At 2:00 p.m. Thursday May 15, I sat in an interview room on the 11th floor of a high-rise near O’Hare in the first job interview after graduation. I interviewed with a recruiter and a sales manager for an Account Executive position at Careerbuilder. I felt the the interview went so-so, but a few days later, I received the following email:
Dear James,
Thank you for interviewing with us at CareerBuilder.com. Your background and experience are impressive and we were fortunate to see a number of qualified candidates. However, the position has been filled with an individual that more closely matches our needs. Best wishes for success in your job search and thank you for consideringCareerBuilder.com as a potential employer.
CareerBuilder.com is a rapidly expanding company; we will keep your resume active and contact you should a position requiring your background and skill set become available. We appreciate you using the CareerBuilder.com website for your job search and hope you continue to do so in the future.
Sincerely,
Corporate Recruiting Team
At first I was pretty upset. Just a few days prior, I sat in a room full of other graduates as we all received a big pat on the back for the last few years of hard work and student loans. It took me three months to find a job, and in the end, I took a temporary position from Kelly services to get my foot in the door of a major IT outsourcing firm. In September, we were acquired by an even larger company. I’m currently on the tail end of securing a permanent position.
Though the integration made national news with our new parent company cancelled nearly 25,000 jobs, since I work on a government contract, most of positions in our account were safe. Overall, even though the nature of my job isn’t great, I’m beginning to realize that as the economy shrinks, I’m more and more fortunate. The other day I came across several articles about lay-offs at Careerbuilder. These articles are from back in December, but I they still made me feel like I dodged a bullet. More and more, I’m seeing how lucky I actually am to be in a state that is still managing to expand despite the economic hardships. Our auto industry is doing relatively well, and even without Obama’s stimulus package, there are lots of job and infrastructure projects underway. Anyway, while I won’t actually send it (who knows if my interviewers still work there?), I thought I’d write a little thank you letter to the recruiter who invited me to Chicago for an interview.
Dear Ms. Thornton,
Good afternoon. You probably don’t remember me. I interviewed for a job with you and John, one of your sales managers back in May. The interview was a great experience for me, and it’s too bad that we couldn’t do business together. I think I would have greatly enjoyed living and working in great city like Chicago. You’ll be glad to know that even though I ended up moving to a city very much unlike Chicago, I did manage to find a job. No hard feelings, though. I’m actually writing to thank you for not hiring me.
I saw some discouraging news on the Internet from a few weeks ago. Tough break on those 300-400 layoffs. CB lost, what, 20% of its work force? Man. That’s rough. It really would have been difficult for me to have a 1/5 chance of losing my job while living in a city as expensive as Chicago. Doubly so if I were only a few months into an entry level job. Not getting a job at your company is the best thing that’s happened for my career. While I’m technically still a contractor, my position is protected by two contractual agreements. One between the government client we serve and the company I contract for and one between that company and the agency who represents me. I wish you and your parent company’s dying industry the best of luck in all of your future endeavors and hope to see you on the other side of this economic crisis.
Sincerely,
James Gonzales-Meisler