America's Work Stories

Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) has the NOT SO BRIGHT & NOT SO NICE BUNCH doing the recruiting as evidenced in an email we received from someone who has over 7 years of recruiting experience, a Masters Degree in the HR field, has supervised over 7 people and was applying for a Recruiting Manager position. Now, if it was me, I would DEFINITELY want to talk to this person and bring them in for an interview. Northwestern HAS ALOT OF CLEANING UP TO DO. In recruting, Susan made the mistake of taking an arrogant attitude with the candidate which ALWAYS COMES BACK TO BITE YOU AS A RECRUITER. She's also made the University look bad. The same is true for those inside of Kellogg, what goes around comes around and you need to be nice to ALL OF THE EMPLOYEES because word gets around!! The email is as follows:

Dear America's Work Stories,

I've applied for the Recruiting Manager position that was posted on Careerbuilder.com and received a phone call from Northwestern University from Susan Zemmelman who was doing the phone screens. I have NEVER EVER talked to such an ARROGANT person in my life with all my experience in recruiting. Her tone was HORRIBLE & CONDESCENDING and I reflected on all the phone screens that I've done with the applicants and I've NEVER talked to anyone like that over the phone. She asked all the phone screen questions about my background and experience and after the call I re-read all the requirements in the job description and I thought that I was a great fit for the position. During her phone call Susan was thinking outloud as to whether she was going to send me to the next step in the recruiting process WHICH IS SUCH A NO NO AND UNPROFESSIONAL. She was snippy in her tone and had a huge chip on her shoulder. In my recruiting experience, you don't sell the organization to the candidate in this manner. A week later, I saw the position posted AGAIN on careerbuilder.com and thought "You have got to be kidding me". (Note from America's Work Stories: This behavior of passing up seasoned and qualified people is happening all over the country and is indicative of what type of recruiting is transpiring. The educated and seasoned candidates are just being passed over who would make OUTSTANDING employees. A huge PATHOLOGY THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED!!!!)


I've also heard from PEOPLE INSIDE THE UNIVERSITY that they don't have the first clue as to how to manage people and this was someone from inside of Kellogg which is the Graduate School of Business and specifically from the Marketing Department. In addition the people that they are retaining have a low work ethic and are not supervised properly. This was SHOCKING since Kellogg is such a reputable B School. For a University that's supposedly so elite, I was SHOCKED to experience this treatement and to hear from someone inside the University about how ill functioning it is as an organization.

This is such a reinforcement as to how important it is to be nice to everyone over the phone, listen to your tone and remember that you're also selling an organization.