3 coworkers all get passed over for the same promotion, company hires someone externally, now they all have to work for her: 'Why weren't [we] considered good enough for a role we've essentially been orbiting for years?'

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  A woman with dark hair wearing a business casual white shirt types on her laptop in an office environment.

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• My company hired someone externally for a role [that] three of us internally interviewed for, and put her directly in charge of the people who applied

  Quick bit of context, been here almost four years, project management, mid-sized company, the kind of place that regularly talks about investing in its people and promoting from within. When the Senior Manager role came up above our team, it felt like a genuine opportunity, three of us applied, went through the full process, two rounds of interviews, presentations, the works.

  PinkTemp-tress shared her side of the story to members of this online community, beginning with the background information about how she and her coworkers were each separately encouraged to apply to jobs within the company. However, it seems that if mobility were actually a part of the company culture, then these promotions would not be so few and far between. Additionally, there would have been far more transparency if HR were always looking to bring in someone outside the company. 

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  Three coworkers sit in a conference room around a circular table in their office.

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• The whole thing took about six weeks. Six weeks of preparing, of quietly recalibrating your sense of what your career here looks like, of trying to act completely normal in the office while knowing your colleagues sitting nearby are going for the same thing.

  Then last month HR emailed to say the role had been filled and we'd each be getting individual feedback sessions. Before any of those sessions actually happened, the new hire appeared for her first day.

  Here's where the news gets bleak. Not only was the company bringing someone else in, but now each coworker was told that they would be receiving in-depth feedback sessions. Given that mentorship was apparently so important to the company, you would think these feedback sessions would be substantive and useful. Unfortunately, they didn't even end up happening.

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  Three employees meet with HR in their office.

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• She seems perfectly fine as a person; that's almost beside the point. The point is that all three of us now report directly to someone brought in from outside, while our feedback sessions still haven't happened, rescheduled twice now with no real explanation. So we're sitting in team meetings with her, taking direction, giving updates, trying to recalibrate professionally, without ever having been given a proper explanation of why we weren't considered good enough for a role we've essentially been orbiting for years.

  Now, these coworkers have to collaborate with one another as if they were not all pitted against each other throughout the interview process. However, they also have to collectively report to this new manager, who was supposed to have been so much more qualified than they were for the position. Well, it turns out that she didn't have that much more experience at all… not to mention, those feedback sessions still have not been scheduled.

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  A red-headed employee sits at her work station wearing headphones in the office.

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• The atmosphere between the three of us has shifted, too. Nobody's said anything directly, but there's a certain collective deflation that everyone can feel, and nobody wants to name out loud.

  One colleague who has been here six years and genuinely deserved the role has gone very quiet in the last few weeks. The kind of quiet that usually means someone is updating their CV.

  Did the company have the right to do this? Absolutely. Does it sting in a way that's quite hard to articulate? Unreasonably so.

  Has anyone been through this and actually stayed? How long did it take to feel normal again?

  First of all, we believe it's worth it to follow up with HR and get that meeting scheduled immediately as a final chance to get a window into their perspective. Perhaps there was some logic to their reasoning that could be useful for you to know, both as an employee and as a professional. However, if HR continues to delay the meeting or if the meeting proves to be insubstantial in any way, then it's clear that all the talk of mentorship and mobility at this place was just for show. 

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  An upset female employee sits at her desk at work, trying to concentrate.

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  Two coworkers sit at their desks in silence in an otherwise empty office.

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• As for collaborating with your teammates, unless someone is being openly hostile, we think these three coworkers will adjust. After all, there is strength in their mutual commiseration over how this process was handled. There might even be an opportunity to collectively confront upper management about it, forcing their hand to put their money where their mouths are when it comes to actively supporting employees in their advancement. 

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