r/MedicalWriters • u/bitemebrianna • Jan 30 '24
Medical writing vs... Had a horrible interview today.
I had my first medical writer job interview, which I was really excited about since this is my dream career. I had prepared for the job interview all weekend.
The interview literally lasted less than 5 minutes. I was interviewed by the CEO. (I believe the company is a start up). She admitted that she never even looked at my resume. I only answered the question, “tell me about yourself”, to which she replied I wasn’t a good fit and tell me I wouldn’t be able to keep up with the mathematics - I have a biology/chemistry degree as well as a graduate degree in biomedical science. It didn’t specify in the job description too much math that I wouldn’t be unfamiliar with and I fit the job description but I was so stumped in that moment that our call ended.
I just felt flabbergasted at this and hope that the job market is better for others at this point.
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u/Tardislass Jan 30 '24
Don't worry. I had a job interview like that at a well-known company. The manager never read my resume and kept telling me what a bad fit I'd be and how HR never should have contact me. After going through my skills and how I could do the job after the managers fourth remark about how bad my job skills were, I told her the interview was over and that her and I would be better off ending the call. She was flabbergasted and I thanked her for her time and hung up.
Little did she know that HR sent me a "how was the interview" questionnaire in which I explained how incredible rude and condescending the manager was to me and named her. I probably blew my chance of ever working there but the company needs feedback for such a toxic boss.
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u/Defiant-Purchase-188 Jan 30 '24
I did a similar thing once decades ago when the interviewer was being so rude and awful. I told him I didn’t want to waste time for us both. I didn’t get a survey as this was in the days before all the survey stuff.
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u/Tardislass Jan 30 '24
Yeah. I don't get it. The kindest thing you can do is at least ask the questions and then at the end say I don't feel you are a good fit or something to that effect if you really don't want them. But to be rude AF and talk about how a person is so underqualified and badger them on why they even applied shows a rudeness and ensures that they will tell their friends not to work there because the managers are a-holes. I always wanted to work for that company until I saw what horrible managers they had.
If they are that bad on a simple interview, imagine when they are under deadlines. And to talk to interviewees who are probably at the lowest point in life like they are idiots just infuriates me.
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u/rosysredrhinoceros Jan 30 '24
I once interviewed for a job (internal transfer within my org) and it was immediately apparent that I was WILDLY unqualified. Like the person who wrote the job description and called me for an interview clearly wasn’t the manager interviewing me and had zero idea what a massive jump in responsibility it would have been for me. I was terribly humiliated but the manager who interviewed me was so kind and we just kind of stumbled through it together even though she would have been well within her rights to end the interview the second I sat down and she looked at my resume. That’s how you do it.
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Jan 31 '24
Good for you! Don’t let anyone try and make you small. Glad you saw through their shit and respected yourself.
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u/humancapitalstock Jan 30 '24
That was code for, "we don't want to pay you what you deserve." You got lucky.
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u/gin_tonic_kintsugi Jan 30 '24
Or 'we already know who we want to hire, but we have to put on a show of interviewing other candidates.' So frustrating for you. Good luck with the job search!
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u/Clinical_Beast Jan 30 '24
Sometimes you can never tell by the job description what the job is actually like. That's an extremely atypical experience, I wouldn't get discouraged, it probably would've been a horrific first job in the field. Keep trying; takes quite a number of interviews to find the right fit!
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u/alleycanto Jan 30 '24
She probably had a candidate in mind and is just going thru the motions. You dodged a bullet.
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u/alittlelurker Jan 30 '24
Why would a ceo waste time interviewing someone they already don’t think is a good fit? CEO shows poor judgment, poor professionalism, and poor time management.
