Interviewing without having any vacancy

[Tom90]

Hello,

I recently applied for an internship in a small financial institution. Three working days later, I received an invitation to an interview in their office.

In my opinion, the interview went very well; however, only at the very end of it the two interviewers told me that there is no vacancy within their firm at the moment. They explained that they typically interview good candidates when they apply and then finish the recruiting process once there is a vacancy.

I would probably not have gone to the interview if I would have known that there is no chance to start within a reasonable time. Is it allowed to invite candidates for an interview without having a concrete vacancy or is it giving the candidates false hopes?

I am looking forward to hearing your opinion.

Tom

[teaboy2]

Re: Interviewing without having any vacancy

Good question.

I don't see anything preventing them from doing so. Though you would be entitled to reclaim costs from them for your travel expenses on the grounds that if they had told you prior to them inviting you to the interview that they were no current vacancies you would not therefore have accepted the invite to the interview. As they failed to inform you of this they therefore led you to wrongly believe that there was a vacancy and you had a chance of getting a job. As they did not inform you, then you have suffered a financial deteriment as a result of their failure to inform you prior to the interview that no vacancies were available. Attach a break down of your costs (though make the reasonable, and include details of milage travelled if you drove) you may also charge for your time, since their failure prevented you for putting your time to more constructive use such as going to an inview at a company that did have vacancies instead.

Theres no guarantee they will pay, but its worth a try.