‘Whatever’: Recruiter tells candidate their resume has nothing that ‘jumps out’, candidate withdraws on the spot
Asian man feels sad, stressed, depressed
A post on Reddit’s r/recruitinghell talked about a Canadian who recently relocated to the US after getting married and had a screening video call with a recruiter from a publicly traded company of around 500 employees. The recruiter was five minutes late, declined to turn her camera on because she had “just got back from a weekend in Vegas and does not look presentable,” and asked the candidate to keep their camera on.
When the original poster explained their relocation, which was the same explanation they have given every other recruiter without issue, the recruiter said she did not understand and asked them to repeat it. When they did, the response was: “Ok whatever, I think I understand.”
It got worse from there.
The recruiter told the candidate their resume had “nothing that jumps out,” then pivoted from asking about work experience to asking what they do for fun. When the candidate answered a technical question with a 30-second explanation of relevant experience, the recruiter said “whatever” a second time and asked them to repeat the answer in one sentence. With four minutes left on the call, she wrapped up without asking if the candidate had questions. When the candidate asked if they could ask a few, the recruiter replied: “The more you talk, the less time you’ll have to get your answers.”
The recruiter’s description of the hiring process was, on its own, already problematic: “We’re a billion-dollar start-up and we don’t like processes.” She then informed the candidate that they were one of only two people selected from 100 resumes, while the job posting had already been reposted on LinkedIn with 54 applicants.
The original poster withdrew their application by email immediately after the call ended.
What Reddit said
“As someone who also recently survived a terrible recruiting call, I feel your pain. Sometimes they’re so bad you doubt yourself,” one commenter wrote.
A recruiter in the thread offered an unusual response: “I am so sorry. Please send this post to their CEO or the director of HR at this company. If you need help finding their email, let me know.”
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“She was horrible. It’s almost like she wanted to play queen for a day. I am glad you withdrew your application,” another commenter wrote.
One pointed to the typical incentives at play: “Recruiters are VERY rude and unprofessional. They don’t care about anything other than meeting KPIs.”
And one commenter offered the most obvious explanation for the recruiter's demeanour: “From everything she said, it sounds like she was either still drunk from her Vegas trip or horribly hungover.”
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