A Verizon recruiter reached out to me after seeing my resume. She said that my experience would be a great fit for the position, and we set up a phone interview.
The phone interview was pretty standard, and very comfortable conversation. She asked a lot of questions about my experience, asked situational questions, and questions about the CREDO. At the end of the call, she told me how fantastic she thought I would be for the position, and proceeded to go over next steps. She said I would interview with the Store Manager, and gave me information on the type of questions they would ask me, one of which being a role-playing situation. We spent almost an hour and a half talking and going over everything.
The next day, I received a very garbled call from the Store Manager. I was able to make out first name, but nothing else. I returned her call and left her a list of three days (full complete days, not an hour here or an hour there) that I was available for an interview over the next week. When she returned my call, that's when things went sour. Apparently she took the fact that I work from home now to mean "I watch TV all day" and she proceeded to pester me about coming in that day for the interview. Now at this point, I had told her that I was in the middle of working, and would not be done until after she had left. I again tried to emphasize the days I had made available, but she seemed irritated that I was not just skipping a day of work to come in that day. After a uncomfortable phone conversation, I finally agreed to skip a day of pay to go in.
When I arrived at the store, I was greeted by a very unhappy looking woman with a flat and short "Welcome to Verizon". Ok... not a great first impression. I told her my name, and who I was here to see, and instantly her demeanor turned sour. "You can't just show up without an appointment, you need one to see them" she said to me. I informed her that I did have an appointment, but I was there a little bit early and would look around. For the next 25 minutes (the interview started late of course) I was stared at, and seemingly whispered about, by the girl and her coworkers. Not one person said hello to me, asked me if I needed help... Nothing. They all just glared at me, as I sat there waiting.
Finally, two women came out of the back and got me for the interview. Neither one was very friendly, but as I was excited about the potential at this point, I tried not to let it get to me. We went into the back, and proceeded with the most bizarre interview of my life. I will start by saying that I am assuming at this point that both girls had decided they did not want to hire me before the even met me. I'm not sure if they weren't impressed by my 10 years of customer service, or maybe if my prior phone call where I was bullied into coming in didn't help, but they made no attempt to legitimately interview me. They both held tablets the whole time, and asked me very generic, vague questions. "Why did you leave your last position" etc... Nothing that the recruiter had prepared me for, and quite frankly nothing even remotely related to the position.
It was basically a big waste of my time, and I left feeling a bit jaded about Verizon. The recruiter was great, and I always received great customer service from Verizon on the phone and in person in my hometown, but this experience was enough to make me both leave Verizon as a customer, and never want to apply there again. Obviously the employees and managers at the location here have no idea how to treat people..
My suggestion would be that if you disagree with a recruiter's choice, don't waste weeks of a candidates time. And also, don't be so incredibly snotty as to think that working at home means someone is able to drop everything for you. You wasted not only a day of pay for me, but a lot of time from the phone interview, to preparing, to everything. Glad I avoided working there!