When we first met, there was so much promise. You said I had everything you were looking for, and I saw the same in you. Our past experiences seemed to have woven themselves together into a red carpet that led you straight to me. It only took our meeting a few times to know it was meant to be, and we set the date for just a few short weeks into the future. But just a few days before the Big Day, you changed your mind. You decided not to take the job, even though you had already accepted it.
I wish I could say you were the first one, but unfortunately that’s not so. I’ve encountered a few others like you in the past, who made their way to the top of the list through a series of competitive interviews and lunchtime conversations about “fit”. We made the job offer, set a start date, talked about the future, and let the whole team know about them and how their professional experience would round out our skill set and make us all better. And then the phone call comes to say that she’s changed her mind, or he’s gotten a better offer from his present employer, or she just flat out has cold feet and can’t make the jump. While these are all heart-breakers, some are worse than others: Once, I worked with a new manager for an entire week, only to have him leave a note in the staff lounge to announce his resignation. Turned out he hadn’t actually resigned from his prior agency – he’d taken a week of vacation to give my agency a test run. True story.
An Open Letter to My (Almost) Colleague
Here’s the problem. First of all, we have spent a significant amount of time and yes even money to get to the point of making you a job offer. In most public agencies, it isn’t a foregone conclusion that a given vacancy will be filled at all; if we are making the effort to recruit and select carefully, it’s because this position is mission critical. If you weren’t sure you were ready to move, or if our agency was the best place for you to work, you shouldn’t have let your application get this far along in our process. Withdrawing after the first interview would have been fine, but at this late in the game it was just unprofessional and some would say unethical. Frankly, after the shock wore off, we’re left feeling like perhaps we dodged a bullet. That may be good for us, but it’s not good for your professional reputation in a government world that is very small indeed.
So, we’re both moving on. I hope you’ve grown through this and will make better decisions in the future. As for me, I’ll keep looking for the right one, but maybe a little wary until he actually arrives on that first day.
