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Weird experience at Columbia interviewing for an ER radiology spot
Had kind of an odd experience interviewing for a faculty position in the ER division at Columbia recently. Because it was for a tele spot, the interviews were all over Zoom.
They put me through about 2 hours of interviews including with the chair of the department, body section chief, etc. but then when it was time for the last interview with the head of the ER radiology division (ie. the person making the actual decision), she didn’t show up. When I e-mailed later to follow up she just ghosted me.
Is this normal in the job hunt? It seems like a lot of places are aggressively looking but is it normal to get nexted so abruptly? I don’t have any red flags in my history and the interviews up to that point seemed to have gone well. Just wanted to see if any of you had similar experiences. Job market feels a little like Tinder as of late. -
42 Replies
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Contact the HR folks you have been dealing with. It wouldn’t be unusual for an academic place that left hand doesn’t know what right hand does. Email sent to some internal college address that nobody uses etc.
But then there is also the chance that she doesn’t want you 😉
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The most likely scenario is simple lack of organization
The person who scheduled the interview didnt remind the ED section chief (But you accepted the outlook invite 3 months ago!) or the ED chief just got off a week of nights and screwed it.
We try to always have a secretary on the zoom calls all the way the way through managing the break out rooms and, yes, if necessary, paging rads who forget to show up.
I wouldnt read much into it. Reach out to whoever the recruitment coordinator is and let them know. Probably a simple error and probably they will be eager to correct it.
Alternatively, there could be a section head who is incompetent/inattentive/ poor manager. Again, contact the secretary/coordinator… probably a better response rate. Don’t be afraid to call.-
clearly it was an oversite. no on is crazy enough to purposely bail on an interview.
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Worked at Columbia for several years.99% chance someone forgot they were supposed to interview you / someone in HR screwed something up.
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Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
(Napoleon Bonaparte)
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Its a two way interview, and it seems they failed.
Zoom interview, so perfunctory. So unsatisfactory for any meaningful interaction.
I guess if they are just looking for a teleradiology body, what does it matter? Ghosted for a ghost position.
Incompetence vs malice; what great options!-
Its been shown in lay literature that interviews are rarely helpful in hiring good employees.
Its education, work history and most importantly references. Call as many as you can. Good references are gold.
So a zoom call is worthless, other than informational.
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I e-mailed the recruitment coordinator who told me she contacted the interviewer directly on her cell and didn’t get a response. I also e-mailed the interviewer directly myself. This was about a week ago, no one has followed up since.
I think boomer you’re right — either they’re very disorganized or the head just didn’t even care enough to let me know she wasn’t interested. Red flag either way.
Onwards and upwards.-
Quote from white_epidermoid
I e-mailed the recruitment coordinator who told me she contacted the interviewer directly on her cell and didn’t get a response. I also e-mailed the interviewer directly myself. This was about a week ago, no one has followed up since.
I think boomer you’re right — either they’re very disorganized or the head just didn’t even care enough to let me know she wasn’t interested. Red flag either way.
Onwards and upwards.
At that point there is something else going on. Maybe the interviewer is sick or having major family issues. Not sure why you still think it’s possible that the head of Columbia ER Radiology would purposefully ghost you at a formal interview out of spite.
Do you have delusions of persecution elsewhere in your life?-
Zero follow up from anyone (secretary, chair, anyone) is either sloppy or malice. If you can’t do the math on that I don’t know what to tell you.
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Quote from white_epidermoid
Zero follow up from anyone (secretary, chair, anyone) is either sloppy or malice. If you can’t do the math on that I don’t know what to tell you.
Any of us who have worked within a large organization understand that this may just be the result of some internal friction loss inherent in the process. If you can’t deal with some uncertainty and administrative tedium, university employment may not be your thing.
If you are interested, email the chair and let him know that you are interested but that there is no follow-through from the division chief. -
Quote from fw
Any of us who have worked within a large organization understand that this may just be the result of some internal friction loss inherent in the process.
Soooo I took your advice and e-mailed the chair. He sent me back an e-mail saying they were no longer interested because I wasn’t living in New York City locally (which they didn’t state on the the actual job application criteria). Wish they had said this ahead of time or even after my initial application — would have saved myself 2 hours of unnecessary Zoom time.
