My domestic partner has been a contractor at my 50-person workplace for a year. I recommended him for the role, which happens to fit his niche skill-set and experience, when we were short-staffed and needed the help immediately. The role is not in my department and he doesn’t report to me, nor I to him.Finally this summer, a permanent position was created. He was encouraged to apply by his supervisor but was not interviewed and received a generic rejection email.
I wrote to my colleagues in HR to say I thought the way they dispatched him was unkind, that I hoped they’d offer him an honest explanation of why he wasn’t really considered, and commit to doing better in the future. I wrote as both a senior manager concerned with our hiring practices in general and a friend of an applicant who had a bad experience with my employer.
On their last response, the HR manager bcc’d the director of our organization, our direct boss. The director then responded to both of us saying we both were in the wrong and would be spoken to separately. As I await my talking-to, I’m curious: Did I do anything illegal or inappropriate? Can HR not be called out for crappy behavior toward applicants/current employees? What’s up with the covert tattling when I was trying to keep it peer-to-peer ?Man, I wish this story had ended with your first paragraph.