A common occurrence as a hiring manager is that you do a cursory screen of a bunch of resumes and invite the people for a quick follow up call. Now at this stage, you actually do read the resume more thoroughly, and while it’s not common, sometimes you realize that you invited the candidate for the wrong reasons. Or you follow the link to their portfolio only to realize they use it to air their religious grievances. Don’t get me wrong, anyone is entitled to their private personal opinion, but I’m not going to link this blog on my resume for a reason. I’m not stupid.
You’re deeply thankful because the candidate took themselves early out of the process, but on the other hand, you still have to talk to them even though it’s a complete waste of time. Unless you realize your mistake half an hour before the interview and still manage to cancel. Spoken from experience.
This post is about a different kind of the wrong candidate though. Twice in my professional career now, I have been invited to an interview, only to realize halfway through the scheduling process that they meant to invite a different person but got our names confused. I can’t even.