I’ve worked in large academic institutions in the past, both elite and mid tier, and yes sure there can be misscheduling but I haven’t seen “internal friction loss” preventing someone from responding to a direct e-mail. As the chair’s response indicates, the section chief just lost interest and didn’t feel the need to tell me.
Not the most cordial but thank god I didn’t fly out there in person.
Let’s take it easy with the gaslighting. -
It smells like they plan on axing WFM when the job market is more favorable to them.
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Sounds like they are disorganized, incompetent and too lazy to even post basic details in the job posting such as ‘required to live in NYC’…and as a result, wasted everyone’s time! I’d say you dodged a bullet!
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They probably wanted you local in case pacs goes down or internet is out so you could drive in and cover in-house. But still, Not a cool way for them to handle it…even if they are “Columbia.”
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Quote from white_epidermoid
Quote from fw
Any of us who have worked within a large organization understand that this may just be the result of some internal friction loss inherent in the process.
Soooo I took your advice and e-mailed the chair. He sent me back an e-mail saying they were no longer interested because I wasn’t living in New York City locally (which they didn’t state on the the actual job application criteria). Wish they had said this ahead of time or even after my initial application — would have saved myself 2 hours of unnecessary Zoom time.
I’ve worked in large academic institutions in the past, both elite and mid tier, and yes sure there can be misscheduling but I haven’t seen “internal friction loss” preventing someone from responding to a direct e-mail. As the chair’s response indicates, the section chief just lost interest and didn’t feel the need to tell me.
Not the most cordial but thank god I didn’t fly out there in person.
Let’s take it easy with the gaslighting.
They advertised for a telerad spot then didn’t want to hire you because you don’t live in NYC?! -
Quote from RadCog
They advertised for a telerad spot then didn’t want to hire you because you don’t live in NYC?!
Well that’s NYC for you. If you dont live on the island, you might as well not exist.
Sure sounds like they want the option to call you in to cover in-house if need be. As to why this wasn’t stated in the original ad, that is often enough the result of a low level drone in University HR ‘improving’ the ad provided by the department. We just had an interesting comedy of errors on the hospital side that got kicked off by exactly that.
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Quote from white_epidermoid
Soooo I took your advice and e-mailed the chair. He sent me back an e-mail saying they were no longer interested because I wasn’t living in New York City locally (which they didn’t state on the the actual job application criteria). Wish they had said this ahead of time or even after my initial application — would have saved myself 2 hours of unnecessary Zoom time.
I’ve worked in large academic institutions in the past, both elite and mid tier, and yes sure there can be misscheduling but I haven’t seen “internal friction loss” preventing someone from responding to a direct e-mail. As the chair’s response indicates, the section chief just lost interest and didn’t feel the need to tell me.
Not the most cordial but thank god I didn’t fly out there in person.
Let’s take it easy with the gaslighting.
The other possibility is that they don’t want you because you were perceived as a condescending d1ck and the section chief didn’t want to waste any more time on you.
Gaslighting, lol. -
Quote from fw
The other possibility is that they don’t want you because you were perceived as a condescending d1ck and the section chief didn’t want to waste any more time on you.
Annnnd he doubles down when he’s found out to be wrong. Can only imagine what happens when you screw up on patients. -
Quote from white_epidermoid
Annnnd he doubles down when he’s found out to be wrong. Can only imagine what happens when you screw up on patients.
I can only go by what you have revealed about yourself in your grand total of 8 posts here. Based on that sample, it is my opinion that someone could easily perceive you as a thin skinned condescending d1ck. But that’s just my opinion, so there is no objective right or wrong unless someone from columbia hops on here to fill us in.
Good luck in your future endeavours ! -
Quote from fw
I can only go by what you have revealed about yourself in your grand total of 8 posts here. Based on that sample, it is my opinion that someone could easily perceive you as a thin skinned condescending d1ck.
Take a good long look in the mirror my friend. -
They didn’t show up for the interview and then didn’t respond to your req. What an arrogant department. Good riddance.
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I’m glad you shared this interview experience here.
They have a right to use any criteria they wish, but it is poor form and dishonorable to have scheduled an interview and then skip it without telling you because they realized they were no longer interested. You learn a great deal about a person in the way they behave in small things. Personally, I wouldn’t want to work under the leadership of someone like that.
“But in the end, the details of a matter are important.
The right and wrong of one’s way of
doing things are found in trivial matters.”
