Worst HR Interaction Stories
Inspired off of the recent thread of someone hating HR, I thought it'd be cool to hear the worst interactions we've all had with this cesspool of incompetence disguised as a career path.
For an internship that required international travel, the HR team never followed up on my emails to provide a start date after I had received an offer, and I basically had to start a month later than what the interviewers had decided on because of how long it took to process the documents and get me set up. And no, I wasn't compensated in the least, my only "compensation" was deciding whether or not I wanted to work there given this "unforeseen change in plans". I had to shift my flight and pay rent for the month I thought I'd be working.
Was interviewing for an IB role with a Japanese bank. Had another exploding offer so my contact asked me to follow up with HR. Sent an email, ghosted. I contacted the HR lady and she basically said something like: this is unexpected and I don’t have time for this. You can send me an email to follow up balabala. Sent another email, ghosted. Never heard back.
One time the HR from a Japanese bank contacted me regarding a screen for their IB internship and then she ghosted me when I called her at the time I was supposed to call her. Never hear from her even after following up multiple times. Somehow end up getting an official first round from the bank 3 months later but had already accepted an offer by then.
Another time, I was in the running for an LMM bank that was trying to undercut other banks for candidates and they give me the first round, and then pause recruiting citing COVID but still give me the superday citing an even more accelerated process for a select few, and then don't get back to me with the times for the superday. I reach out a couple of days before the superday given others I knew got the time and I didn't. Within two hours of me reaching out, I get the call from HR saying they realized I am an international student and thus can't proceed in the process with me. They wasted their time and mine, and probably took someone else's superday spot.
Having said that, the firm I signed an offer with, their HR has been pretty helpful. Have reached out to them a couple of times due to things I needed to get sorted — being an international student — and they have been super responsive. Doesn't change my mind on HR overall tho.
Probably not anything that's out of the ordinary for the industry, but I was caught off guard for the moment:
A couple years ago during recruiting I was invited to fly out to an MM firm social (NYC/SF) that was paid for by the firm. Once there, recruiting/HR told me to expect an email in two weeks for next steps. Heard back in four weeks. The email asked me to select my top two office preferences for who I wanted to interview with. I chose the office that I flew out to (NYC/SF) and another top tier city. Never heard back after that despite a few more follow ups.
Wouldn't have cared if I was ghosted before I was flown out, but who pays to fly someone out, asks for office preference and doesn't proceed to the next step?
I've always had terrible experiences with coordinators for lateral interviews at Citi. I went to a super day that was extremely uncoordinated. What should have been a 2 hour process became almost 4-5 hours because some members of the team would keep on talking, and they decided to bring in other senior people to interview me. To my dismay, I had a busy day at work and had to work late because of this shit show, and I didn't get the offer.
2nd interview experience at Citi, I give the coordinator my schedule, and the coordinator booked times outside of my schedule. Like why the fuck would you ask for times on my schedule that work when you will book me whatever time you want..
Another experience was with DBRS. The HR person literally kept on asking me textbook HR questions and would not listen to anything I had said besides writing down the specific answer that addressed the question. I was asked 3-4 questions in a row that were addressed by the story I told for the first question.
Best HR Experience:
Had an interview at Guggenheim, and I ended up in a situation where I ran 4-5 blocks during the summer to make it on time. The HR lady saw me come in, drenched, and she was like wow you should go get cleaned up! After I came out of the bathroom she said now you're looking good! This made me smile and put me in a great mood for the interview! She was so hot too. Bless up.
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