The Interview Goes Both Ways, But Does the Respect?

There is something fundamentally important that we sometimes forget when discussing recruitment: there is a human being behind every application, every résumé, and every interview.

That person has professional ambitions, financial responsibilities, personal commitments, and expectations about how organizations should treat people who express an interest in joining their workforce.

Yet, somewhere along the way, professional courtesy seems to have become optional in parts of the recruitment process.

I recently spoke with someone I will call Maya. Her name has been changed to protect her privacy. Maya shared her frustrations about her ongoing job search and the experiences she has encountered with employers, recruiters, and hiring managers.

Her perspective is particularly interesting because she has years of experience in recruitment, HR operations, and compensation. She understands the hiring process because she has spent years working within the very profession she is now experiencing from the candidate's side.

Her experience raises three important questions: Are qualified candidates receiving meaningful consideration? Are employers evaluating professional potential beyond predetermined answers? And why does communication sometimes disappear once a candidate has invested time in an interview?

When optimism meets a different job market

Maya began her job search with optimism. Her previous employment transitions had generally led to another opportunity within approximately three months. She had also continued investing in her professional development through education, certifications, and additional training. She felt confident about her qualifications and the value she could bring to an organization.

This time, however, the experience looked very different.

Some applications resulted in rejection emails within five minutes or an hour. The speed of those responses made her question whether anyone had actually reviewed her résumé.

In several instances, the responsibilities listed in the job descriptions closely reflected work she had performed during the previous five years. She believed she met the qualifications and understood the responsibilities employers wanted someone to perform. Yet the applications continued to receive rejections.

Maya began questioning whether automated screening played a role in these outcomes.

Her concerns reflect a broader issue in modern recruitment. Applicant tracking systems and artificial intelligence can help organizations manage large application volumes, identify qualifications, and improve efficiency. However, professional suitability involves more than matching keywords in a résumé to phrases in a job description.

Transferable skills, professional judgment, adaptability, and the ability to learn new systems do not always fit neatly into predefined screening criteria.

An early rejection does not necessarily mean an employer relied exclusively on AI or failed to review an application. Nevertheless, organizations should examine whether their screening processes unintentionally eliminate qualified candidates before a recruiter has an opportunity to evaluate their experience.

Technology should support better recruitment decisions, not replace the human judgment those decisions require.

Five months of applications, followed by silence

After approximately five months of consistently applying for opportunities and receiving repeated rejections, often without an interview, Maya's initial optimism began to decline.

Then July brought two promising opportunities.

She participated in two consecutive interview processes. Both conversations went well, and the feedback suggested a strong possibility of moving forward. After months of applications, reaching the interview stage and receiving encouraging feedback felt like meaningful progress.

But neither employer followed up.

No phone call. No email explaining that another candidate had been selected. No communication indicating that the position had closed or that the hiring process had changed.

Maya attempted to follow up professionally. She contacted the recruiter, the hiring manager, and the interviewer involved in the final stage of one of the processes. None responded.

For someone with a background in recruitment, this experience carried an additional level of frustration. Maya understood the process, knew when to follow up, and recognized that hiring decisions sometimes take time. She was not expecting an immediate offer or a lengthy explanation.

She simply wanted an answer.

Employers have legitimate reasons for delaying decisions. Business priorities change, budgets shift, positions close, and hiring managers sometimes need additional time to evaluate candidates. Those circumstances are understandable. They do not eliminate the responsibility to communicate.

A brief update acknowledging the interview and explaining that the organization is still evaluating candidates would make a difference. So would a simple message confirming that another candidate received the offer.

Closing the loop should be a standard part of the candidate experience, not an optional courtesy.

The preparation nobody sees

Maya's experience also highlights how much work candidates invest before an interview.

She estimated that she spent approximately eight hours in one day preparing for an interview, in addition to the time she invested in mock interviews.

Her preparation included researching the employer, reviewing the position's responsibilities, organizing examples using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, and Result), anticipating unexpected questions, and practicing how to communicate her experience effectively.

She also recognized that even experienced professionals can become nervous during interviews. Her preparation helped her organize her thoughts and ensure that nervousness did not prevent her from demonstrating her capabilities.

This level of preparation reflects something employers should recognize: candidates take interviews seriously.

An employer invests time scheduling interviews, reviewing qualifications, and evaluating candidates. Candidates make a similar investment by preparing responses, researching the organization, and arranging personal responsibilities around the meeting.

Neither party should assume that the other's time has less value.

Candidates routinely receive advice about sending thank-you emails after interviews. They are encouraged to acknowledge the interviewer's time, express appreciation, and reinforce their interest in the position. Maya believes employers should demonstrate the same professional courtesy.

