I had two interviews. The first was over the telephone and went great. I was immediately scheduled for the second stage. That one was over Zoom. The person interviewing me was 8 minutes late joining the call, which made me start to wonder if I had the date or time wrong. When he did join, he offered no apologies for being late, which struck me as odd. He also seemed very disengaged, and the interview which was supposed to take about an hour ended in less than a half hour. I was informed two days later that I would not be progressing through the hiring process.
While I understand competition for jobs such as the one I applied for can be fierce, it seemed very odd to me that I wasn’t at least given the opportunity to advance to the next stage. My experience and skills listed on my resume and confirmed by the 3 references I was required to provide clearly checked all the boxes as far as requirements for the position. And although I realize this is subjective, I felt that I answered every question in a manner that clearly demonstrated I was more than qualified.
I don’t believe it’s a stretch to suspect I may have been the victim of age discrimination. I’m sure it was abundantly obvious to the person interviewing me that I am clearly over 40. He appeared much younger than me and in looking at photos of staff on a business social networking site for the company, the vast majority of the employees appeared to be in the 20s to 30s age range. In addition, I got the sense that the person interviewing me had his mind made up before even asking me the first question.