to make themselves look good to lwayers. I'm ****ing speechless.

That's disgusting. Give me some Italian-descended guys with New York accents and a couple of baseball bats and we'll sort out shady hiring practices.

[David K]

^ I don't think that's always true. Say you have an long-term employee, Dusty, and a new vacancy has just opened up in the Dinosaur Fossil Counterfeiting Department. Dusty wants the position and is a hard worker, but isn't great at fossil counterfeiting. So you advertise the job to see if any superb fossil experts are out there, because if there are, you want them! A few apply and they're not bad, but you've known Dusty for years and none of the applicants are exceptional. So you take on the person you know you can trust, even if they may need a bit of training.

TL;DR better the devil you know.

[Eralc]

It's not the first time I have lost out to an internal candidate but I suppose it must be worse for the other internal candidate - they have to work there with their mate who got the job over them.

I think maybe I am too sensitive and need a few more rejections to toughen me up!

[hollowone]

Rgarding hiring internals;

Employers will often select internal candidates because they know so much more about them, wish to reward loyalty, and so on...various reasons that have nothing to do with your value to prospective employers. It's hard not to take job rejection to heart, but try not to!
Reply With Quote

This is the only valid argument. Comptetitively, it's a hideously unfair advantage, nepotism extreme. What's good for business isn't always best for society as a whole and these interests tend to conflict. Why hire on the open market when an outside candidate would be competing against the loyalty and trust of someone internally? Anyway, here's an article I've found on the topic;
http://www.askamanager.org/2010/06/w...ions-when.html

and something helpful quoted;

It***8217;s true that sometimes a company plans to hire an internal candidate and is just going through the motions with others, often because their internal rules require that every job be posted, that a certain number of candidates be interviewed, etc.

But this is often not the case, and I***8217;ve noticed that candidates ***8212; the external ones ***8212; tend to assume it***8217;s true even when they don***8217;t have reason to believe it is.

Often what happens is this: A job opens up. An internal candidate expresses interest. The employer welcomes their interest, but isn***8217;t ready to anoint them and genuinely wants to consider other candidates as well. In this case, the internal candidate is one of many candidates on relatively even footing. They may get the job, or they may not. But in cases where they do, it can look like that was the plan all along, even when it wasn***8217;t.

Other times, all the candidates aren***8217;t on even footing. The internal candidate is the first choice ***8212; but the employer is truly open to finding someone better. It***8217;s just that the bar is high, because the internal candidate will have a shorter learning curve and is a known quantity. That bar can be beat, but it***8217;s a much higher jump than it would be without that candidate there.

The employer being truly open to finding someone better. There maybe motivation to look for someone better, disatisfaction with clique. There is always the possibility that companies do advertise outside for genuine reasons rather than to look good on paper or keep to quotas.

Hiring practices, are new to me I must admit. So far, from what I'm seeing, my conclusion is that hiring both from your ranks and outside strikes me as deeply unfair, discriminatory even. I would like to see more arguments in favour.

@ OP, it was nothing to do with the way you speak, just a cheap attempt the company had for not hiring you.

[Rockysocks]

That's ridiculous. I see you're in Oxfordshire, move to Yorkshire you'd never get that feedback for a regular primary school here