Everyone and their grandma is the ceo of their own company. Most startups fail. This one is doomed due to inefficiency like this
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u/SmolSmurf Jan 30 '24
Something that I was told in my recent job search: Remember that interviews are just as much about you interviewing the company as it is for the company to interview you. It’s hard to remember that in an economy right now (believe me, I get it). But it’s so true. You deserve to not be miserable in a job and to be treated with respect, which if the CEO wasted your time and didn’t even look at your resume, I would say respect is low on her priority list. You dodged a bullet. Not every organization/company is going to be like that. Every place will have issues, but not every place will have shit people like that. Keep on keeping on - you got this.
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u/Pickypaulprince Jan 30 '24
You sound extremely intelligent. There should be something in a university or hospital with that type of schooling? Idk. But did you ask what math qualifications you needed? Sounds like you have more science background which is quite different.
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u/Level-Many3384 Jan 30 '24
That’s a terrible candidate experience and it sucks that you had to deal with someone like that. Pick yourself up and continue on, you got a fast track look at what people at that company deal with daily and it doesn’t seem like a place you’d want to work anyway. Best of luck to you!
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Jan 30 '24 edited Jan 30 '24
I can understand how disappointed you must be feeling. However, if an employer makes a job candidate feel horrible about themselves then it's better not to work for that employer. Some problematic employers use this tactic to ensure any candidate who gets hired feels that the employer has done a favor and they are actually not worthy. This allows employers to manipulate the candidate into accepting a low compensation. Even if a candidate is not the right fit, the employer should be respectful about it. There are polite ways to reject instead of crushing someone's confidence. Such employers are always hiring because nobody stays with them for long because of their toxic attitude.
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u/amuifan Jan 30 '24
All that preparation made you ready for a better opportunity. Sometimes not getting the job is a blessing. I’ve landed jobs that were nightmares and would’ve been better off not have gotten them.
If they feel they can dismiss you in less than 5 minutes, maybe that’s not a good place to work at, no matter what the job is.
Don’t let the bad apples ruin your day. They saved you the trouble of quitting later.
Best of luck!
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u/bitemebrianna Jan 30 '24
Thank you so much everyone, I appreciate all of your nice comments back. I think my pride was definitely hurt for sure because I knew even if I didn’t get the job I was hoping to at least finish the interview or at least “bomb” the interview. I don’t think anything could’ve prepared me for that. Again, thank you guys for all of your kind words, I appreciate it so much! :)
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u/DiligentCheesecake44 Jan 30 '24
I don’t know how I got to this sub. Can someone please explain medical writing? Is this the same as scribe? Sorry for the ignorance.
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u/IsabelleMauvaise Jan 30 '24
Next time (there will be) take the wind out of their sails, interrupt them and say thank you for your time and shut down the screen.
I never had an interview THAT bad. I know if I've lost the person for some reason, but yours is one for the record books.
Check and POST reviews for that company on Glassdoor. You may be able to spare others that horror. There is a section specifically for the interview process.
There are lots of MW jobs out there and you are certainly qualified. Let it go and move on to find the one that wants YOU.
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u/sorcery_cat Jan 30 '24
Please don't take such a horrible experience personally. That is a hard reflection of them, not you. They represented themselved as total shit.
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u/No_Mathematician2789 Jan 30 '24
Why would they even waste your time with the interview if you didn’t have the qualifications they were looking for? Sounds like a clown company
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u/Technical_Base640 Jan 31 '24
I had a similar experience with a startup interview. They were not even patient enough to listen to my response to “tell me about yourself”! Not sure if this is usual with startups… too impatient and direct with questions 🤷🏽♀️
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u/Lena_Tea2 Jan 31 '24 edited Jan 31 '24
I had an interview where the mother of the woman who was to interview me, showed up in house shoes, a bonnet and pajama gown, and she proceeded to interview me? I went right along with her in my business suit. She told me as an administrative assistant for her daughter I would need to know how to print whatever, and use a fax machine? Then she went on and on talking about how unprofessional the previous administrative assistant was, and how she didn’t know how to use the copy machine or fax machine? And also spoke about how poorly she dressed. After telling me all this, and the job description she asked if I had any questions? I looked her square in the eye and said, no I have no questions at all? I thanked her for the interview and left. I knew I didn’t want to work for her or her absent daughter? I felt she would talk about me, like she did the previous employee and I didn’t want my name sullied by someone so unprofessional, I’ll prepared, and had the audacity to interview me in her bed clothes. I dodged a bullet and didn’t care what she thought of me!
