Should I assume this job recruiter really wasn’t feeling me?

[Anonymous]

There’s been this school that I’ve been trying to get a job at for almost as long as I was at the last school I worked for ( 2 years?). This is a recruiter I dealt with before & I’ll start with saying I finally got the gig. The application process was always tedious: indeed apply, questionnaire that can probably add up to about a paragraph, interview with recruiter (this guy) and finally panel interview w/ hiring team. The furthest I made it over a yr ago was to that panel interview & got that rejection email, every other time after they’d send the questionnaire & I got a rejection email shortly after. Well this time around, I made it to the panel interview, was told this was the last step & then am told they want to meet me one last time to ask questions to gauge my experience & my expectations were very low but tried my best and guess it worked out this time around.

This time when I first met with the recruiter, he just went on almost an hr talking about company culture and kind of tested me too. At one point he said he wanted to hear from me because “he felt like he was doing most of the talking”. Every time he’d give info or give an order he’d always end with that *reassuring* “okay” & it kinda threw me off at times. He did warn me when we first met that he thinks the hiring team would want to meet with me and they did. Yesterday, he calls me to tell me that they extended an offer & I told him I wanted to move fwd but needed to let them know I had a NYE event scheduled after I met with them & wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be an issue. And he said I threw him a curveball, I didn’t do anything wrong but he wanted me to speak with the hiring mgr before moving fwd bc he didn’t want to speak for them. He said it should be fine but that curveball comment threw me off. You know when you just feel like someone may be reading you wrong? I come across maybe as too reserved to him but I answer “okay” and asked questions to show interest almost every time.

Yes

No

[Oliverlogan263]

Dang, that whole situation does sound kinda off with that recruiter guy. Talking for like an hour during the interview is super annoying, nobody wants to just listen to someone ramble on the whole time! And saying you "threw him a curveball" by just mentioning a NYE thing is totally an overreaction. Seems like maybe he just had something against you from the start or something.

I wouldn't try too hard to figure out what his deal was exactly. Recruiters can be weird sometimes. As long as the actual hiring managers like you and don't care about the NYE plans, that's all that really matters at the end of the day. He's not the one deciding if you get the job.

I know it's probably hard not to overthink things when you really want this job, but try not to stress too much about what that recruiter was thinking. Just focus on talking to the hiring manager like he said. Emphasize how interested you are in the job and that your NYE plans won't interfere. They probably won't care as long as you seem enthusiastic.

Fingers crossed they don't give you any hassle over it! It sounds like you've come a long way already to get this far in the process. I'm sure if the hiring people like you, they won't let one recruiter guy screw it up. Keep your head up and good luck with everything! Let me know how it goes.