Tsunetomo Yamamoto, from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai
*an extension of the above is that you can learn a great deal about someone from the way they behave when no one is looking; or when their words on an anonymous forum are not attached to their name; or how they treat someone who they have power over and who have no recourse against them. In current times, we are told that there is no right and wrong, that there is no honorable or dishonorable, that money is success and elevates one’s status regardless of one’s character. This goes contrary to all world traditions, cultures and religions, and should be resisted.
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Well said, Flounce.
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You learn a great deal about a person in the way they behave in small things.
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Absolutely!
Interviewed a well qualified job candidate who our assistant didn’t like, and I trust her judgement. Then we went to lunch, and he treated the waiter poorly. It jumped out at me.
People fought to hire him; but I fought not to hire. Had to really push. I was surprised how many colleagues ignored what to me was an obvious issue. Their elitism was not only bothersome personally, but poor judgement overall IMO. We all deal with a lot of people from different classes, professionally and clinically. If a candidate can’t hold it together for an interview, they will be a catastrophe with patients, techs, nurses etc.
Will never know how he would have turned out, because we didn’t offer him the job, but I am confident he would have run into trouble.This is a scenario where the interview process was helpful. Most can hold it together enough to fake it, if they can’t, a real potential problem.
As an aside, my father, a successful person I would say, was addressing an elderly gas station attendant [when they existed] with great respect calling him sir, thanking him etc in front of my girlfriend at the time. She was so impressed with his honorable behavior it has stuck with me all this time.
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Quote from boomer
…..
People fought to hire him; but I fought not to hire. Had to really push. I was surprised how many colleagues ignored what to me was an obvious issue. Their elitism was not only bothersome personally, but poor judgement overall IMO. We all deal with a lot of people from different classes, professionally and clinically. If a candidate can’t hold it together for an interview, they will be a catastrophe with patients, techs, nurses etc.
…..[edited]
After I’d been in practice for about 5 years and saw the results of hiring a candidate similar to what’s described above, I did a major shift in what I looked for during an interview (this was back in the day when we could actually recruit).
Up to that point, I’d been concerned with the ‘objective’ information about a potential hire; where they trained, their subspecialty, academic honors, etc. From then on, I ignored all of that and paid very close attention to two things: First, what was my impression of the person in the first 5 minutes of meeting them? If negative, immediate fail (even if positive, experience showed it was basically a coin flip as to whether they’d work out). Second, I’d ask myself “Would I want to follow this person on a weekend call shift?” Was surprising (to me at least) that the further along in my career I got, objective assessments of colleagues became almost meaningless and subjective impressions became paramount.
OP’s experience reminds me of some advice/observation I picked up along the way regarding dating: “If you find yourself wondering if she’s into you…. she isn’t.”
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Quote from Dr. Joseph Mama
OP’s experience reminds me of some advice/observation I picked up along the way regarding dating: “If you find yourself wondering if she’s into you…. she isn’t.”
Well sure, if I had a date scheduled with someone and they stood me up I think it would be safe to assume things wouldn’t work out. Wasn’t really wondering about that part. [:)] Just thought it was incredibly bizarre behavior on their part to just not show up without any explanation or follow up.
On the other hand it’s not like the job market is anything but a buyer’s market right now so I’m not too hard up, and I’ve already been with a group that I like for a number of years so, you know.. no biggie.
Maybe groups act differently in academics than private practice or, more likely from the dm’s I’ve gotten in response to this thread, the department has a toxic internal environment.
Oh well, all’s fair in love and war. -
You are better off without them. Sounds like not a group to work for.
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Quote from white_epidermoid
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Maybe groups act differently in academics than private practice or, more likely from the dm’s I’ve gotten in response to this thread, the department has a toxic internal environment.
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[b]Sayre’s law[/b] states, in a formulation quoted by [link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Issawi]Charles Philip Issawi[/link]: [b]”In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake.”[/b] By way of corollary, it adds: [b]”That is why academic politics are so bitter.”[/b] Sayre’s law is named after [link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_S._Sayre]Wallace Stanley Sayre[/link] (19051972), U.S. [link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_scientist]political scientist[/link] and professor at [link=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University]Columbia University[/link].
