Level II candidate, no industry experience, but I think a good entry-level resume. So I had two interviews at an (small) investment bank for a 3 month unpaid internship role. The first interview, with the VP, went great. The second interview was with the president/owner of this bank - which I also thought went great. So he starts talking about the job like I have it and describes what I will be doing. I’m getting jacked. His closing words were: “You’ll mostly be working with the VP so he’ll e-mail you within the next week of when this job starts but it should start within the month”. And that’s basically the end of it. I’m super excited. Tell friends, tell family, receive congratulations. A week later I get an e-mail saying they’ve decided to hold out and maybe hire someone outright with more deal experience but maybe bring me on later down the line. Now I have to tell people I actually do not have a job when I believed I was being told I did have a job. Dirty move by the employer or am I a premature celebrator?
It sounds like they genuinely liked you if they even bothered to say that they might bring you in later down the line. That does sound like an invitation to email them in a few months and check in. True, you can’t celebrate getting a job until you get the thumbs up, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing to celebrate a good interview. Although, since it’s an unpaid internship, it does seem odd that they would choose to hire someone later as opposed to take you for free now. Maybe you can write them and say that since this is unpaid, you’re happy to work with them now just for the experience. You should realize that even if they aren’t paying you, it does cost them in terms of thinking and management time to supervise you, so it isn’t a purely costless endeavor to them. But if you can convince them that you’ll work hard and make it worth their time to give you stuff to do for free, it might be worth a shot.
Thanks bchad. Yeah the e-mail I received was fairly apologetic and he did mention training someone from ‘scratch’ is a chore. I sent him an e-mail saying “I’m sorry to hear the news… I hope to hear from you in the near future as I’m still very interested… it was a pleasure to meet you both, all the best going forwards.” But your idea of sending another e-mail in a couple months would be a good idea (I just hope I’m working by that point though). The hiring market (especially for recent grads) is absolutely horrible.
I’ve had 2 recent interviews like that where everything went as smooth as possible and they talked about the job as if I’d start next week to get dinged for “other candidates with more experience”. It’s tough and very frustrating out there.
I’ve had a couple of these. Frustrating and misleading. Over time you just learn “it’s not over until it’s really over”
Unfortunate treatment considering you were doing unpaid work and they would have known your situation before you even sat down - why else were you invited in? However, nothing is guaranteed until you have signed the contract.
I have made this mistake too, not really telling everyone I got the job, but getting overly excited as if I did. I’ve learned to not take as much stock in what the interviewers say. I notice the ones who seem to want to move me along or give me the job are usually the ones who don’t and the ones who you can’t gauge usually do.