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female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes: Please, more than two replies. Yes, I have asked for help about this situation before but I'm still confused about this and I have an update. I was offered a job with a department of a US military branch at a civilian career fair I attended on October 11, '07 at my country which is a US territory. I showed my resume at one of the Directors of Human Resources and he was immediately interested although they weren't looking to fill any human resources positions at the time. It was a spontaneous thing of him to make a verbal job offer. He told me if I was willing to relocate and start working with them ASAP and I told him yes. I believe it was like a graduate internship he offered me. Just what I wanted since I have a Master's but almost no exp. He immediately showed my resume to the human resources manager-who was a black woman by the way-and introduced me to her. She was also interested and showing great enthusiasm towards the possibility of me working with them. They were both very pleasant and friendly. The HR director was overwhelming me with a lot of information and almost didn't let me talk. He is like the hyperactive type. I was smiling and replying and asking some things but he was the one doing most of the talking.I've been unemployed for so long that it look like unreal to me. I was like this is too good to be true. He sat and started looking through some papers and then showed me a salary list and pointed at two sums of money and told me that was going to be my salary and I was pleasantly surprised. He also had a laptop and showed me the state map in which I was going to be living and working in. He also advised me about the good and the not so good places to live there. He was talking about the weather there and that he was very happy because I had a great GPA and how he trained new employees, etc. He even offered a relocation bonus and I was thrilled because I'm completely broke and very much indebted. They both kept saying they needed people like me there to work with them. The woman said to me they will be sending me a special job opening so only I would apply online. The director showed me the little star he had drawn in my resume like for him to remember I was a great candidate. All of this happened in like 10-15 minutes. I was overwhelmed by the information, emotion and by the surprise. Because I've been having a very lonely, sad, slow paced life for the last year and everything came so fast I didn't believe it. The HR director told me like a twenty times that the only thing he needed me to do was to send the copy of my resume to a specific email address he had underlined in a piece of paper. Also he had underlined for me the URL address of the department so I would check it out later on the web. He kept insisting I should go home to send the email to the address provided with my resume attached even when it was a Thursday afternoon and he wouldn't be back at his office until Monday. In one of those crazy moments he kept talking and made a small pause I pointed at the URL ADDRESS-instead of pointing at the email address-and asked him: "So this the address to which I'm supposed to send my resume to?" and he immediately scribbled on top of the star he had drawn in my resume. How immature! If you are still evaluating a candidate why in the hell do you make a job offer? It was a tiny worthless mistake because I wanted to say something because he didn't stop talking. After that I immediately corrected the mistake and pointed at the email address and when he scribbled my resume I laughed and he kind of laughed too and I tried to make an obvious joke saying that it was a second of confusion because of all the money he was talking about. After that he kind of calmed down and we spoke a few words with him and he told me again to go home and send my resume immediately. I asked him if he wanted to ask me something else and he said no. I said good bye to both of them and left because I've already gone to the other booths.The woman was talking to somebody else and as I said good bye she said she was eager to see me soon and that they needed people like me there.I got home, send the resume that same day and never heard about them anymore. I felt so insecure about so much rejection in my life I didn't want to contact them because I feared rejection. Anyway, I didn't have their phone number or emails. I had a generic HR email address so I addressed the email to the HR department. I did what he told me and specified I've met them at this particular career fair and what they had offered me and attached the resume.A month went by and two weeks ago to my surprise I received an email from the woman (HR Manager) with the information to apply to one of 2 specific positions. One of them was an engineering pos. and the other one had something to do with contracts. I thought the second one was the one I was supposed to apply to. The title didn't sound very much like HR to me but anyway, my major is in something that is related to HR but it's not HR exactly so I thought they had evaluated my qualifications and thought I was a good fit. I had trouble applying for the position so I called the help number they provided and the lady said that I was having trouble because the civilian career fair I was talking about was closed because they had already hired the people they needed. She tried to help me but didn't know the persons I was referring to. She told me I should talk to them directly. So I replied to the HR manager telling her who I was and how we have met, the things they had promised me last month and how happy I was for being able to become a part of their team. She replied quickly saying: "I'm sooo sorry. We sent that email to all the people who stopped by our booth at the civilian career fair. Feel free to email it to anyone who meets the requirements and might be interested" THE END She said nothing about the job offer and/or about me. Imagine how I felt. If they are so perfect they can't accept a tiny mistake from others Why didn't they said what every recruiter says when you hand them your resume: We'll keep your resume and call you if a position comes up. I would've preferred that. Why would they make a formal job offer if they were still evaluating me? Also, I just read verbal offers of employment are legally binding. Is there something I can do? Also I didn't included my last job experience of six months as a human resources official since the president of the small factory who was my boss is a crazy woman And she me she would not give any good references to any potential employer because I had resigned. She never gives good references of anybody, believe me. She inherited that president position because her husband died suddenly. She is very unfair and not prepared to lead that role. She has had problems with everybody who have worked with her. Do you think they found out from a background check I omitted that experience and rejected me because of that?
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reader, anonymous, writes (15 December 2007): I may know a little something about this. I am currently employed as a government worker. As we say, Civil Service Employee, GS postion. When HR do background checks, they will go back 10 years. They will also see if you have any criminals charges, etc. You should have put your recent employment down. There is a space for writing an explanation down. HR is suppose to be very precise about paperwork...or at least to say some.As far as verbal agreement, unfortunately, that's not binding. Unless the other person agrees, or someone witnesses the verbal agreement of employment, it's not binding. Nonetheless, government offers for employment, verbal agreement, is NEVER binding. Everything has to be done in writing. For someone to verbally give you a job offer is very unprofessional especially, any government jobs. It's unethical. What you can also do is go through the proper Chain of Command and explain to them your situation. Do you remember any of the names of whom you have spoken to? Go to their manager. If the manager doesn't seem helpful, go to the next person. Just like in the military. They also have a Chain of Command of their own.Good luck!
A
female
reader, pgissyd  +, writes (6 December 2007):
 Ok lets start at the end.
First and foremost, you should NEVER omit ANYTHING frome your resume, regardless of why you left the job. It always looks far worse than a poor reference.
Secondly, the reps at this fair could not have given you a job offer, regardless of how they made it sound, they are reps and some get paid by how many applicants apply rather than by the hours they work, like a commision thing.
Only the recrutments peoples can offer you jobs. The reps are there to promote the possitions available, the recrutments people offer jobs, I hope you see the difference there.
So you would have no grounds to sue them Im afraid.
The only thing I can really say on this, is you need to treat it as a learning curve, yes apply to as many positions relating to the jobs you want as you can. No dont get your hopes up at job fairs, but do still go, as there can be some amazing jobs on offer at them. Dont think that just because someone sounds enthusiastic, it means you have the job, it just means they are probably getting something out of it.
Dont be put off by this experiance, they were unfair to you, but that is how some people work. Like going to a market, seeing a gorgeous watch, the sellar says its worth £200, but he wants a quick sale and will sell for £50, you get home and its a cheep £5 knockoff. so you learn form it, you learn to look closer next time, you learn to listen and read between the lines.
You learn not to put all your eggs in one basket.
Go and find yourself an in-between job for now, it doesnt matter if your stacking shelves at a supermarket for a few months while you keep looking for the perfect job, as long as you are earning a steady wage and start getting yourself out of debt.
I hope that has helped you see this from a new prospective, Im sorry things didnt work for you this time, but keep trying and stay possitive.
Take care hun xxx
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