Interviewers take note: It’s best to check who you are sending your text message to before actually sending the message. One interviewer learned the hard way after the interviewee received a text that was intended for the manager.
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An 18-year-old woman from Leicester, United Kingdom, was on the receiving end of a very blunt text message rejecting her for the position she had just interviewed for. According to Mashable.com, the woman was told she was would be e-mailed within a few days following the interview, but later that day, the interviewer texted her saying, “It’s a no.”
The woman reached out to the interviewer to find out where she went wrong in the interview process and received a follow-up text saying, “Just not engaging. And answers we’re (sic) ‘like’ basic,” accompanied with a very unprofessional laughing-so-hard-I’m-crying emoji. I’m not sure what’s worse, the blatant typo in the text or the use of an emoji.
Apparently, the text message was intended for the manager, but the woman received it instead. Like most people these days, the woman instantly took to social media to air her grievances. She took a screen capture of the conversation and posted it to Twitter. Her tweet, along with the photo, read: “… interviewer was unprepared and her phone was going off throughout the interview. So unprofessional.” Her tweet was retweeted over 150 times at the time of this writing, with many people calling to boycott the company she applied to.
A spokesperson for the company told The Sun, “It was never our intention to be disrespectful or upset her in any way. The texts were sent in error and were intended for our manager, not the candidate.” Let this be a lesson to all interviewers, and everyone in general—double-check who you’re actually texting before sending a message. And give it a once-over—glaring typos due to autocorrect are equally as unprofessional as emoji!
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Melissa Blazejak is a Senior Web Content Editor at BLR. She has written articles for HR.BLR.com and the HR Daily Advisor websites and is responsible for the day-to-day management of HR.BLR.com and HRLaws.com. She has been at BLR since 2014. She graduated with a BA of Science, specializing in Communication, from Eastern Connecticut State University in 2008. Most recently, she graduated in 2014 with a MS of Educational Technology.