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Permalink Reply by John C. Turley on August 28, 2013 at 11:27am

I applied for this job and was extremely disappointed with their search process.  This is a small town school in rural Michigan with a parochial and insular Weltanschauung.  In other words, the school was not ready for a New York liberal firebrand such as yours truly!  The school has a long way to go to reach the heights of Creighton or other major Michigan universities and colleges

I was interviewed via a conference call by a committee of 4 Jackson College executives from 4 different departments.  The lead person informed me that I would report to him.  He was very specific in terms of his needs.  He stated that the college wanted an experienced ADR specialist with corporate and real world business experience.  I was told that I fit the bill in terms of the type of person that they were looking to hire since the college was growing.  This was encouraging since Jackson College is making the transition from a JCC to a 4 year college.  My value was my Creighton University ADR MS combined with many years of corporate experience and liaisons to the business community.  At the time, these were important assets to the hiring committee. 

After the telephone interview, there was total silence for several weeks. I sent emails and personal hand written notes to each committee member.  I called a number of times with no reply from JC.  HR followed through and informed me that a new search committee had been formed.  I spoke with the new committee which  included the head of diversity from the previous committee.  The revised interview questions were extremely vague and not as precise as the previous interview.  It appeared as if the questions were skewed toward an ideal committee candidate, but again very cloudy and not as specific as the previous set of questions.  I did not have a clear picture of what the search committee wanted.  Their criteria were hard to understand and to reply to accordingly.  I am not sure that the new committee could articulate their needs for the position.   

Again, I followed through with no feedback.  I finally spoke with the HR Manage who was the only college representative with any semblance of professionalism.  She informed me that I was no longer under consideration.  No further information was proffered.  In every instance, I followed through on my status with no feed back from JC.

I hope that I do not sound like sour grapes.  I was not impressed with JC's second approach although initially it seemed like they knew what they were doing.  There appeared to be an internal power struggle since the first go around boss was deposed by the College President's Chief of Staff.  Their previous ombudsperson was the volleyball coach with no formal AD training.

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Permalink Reply by Tom A. Kosakowski on August 28, 2013 at 12:45pm

Your experience sounds familiar.  I've endured similar treatment and so have others (though not related to this particular posting).  I sympathize and wish I had some advice.

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Permalink Reply by John C. Turley on August 29, 2013 at 2:38pm

Thanks Tom.  I approach these job opportunities with zest and thorough preparation.  This hiring team does not appear to appreciate all the preliminary work that goes into an interview plus the waiting and the follow through.  I heard about all of the candidates that the hiring committee qualified with such a burden to them.  Do they not want qualified, high caliber candidates or not?  I had to force the issue through my persistence to receive any form of feedback or status. Jackson's answer was so poorly constructed that I simply shook my head at the entire process.  The situation could have been handled properly, but now I have an averse opinion of Jackson College.

I perceived my follow through efforts as unwelcome.  Do they not want a thorough conscientious ombudsman to follow through on their case work?

There is no answer to this dilemma.  Schools like Jackson College will continue to hire mediocre talent and act unprofessionally based on their myopic self interests. I am motivated to spend way too much time reporting on my bad experience with Jackson thanks to their bad behavior.  Do they really want this to happen?  If not, then employers like Jackson College can avoid this backlash by respecting the candidates that apply for jobs with dignity, especially considering the ombudsman position and our profession. I can accept rejection provided that it is done properly.  Now, I have reported this experience to an international forum of ADR specialists via the ADRHub.  Bad news travels fast! 

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