I want to report a rude and dismissive recruitment manager

As to whether you should complain, Professor Jepsen said that if she were in your position she wouldn’t waste her time.

“First, you have found out enough about the manager – rude, dismissive and unprofessional – that it sounds like you don’t want to work there after all. Second, many organisations use their applicant tracking system to create a pool of potential candidates for later vacancies. In case they have another vacancy that might suit you down the track – with a different manager – you probably wouldn’t want to have your record of complaint next to your name.

“Manage your rage. It clearly wasn’t going to be your dream job with a manager like that.”

“So, manage your rage. It clearly wasn’t going to be your dream job with a manager like that. Luckily you got an early heads up on their management style. Like thousands of others who have been treated poorly by hiring managers or unprofessional recruiters, I’d make a mental note of this incident and focus my attention on the next dream job opportunity around the corner. Maybe one day you’ll cross paths with this manager and you’ll know, quietly, that they once treated you poorly – and perhaps even find out why; what was going on for them at this time.”

The behaviour of this manager has affected you adversely, but it will also very likely negatively affect the organisation they work for, Professor Jepsen says.

“The HR or corporate marketing teams may have spent a fair bit of time and effort developing an employer brand, which this manager appears to have completely destroyed for this applicant. How many other unsuccessful applicants have got a similar impression of this organisation?”

Professor Jepsen says that a smart HR team will go a long way to avoiding this by carefully assessing all the elements of their recruitment system.

“An HR team might evaluate their recruitment and selection processes by interviewing and surveying both successful and unsuccessful candidates, as well as hiring managers and others involved in the process. [They might] examine things like usefulness of the advertisement, ease of application – including relevance of application forms – and speed of response from the recruitment team and hiring managers at each of the different stages.

“Then the evaluation could move to selection issues, with questions to applicants and candidates on validity, or apparent relevance, of the selection processes – application forms, interviews, job tests, simulations or samples and any other selection processes used.”

Let’s hope the next job you apply for is offered by an organisation that takes a bit more care with how they treat all candidates.