I thought at this job things had changed. I thought that I wouldn't need to relentlessly move in to jobs that I hate, but am quite good at, in order to move forward in my career. I thought, "Surely, with as many positions as are available, and as many people as there are that have traditional ambition to move directly up the corporate ladder, there's room for someone who isn't looking to move to the top." This is sadly not the case.
I recently went out for a position known as a resume builder. It's a temporary gig, with a great deal of added responsibility, but no increased pay or other benefits to offset this. It looks great when you're applying for other stuff, though, because of that added responsibility, and if you hate it, it's only six months long. The company gets to fill some gaps that would normally require middle or upper management to cover (read: save themselves a lot of money) and the lower level employees get a stint of higher level responsibility without having to commit to it or have the experience to qualify for that kind of responsibility long term (read: have something impressive to wave in front of hiring managers when applying for other internal positions). Win/win, or so I thought.
So I went in for the interview feeling pretty confident. The position certainly isn't something I would like to do full time, but I'm very good at it, if I do say so myself. Since I'm fairly new to the company, I give some background info before the interview proper. You know the kind of thing: work history, career goals, where do you see yourself in 3 years, etc. Then we get started with the actual interview questions, which, honestly, I think I knocked out of the park. Things seem like they're going great. Little did I know that I had already blown the interview, which I would find out when they made their decision later that day.
Fast forward several hours; the hiring manager for the position asks me to come meet with her when I wrap up. I excitedly head over for a follow up meeting. Is this a second interview? Do they do second interviews for internal positions that are temporary? Did I get the job? We sit down, and she opens with the fact that no, I did not get the job. I'm disappointed of course. This would open a lot of doors, and I was hoping that with the way scheduling worked for it, I was thinking I may even have a chance to sign up for some fall classes in order to get started finishing my degree. I understand of course that while I'm good at the job, there are undoubtedly people who are better than me at it, and I must have just had the bad luck to be up against one of them. They regularly recruit to this position, so I'll just wait until next time it comes up in a couple of months.
We aren't done however. She wants to give me feedback on the interview. Great! I can see what I did wrong and make sure not to make the same mistakes next time! Then she tells me what I did wrong. What I did wrong was have the wrong 3 year goal. I am informed that this position is for grooming people for leadership roles, and I apparently tanked the whole interview when I mentioned that I'm not looking to move up through the ranks of management. I've been there and done that, and I did not like doing it. I had the opportunity to buyout the business where I was working as Operations Manager before coming here, and I turned it down because I didn't want my life to be just about my job. That's a wrong answer to a question that wasn't even officially part of the interview. I'm told that I need to look for projects and temporary/permanent positions that line up with my goal of moving to the more tech side of things.
At this point, I'm getting mad. I had been told directly and specifically by two different people, one of whom was the VP of our area, that if you sit around and wait for the job that moves you directly toward your goal to come up, you're going to dead end in the job you're in. I was told that I should take whatever opportunities and positions that I could so that when that golden opportunity finally did come along, I would be a real contender for it. Now I'm being told that because I have the wrong career goal, that's exactly what I will be doing. Before anyone accuses me of being melodramatic about not getting this one position, let me lay out for your how many times projects that AREN'T geared towards leadership have shown up in front of me since I started nine months ago: zero. Would you like to know how many times a project that IS geared toward leadership has shown up? At least once a month, and occasionally several different ones in the same month. Previous to this opportunity, I just haven't had any appear where I was able to meet the minimum qualifications.
Oh and let's address two other points. Point one: several people who are currently holding that position, but will be finishing their six month stint soon, are going into the job that I would consider the DIRECT next step towards my career goal. I emphasize direct because it would definitely be along the career path I want, but would at best be a side step to a career path in management. So clearly, everyone doing this is not doing it to move up in management. Point two: all other things being equal, and maybe with a few things stacked in my favor, if I went up against someone for one of these non-leadership oriented special projects (that I have yet to see or even hear of) and they've been through this "leadership oriented" position and I haven't, they will get preferential selection for the job.
So to sum up what it sounds like I was told, I should either flat out lie about my career goals in interviews so I can get the positions that are going to open critical doors for me, or learn to like doing my current job because I'll be doing it until I die. It's just disheartening to realize that even at the fairly great company I currently work for, I have to conform to the traditional mold of what my goals and ambitions should look like, or risk winding up dead ended.