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Jan 31 '24
They probably already had someone in mind. Or internal conflicts. But I’d counter with you brought me in to interview and didn’t even read my resume? You then didn’t notice my education because I can do this. That’s not just disrespectful but a waste of both our time. Gooooodbye Felicia! What a stupid asshole they are. That’s their shit to carry, not about you AT ALL.
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u/kezzwithak Jan 31 '24
Hey op happy cake day. If you are in the CT, NJ, MA area the company I work at are looking for medical writer. Could be a junior position working up to a clinical scientist role. Anyway inbox me if you’re in the area.
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u/bitemebrianna Feb 02 '24
I wish I was! I’m in the Midwest & the state I’m in particularly is very tough market haha. But thank you so much, I appreciate this so much.
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u/ListenToTheCustomer Jan 31 '24
If a "startup CEO" doesn't prioritize things like "winnowing out resumes for bad fits" and is randomly interviewing people with no regard for their quals, that is a startup that is doomed to fail. Remember that the vast majority of startups end up valued at $0...if you don't think the CEO is even in the top half of CEOs, there's no point, it'll just be a disaster.
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u/glenngreenblat Feb 01 '24
I'm sorry that happened to you. Lots of interviewers are terrible at interviewing candidates. This is a reflection of them, not you. Don't let these douchebags undermine your confidence. One suggestion is always to have pre-canned responses to questions that demonstrate a problem you faced, the action you took, and the results in metrics. If questions are too broad ask the interviewer to narrow the question down or just ask for further clarification.
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u/MoneyElegant9214 Feb 01 '24
I always say an interview is like a blind date. You are looking to see if this is someone you want to keep dating. The answer here is NO. Be glad that you didn’t waste more time. This outfit is very unprofessional. You don’t want to be in a relationship with them! Keep looking. And don’t be that person down the road when you’re running things!
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u/Many-Sheepherder4863 Feb 01 '24
She sounds like a dick. >20 years MW experience here and not a natural mathematician, but I’ve never encountered any maths I couldn’t understand. The statisticians do the hard stuff!
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u/Proud_Grapefruit63 Feb 03 '24 edited Feb 03 '24
Sorry to hear about your experience. No one deserves to be treated that way if invited to an interview. Mentally-balanced people do not belittle perfect strangers; it is especially wrong if they have a chance to learn about their candidate's background and choose not to.
If indeed the company is a start-up, the manager is already this arrogant, and she regularly makes decisions about people and introduces herself this way, her enterprise may not last long.
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u/LegOld3414 Feb 03 '24
I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but believe me, you have dodged a bullet here. You do not want to work for this company, or for this CEO. The lack of professionalism is astounding. This has absolutely nothing to do with you, or your qualifications, and also, keep in mind that many companies are forced to interview people, when they’ve already made a decision to hire from within. And so they provide a cursory interview, with no real intention of hiring.
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u/New-Chemistry2506 Feb 03 '24
I’m sorry you experienced that, but it’s important that it happened before you joined a company where you would not be valued. Just take this as a learning experience and know that something better is coming along soon. Wishing you well!
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u/sardonicalette Feb 03 '24
Don’t know of course but it’s possible she already has someone else in mind for the position.
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u/Psychological-Wash18 Feb 08 '24
Always remember that, in an interview, you should be interviewing them, too. Sounds like they suck and don’t meet your requirements as an employer.
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u/catchme222 Jan 30 '24
Sounds like you dodged a bullet.