Odd interview offer/withdrawl experience

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undecided3yr

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Im not sure if this is the right forum for this, please feel free to move, mods

I just had an odd interaction with a private practice recruiter:

Im completing my training this year and have tentatively taken a position but not signed a contract. A few days ago I was contacted by an in-house recruiter for a private group in my ideal location. I accepted the offer to interview and told them a few dates that were open in my schedule. They chose one of them, after which I realized conflicted with a required lecture.

I asked them to change the date within 24 hours of the offer and tentative interview date selection and the response from them was the offer was withdrawn. I dont think it was unreasonable to contact them and ask to try to reschedule an interview as soon as I realized the conflict, yet they seemed offended. I called the recruiter and asked "what gives." The recruiter then explained to me that they apparently have already interviewed someone else and offered that person the job. After offering an interview to me, they gave the other candidate a 10 day deadline to respond, which would expire before the my initially scheduled interview.

I feel like I was really invited to interview more as leverage to get the other person to commit and they clearly were not that interested in me if asking for another interview date is enough for them to withdraw the offer entirely.

I am interested to know if anyone else has had similar experiences. Is this a common tactic?

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Your explanation seems like a reasonable one (ie, you were being used as leverage against another candidate). These are businesses, and they will do what they need to get what they want. To me, this doesn't really cross any moral line.
 
why dont u share the name of such company? i think it wud be a gr8 help for the rest to be aware of such and they might clear their dirty way! it seems really immoral and dirty to me, my heart and mind goes for the next person who may end in such deal. imagine someone with family and children. it can cause lots of emotional stress at least. actually , i have heard some companies in rural areas do the same to come across the best deal they wanna. some even have already picked who they want, but to collect enuf document to show the gov they have considered equal right, they wud extend iv to other ppl (phony iv) to have enuf cv and documentations to show they have ived reasonable amounts of applicants and then they picked the best one(which is not real). hope u get a better slot.
 
why dont u share the name of such company? i think it wud be a gr8 help for the rest to be aware of such and they might clear their dirty way! it seems really immoral and dirty to me, my heart and mind goes for the next person who may end in such deal. imagine someone with family and children. it can cause lots of emotional stress at least. actually , i have heard some companies in rural areas do the same to come across the best deal they wanna. some even have already picked who they want, but to collect enuf document to show the gov they have considered equal right, they wud extend iv to other ppl (phony iv) to have enuf cv and documentations to show they have ived reasonable amounts of applicants and then they picked the best one(which is not real). hope u get a better slot.

There is nothing dirty about this. From but what I understand it was only an interview that was withdrawn not an offer of a contract. Groups must continue to interview when a candidate has not committed to a contract otherwise they will waste too much time...you cant put your interview process on hold for ten days every time you offer a contract and leave your other candidates hanging.

Now it would be dirty to put out multiple contract offers with the intention of only taking one, but that's not what happened here.
 
Im not sure if this is the right forum for this, please feel free to move, mods

I just had an odd interaction with a private practice recruiter:

Im completing my training this year and have tentatively taken a position but not signed a contract. A few days ago I was contacted by an in-house recruiter for a private group in my ideal location. I accepted the offer to interview and told them a few dates that were open in my schedule. They chose one of them, after which I realized conflicted with a required lecture.

I asked them to change the date within 24 hours of the offer and tentative interview date selection and the response from them was the offer was withdrawn. I dont think it was unreasonable to contact them and ask to try to reschedule an interview as soon as I realized the conflict, yet they seemed offended. I called the recruiter and asked "what gives." The recruiter then explained to me that they apparently have already interviewed someone else and offered that person the job. After offering an interview to me, they gave the other candidate a 10 day deadline to respond, which would expire before the my initially scheduled interview.

I feel like I was really invited to interview more as leverage to get the other person to commit and they clearly were not that interested in me if asking for another interview date is enough for them to withdraw the offer entirely.

I am interested to know if anyone else has had similar experiences. Is this a common tactic?

Just being devil's advocate here. You said that you tentatively accepted a position at another practice (without signing a contract). So, what if the second practice offered you a position. Would you then go back on your verbal commitment? Would that have been ethical? I think applicants do this all the time. So, I guess practices have to hedge their "bets" too.
 
There is nothing dirty about this. From but what I understand it was only an interview that was withdrawn not an offer of a contract. Groups must continue to interview when a candidate has not committed to a contract otherwise they will waste too much time...you cant put your interview process on hold for ten days every time you offer a contract and leave your other candidates hanging.

Now it would be dirty to put out multiple contract offers with the intention of only taking one, but that's not what happened here.

Mostly agree, but I think it's borderline unethical to interview someone when you've already offered a job to someone else. At the very least, it's a waste of that person's time. I would appreciate if the named of companies/practices that did this were shared so that I could evaluate whether or not to waste my time with them in the future. So long as you stick to the facts "Interviewed me after offering the job to someone else," you're on the right side of the law.
 
Just being devil's advocate here. You said that you tentatively accepted a position at another practice (without signing a contract). So, what if the second practice offered you a position. Would you then go back on your verbal commitment? Would that have been ethical? I think applicants do this all the time. So, I guess practices have to hedge their "bets" too.
Thats a good point but I actually asked for permission from where I had committed to talk to this other group, which makes this even more frustrating that it was disingenuous.
 
Headhunters are notorious for these kinds of shenanigans. Learn from it. Don't take a recruiter's word for it that the sun will rise tomorrow unless you have it in writing.
 
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