Posts related to job search issues have become more frequent. I guess, it is unavoidable with such a persistent problem – a lot of people are unemployed and the jobs availability diminishes every day, no matter what the big-time economists and government statisticians are saying.
This story was related to me just last week and I felt compelled to share it here. A fellow financial exec has been contacted by a recruiter with an opportunity for a CFO position with a service company. The recruiter does not work for an employment agency. He is with a consulting company that specializes in hedge fund and private equity brokerage. They offer a broad range of assistance: from finding companies suitable for takeover or merging to post-closing transitioning.
Excellent! Recruiters working for such consulting firms are less constricted than conventional headhunters from Robert Half et al. Because they are immersed into an entrepreneurial world, they actually try to find talented people instead of counting the check marks they drew on a resume.
So, the two have an extensive phone interview, going over the financial exec's experience with various functions crucial for this job. At the end, the recruiter is very positive and tells her he would make a presentation to his boss, the consulting firm's Managing Director. A couple of days later he calls to inform her that he got a favorable feedback and wants to make an appointment for a telephone interview with the boss. They set the day and time.
Now (this is an important bit of information), the consulting firm is in Philadelphia, where predominant area code is 215. The candidate is in New York City – 212 area code there.
Appointment time comes – the interviewee sits and waits by the phone. An hour later – nothing happened. She writes an email to the recruiter advising that the Managing Director did not call. He writes back immediately saying that she did call, nobody picked up and she left a message. How is it possible? The woman in New York was by her phone all the time. Well, we, CFOs, are quick like that – our job seeker realized right away that the Philadelphia woman, out of habit, must have punched 215, instead of 212.
The recruiter and his boss probably looked at the call log and saw the wrong number too. The interview was rescheduled. But now, there is a subconscious resistance in the interviewer's mind – she is human, and we don't like admitting to embarrassing errors like that. She re-schedules again, then again, then never calls.
And just like that, the opportunity was gone. What always bothers me when things like that happen, is that it is quite possible that this woman could have been the best thing that ever happened to the company. She might have impacted the future of the enterprise in the most positive way. It seems so unfair that stupid little things like this misdialed area code have such a big role in this Comedy of Errors we call life.
The Frustrated CFO 