Unethical Interviewing Practice

[GTRGRL]

I need advice on something I am quite confused about!
A job opening was posted at the hospital I have worked at for 10 years. I am highly qualified for the job and decided to apply.
I asked ahead of time if someone had already been chosen for the job and was told no. The way it works in my place of employment, when a job becomes available, they usually already know who will be placed in the position but they have to post the job opening and interview people anyway to comply with hospital policy. Knowing this, I asked ahead of time if it was available and was told yes. I interviewed for the job 4 days ago. The supervisor who interviewed me told me she thought I was very qualified and would love to have me working for her and would let me know something in a week. The very next day, I found out that someone had already been hired for the position a month prior and is starting the job Monday. They were interviewing people simply to comply with hospital policy, even though the new employee had already been hired and told to start Monday morning. I'm quite angry about wasting my time preparing for an interview and waiting to hear if I had the job, when the supervisor interviewing me knew the entire time that the job was
already filled. Is this illegal? If not, do I have a valid complaint to make with a higher up? Any advice would be helpful. Thanks!

 

[Beth3]

No, this wasn't illegal. There are no laws that require an employer to even have a job posting policy or process. An employer is free to hire, fire, and promote whom they please as long as they don't base those decisions on prohibited factors (age, race, gender, religion, national origin, etc.) Nor is an employer legally bound to follow their own policies, provided their employee handbook/policy manual doesn't constitute an employment contract. (Which is very rare.)

Yes, you do have a legitimate basis for an internal complaint. What you and other employees ought to be complaining about is the hospial's dumb a** posting policy. Either they ought to truly start following their policy consistently and not selecting candidates until after a job has been posted and all candidates are given fair consideration, OR they need to change their policy so that it states the hospital reserves the right to promote qualfied candidates without posting every job.

Every posting policy I've ever written includes the latter option. Sometimes the ideal candidate for a job is apparent. Sometimes the employer has even been grooming someone for a particular job as part of a succession or strategic plan. Those are legitimate circumstances that are necessary for the smooth running of a business.

It is dumb, dumb, dumb for an employer to do what yours is doing - secretly have filled the job and then put empoyees through a fruitless exercise of applying and being interviewed for a job that is no longer available. It just ticks people off (for good reason) and sends the message that management can't be trusted. They say one thing and do another. Nothing is more damaging to employee relations that that.