[from Wikipedia; emphasis added]
Hadn’t realized that Sayre was at…. Columbia! LOL
Yeah, academics very different mindset than PP. PP mostly money and/or lifestyle, with money usually paramount. Academics all about prestige, which usually boils down to “What do other academics think of me?” Additionally, the people drawn to academics tend to be misfits. A lot of them think they’re geniuses, but there’s a lingering doubt in their mind, making them extremely insecure, such that arguments become about nonsense like “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” and it becomes [i]very important[/i] to win the debate. Another example of controversy in academics is where and how big your office is. So with so much of their headspace taken up by such weighty matters, it’s not surprising you get blown off for an interview.
Previous posts spot on: You dodged a bullet. To carry on with the dating analogy, for the first year or so you’re not dating the person, you’re dating the ambassador of the person. So if the ambassador can’t make a good impression…..
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Been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. Move on young Jedi.
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If the arrogant jerks wouldn’t treat you as valuable on the day you interviewed, understand that it doesn’t get better when they hire you (if they hire you). Believe your eyes. People should be on best behavior on formal interviews.
Run the opposite way of Columbia -
Quote from Flounce
an extension of the above is that you can learn a great deal about someone from the way they behave when no one is looking; or when their words on an anonymous forum are not attached to their name
Well on that basis we are fortunate to have you on the forum. It’s interesting how one can see the truth of a situation in its smaller moments.
Incidentally, the comment about “thin skinned d1ck” from that other angry poster sounds like a painful type of psoriasis. That was unneccessary and weird. Such extremes of personality on AM.
But OP again, based on personal experience I can tell you that you’re really lucky to have dodged that bullet. Things would have gotten worse once you joined. -
Quote from white_epidermoid
Quote from fw
Any of us who have worked within a large organization understand that this may just be the result of some internal friction loss inherent in the process.
Soooo I took your advice and e-mailed the chair. He sent me back an e-mail saying they were no longer interested because I wasn’t living in New York City locally (which they didn’t state on the the actual job application criteria). Wish they had said this ahead of time or even after my initial application — would have saved myself 2 hours of unnecessary Zoom time.
I’ve worked in large academic institutions in the past, both elite and mid tier, and yes sure there can be misscheduling but I haven’t seen “internal friction loss” preventing someone from responding to a direct e-mail. As the chair’s response indicates, the section chief just lost interest and didn’t feel the need to tell me.
Not the most cordial but thank god I didn’t fly out there in person.
Let’s take it easy with the gaslighting.
Yeah – you want to go to a place in which they really want you and at least go to the extent of common courtesy.Good riddance. You do not want to be there.
And BTW- Now – for their trouble, we now all know that Columbia is a place to avoid at all costs.
there are costs to such behavior.
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Columbia is a disaster since their recent chair change. Several people have left recently. Stay away.
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Quote from nighthawker
Columbia is a disaster since their recent chair change. Several people have left recently. Stay away.
What did the new chair do to piss of the people?
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Seems like an unusually high percentage of asst prof worker bees
[link=https://www.columbiaradiology.org/our-faculty]https://www.columbiaradiology.org/our-faculty[/link] -
Not sure about all the details, but renegging on details of recent hires, making people work extra days, that kind of stuff that I’ve heard through the grapevine.
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It sounds like OP got his answer. Good use of AM, OP
Move on. -
DreamRun – what is your dream?
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Quote from white_epidermoid
Had kind of an odd experience interviewing for a faculty position in the ER division at Columbia recently. Because it was for a tele spot, the interviews were all over Zoom.
They put me through about 2 hours of interviews including with the chair of the department, body section chief, etc. but then when it was time for the last interview with the head of the ER radiology division (ie. the person making the actual decision), she didn’t show up. When I e-mailed later to follow up she just ghosted me.
Is this normal in the job hunt? It seems like a lot of places are aggressively looking but is it normal to get nexted so abruptly? I don’t have any red flags in my history and the interviews up to that point seemed to have gone well. Just wanted to see if any of you had similar experiences. Job market feels a little like Tinder as of late.
In this market, you have endless number of options especially if you are willing to cover ER. Don’t even waste 1 minute of your life thinking about it. They are bunch of losers who have the delusion that everyone is dying to join their “prestigious academic center”.
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Consider it a blessing in disguise. Have not heard great things about about working in the ED section there. Granted it was a few years ago. Better options if looking in Manhattan.
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I’m surprised someone from Columbia has not shown up with an excuse, explanation and/or apology.
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