The communication does not need to be complicated. Organizations can acknowledge the interview, provide an update, and communicate the final decision. They can even automate these messages through their applicant tracking systems.

The technology already exists. What matters is whether employers make candidate communication a priority.

When recruitment loses its human element

Maya also described an interview that felt unusually robotic. The interviewer asked structured questions but showed little reaction to her responses. The interaction gave her the impression that the interviewer was reading questions and waiting for specific answers rather than engaging in a professional conversation.

One question involved a situation Maya had never personally encountered in her career.

Rather than suggesting that she had experience she did not possess, she acknowledged the limitation and explained how she would approach the situation if it arose.

The interviewer described her proposed solution as ingenious. However, the conversation did not explore how she reached that conclusion or what considerations informed her approach.

This experience raises an important question about interview quality. Are organizations evaluating how candidates think and solve problems, or are they primarily looking for answers that match predetermined expectations?

An interview should provide candidates with an opportunity to demonstrate professional judgment, adaptability, and problem-solving abilities. A person may not have encountered the exact situation presented during an interview, but the way that person approaches the problem can reveal valuable information about their capabilities.

This also connects to another concern Maya raised: the tendency to prioritize exact system experience over transferable skills.

An HR professional may understand employee lifecycle processes, recruiting operations, compensation practices, data management, and business requirements without having worked with the specific HRIS platform an employer currently uses.

That does not automatically make the candidate unsuitable.

Organizations must distinguish between essential expertise and familiarity with a particular tool. When companies implement new technology, existing employees also need training. Learning a specific platform is part of organizational development.

Some positions certainly require immediate specialized knowledge, and employers must consider the time and resources needed to train new employees. But overlooking a candidate with strong foundational experience simply because that person needs additional training may mean missing valuable talent.

Sometimes the person an organization needs is already in front of it, with the professional foundation and adaptability to succeed.

Protecting confidence during an uncertain process

Despite the disappointments, Maya has not lost confidence in her professional abilities.

She continues to prepare for interviews, research employers, organize examples, and approach opportunities seriously. What has changed is how much emotional investment she allows herself to place in an interview outcome.

Previously, after a promising conversation, she allowed herself to become excited about the possibility of receiving an offer. She practiced positive affirmations and visualized the opportunity as her next professional chapter.

Now she approaches the process differently. She completes the interview, recognizes that she has done her part, and allows the outcome to unfold without attaching her emotional well-being to it.

She has not stopped believing she will find the right opportunity. She has simply learned to protect herself from disappointment when employers fail to communicate.

There is an important distinction between losing confidence in yourself and losing confidence in the process.

A prolonged job search can affect motivation and emotional well-being, particularly when candidates repeatedly invest time and energy in opportunities that never produce a clear outcome. An employer's lack of communication does not define someone's professional worth, just as a rejection does not erase years of experience, education, and accomplishments.

Job seekers should continue preparing and pursuing opportunities, while recognizing that they cannot control an employer's decisions or communication practices.

The interview goes both ways.

One of Maya's most important observations is that recruitment represents a two-way evaluation.

Employers assess candidates, but candidates also assess employers. They want to understand an organization's values, mission, leadership, workplace environment, expectations, and opportunities for professional growth. They are deciding whether they can see themselves contributing to that organization.

A candidate may need employment, but that does not mean the organization should overlook the importance of demonstrating why it would be a good place to work.

Organizations spend considerable resources developing employer brands and attracting talent. Yet the candidate experience begins long before someone becomes an employee. It starts with the application, continues through communication and interviews, and extends to the final hiring decision.

A company can have an impressive mission statement, competitive compensation, and attractive benefits. However, if its recruitment process consistently leaves candidates without basic communication, the experience may contradict the professional image the organization wants to project.

Employers do not have to hire every person they interview or provide lengthy explanations for every decision. But they should acknowledge the people who invested time in their hiring process.

The person behind the résumé

Maya's experience reflects concerns that extend beyond one job search. It raises questions about how organizations use technology, evaluate transferable skills, communicate with candidates, and maintain professional courtesy throughout recruitment.

As artificial intelligence and automation continue to influence hiring, organizations have an opportunity to make recruitment more efficient without making it less human.

Candidates deserve meaningful consideration when their qualifications align with a position. Interviewers should evaluate not only what someone already knows, but also how that person thinks, adapts, and approaches challenges.

And when an organization invites someone to an interview, it should recognize the time and effort that person has invested by communicating the outcome.

An organization may decide that a candidate is not the right fit. That decision is part of recruitment. Disregarding the person behind the application should never be part of it.

You may not hire the candidate sitting across from you, but you should never forget that a person is sitting there.

The interview goes both ways. The respect should, too.