Harriet is one of us. Qualified up the yin-yang, yet jobless and regularly “devastated” by the callous 
way potential employers treat her. Rather than ignoring her, Julian responded to her speculative application with something even more frustrating.
And she got angry. She responded.
Employers, it might be time to start considering the people you’re brushing off. You wouldn’t like us when we’re angry…
Julian Doesn’t Understand
I’m 22 and living with my parents. I have no money, no job and, according to Trip Advisor, the best attraction in my area is Model Village (for those of you that haven’t heard of it, it’s literally lots of teeny tiny model houses arranged to make a teeny tiny model village). While it may appear that I’m living the dream, I have recently decided it’s important that I get a job.
It’s not, however, that easy to do. Everyone who has ever applied for a job knows how devastating it can be to pour your heart and soul (more or less) into an application that vanishes into nothing – not even a confirmation that it has been received. The same people will also know that this happens all the time. I’ve only had 5 weeks of it and I’m already considering alternative solutions (selling organs, going all ‘into the wild’, that kind of thing).
But today has not been like other days. Today has been special. Today I’ve been rejected from a job in such a spectacular way that I feel like I need to share it. Let me introduce you to Julian.
Julian is the Head of Recruitment at a digital marketing agency in London. I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Julian, but we have had the most interesting of email exchanges.
It all started with your average sickly sweet, schmoozy, please-give-me-a-job email:
If there’s one thing I absolutely cannot fault Jules for, it’s his haste. Where others have ignored me, Jules went for the ‘sorry, I’m washing my hair’ genre of excuse just hours after I’d hit send:
Now. On the company website Julian claims to have an IQ of 128, so we can hardly put this unfortunate mix-up down to any stupidity on his part. I have, therefore, drawn up an extensive list of alternative suggestions:
1) Julian is blind
2) Today is opposites day
3) Julian didn’t read a word I wrote
I’m not going to tell you which scenario I think most likely. I’m not qualified to conduct this type of investigation, nor have I ever claimed to be. To be honest, we’ll probably never really know the truth behind the mystery of the email and the recruitment man and the reply that didn’t make any sense and the ensuing confusion.
But what we do know – and we know this with conviction – is that if Jules should happen to glance at this blog post, the likelihood that he reads and correctly understands this particular sentence (along with 98% of the other sentences) is slim to none.
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It would, of course, have been completely rude of me to ignore such a speedy and courteous response…
