Photo: TikTok
She even personally knew one of the people from working with them at a previous job.
By Ethan Cotler — Written on Apr 21, 2023
Typically, being a good fit for a job means your credentials match the employer’s requirements. For instance, your college degree or prior work experience can significantly influence your chances of employment. But sometimes, job recruiters can be more superficial when they hire candidates. One woman got a peak inside that process and saw more than she was supposed to.
The recruiter accidentally sent her 'judgmental' notes about other job applicants.
A woman, who posts to TikTok under the username @melchantl, shared an awkward mistake a job recruiter made when she was in the midst of job hunting. She wrote on top of the video that the recruiter sent her a job description but accidentally left notes on it.
They were details about six other candidates applying for the same position. Instead of assessing their credentials, they were critiquing the individual. She found it “super judgmental and irrelevant to the role.”
Using LinkedIn, she found all the people the recruiter harshly critiqued. Unsure of how she should move forward, she asked the TikTok community whether she should share the comments with the candidates or stay out of the situation altogether.
People in the comments overwhelmingly supported her sharing the notes with the candidates. Some people were recruiters themselves and took issue with the unprofessionalism.
“As a former recruiter, [you should contact the candidates]. If that company isn’t teaching its recruiters to be unbiased & kind, who knows what the rest of their culture is like!” one person wrote.
“As a recruiter myself, that’s SOOO lazy of them and they deserve whatever comes back to them due to their negligence,” another added.
In a follow-up video, she described the comments that the job recruiter recorded.
She prefaced the video that she had uploaded a now-deleted prior where she revealed screenshots of the comments, but TikTok took it down for violating candidates’ privacy. So, in this video, she quoted specific phrases that the job recruiter used without giving away the full review. Shockingly she even knew one of the candidates personally because she had worked with them.
“I know [him] because I have the first name as well as two of the companies [they worked at],” she said.
One of the candidates she believed was a good fit for the company based on their LinkedIn, but the recruiter described them as “lacking energy.” And in a more scathing review of another person, the recruiter, in addition to labeling them as “low energy,” found that they were “quite boring,” “monotone” and “very Made In Chelsea”—which is a British reality show following young, wealthy socialites in London.
“Why would you write that to pass that information to the hiring manager?” she said. “It’s just not relevant.”
She again asks at the end of the video if she should send these notes to the candidates. Though, support in the comments changed their tune to side with the job recruiter. Many people believed the notes were valid critiques that should affect someone’s chances of employment. One person claimed to be an HR manager and sided with the job recruiter.
“These type of comments occur all the time after interviews. Monotone and lack of energy can absolutely be relevant to a job,” they wrote.
Some people expected the notes to be harsher than they were.
“If these are the meanest things people ever said about me, I’d be thrilled. I was expecting awful stuff,” one person commented.
“I thought there [were] going to be comments on their appearance or whatnot. Their energy and tone can be applicable depending on the position,” another added.
So, were the job recruiter’s comments too harsh or not? Well, it’s up to the individual to decide for themselves. However, a CNBC article writes that “low energy” is the number one thing people can have that impacts their potential for getting hired. People should avoid “slumped shoulders” and “lack of eye contact” when interviewing for a job. It’s important to present your most confident self!
Ethan Cotler is a writer living in Boston. He writes on entertainment and news.