whelkstall

There are various little rituals in educational recruitment which are designed to let losing candidates down gently. The problem is that everyone know what the rituals mean and as a result, they are an insult which make people feel worse than if they were told the truth.

When there is more than one candidate for a job, everyone is obliged to sit around waiting during all the interviews and for the period when the interview panel makes their decision. The successful candidate is called before the panel to be offered the job.The losers are then offered individual feedback which consists of some flannel about it having been a difficult choice and how they came second.

So you are either appointed or come second, regardless of the number of candidates.

If you are the only candidate, you are only told the outcome on the day if the school intends to appoint you. The words that tell you that you haven't got the job are, "We will write to you." Not only does that phrase tell you that you didn't get the job, it also says that they haven't the courage to tell you to your face.

I've had a few such letters and I've never bothered opening them.

I can live with not getting the job. What I really hate is the unprofessional way the losing candidates are dealt with.

Just how difficult is it to tell someone to their face that they don't fit the bill? In every other work environment I've been involved in there are better ways of telling people interview outcomes that don't involve playing games. There is no need to keep people hanging about. Telling all candidates you will write to them means that one person will get a 'success' letter.

Schools are probably too bound up in ritual to change, but farcical gameplay calls into question the validity of the recruitment process generally. If the way they deal with outcomes is a silly game, can you really be sure that the process is treated any more seriously?