Fight the Power, Job-Seekers!

Here’s some red meat for compliance professionals exasperated with fruitless and futile job searches: one of your own who decided he’d had enough, and called out a potential employer who ghosted him by name in a LinkedIn primal scream of frustration.

Our new hero, our beacon of light in this dim job market, our voice for the voiceless who keep emailing recruiters to say, “Just circling back…” is Tyronne Ramella, a gainfully employed compliance professional in London, not necessarily looking for new work right now but not opposed to the right opportunity either. Over the weekend, Ramella posted a story on LinkedIn about how Fidelity Investments approached him to apply for a  chief compliance officer role in its U.K. operations. 

What happened then? Read the screenshot below… 

 

 

That’s right: after approaching Ramella, Fidelity first stalled for time twice before holding a Zoom interview; then stalled twice more after the interview; then went radio silent when Ramella followed up multiple times; then informed him that the job was filled by an internal candidate.

To be fair, we don’t know Fidelity’s version of events. I emailed the recruiter in question to see whether he or the company have any comment, and haven’t heard back yet. If they do, I’ll be sure to update this post.

Ramella’s ordeal caught my eye because (a) holy [expletive], he tagged Fidelity and the executive there who recruited him, holding up this behavior for all to see; which is just awesome; and (b) it captures pretty much every maddening mistreatment a job candidate might encounter in modern job hunting. The only part I find hard to believe is that Fidelity ran through this cycle in only six weeks; lately I’d expect large companies to string candidates along for six months before dumping them. 

Even better, Ramella concluded his post with a cri de coeur that employers must do better by the people in their recruitment pipelines, one sure to have job-seekers cheering:

#Firms: Stop misleading candidates. If roles are internally filled, state it upfront. Yes I know this behaviour is not breaking any laws, but it violates the ethical principles governing regulators and accountability of firms. #Professionals: Document your experiences. Hold firms accountable.

We demand transparency in financial conduct. Recruitment should be the same.

Ramella then called on the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority to “treat misleading recruitment in Financial Services as a compliance & governance issue” — and yes, he tagged them in the post too. 

We All Know He’s Right

Of course compliance officers everywhere love Ramella’s outburst, because so many of you have suffered similar disrespect yourselves. I do see other LinkedIn posts about this behavior, but almost never does the person name the company publicly to hold it accountable. Bravo.

A half-dozen brave souls commented on Ramella’s post publicly, sharing their own tales of emails ignored and interviews postponed into eternity. One man said he was recruited to apply for a compliance job, got ghosted, saw the position advertised again, and then was recruited by another recruiter to apply for the same role. 

More compliance officers applauded privately when I pointed out the post to them. “I love this,” one compliance officer told me. “About f—king time someone tried to do something about the insane power imbalance in the hiring process.” She then threatened to shoot me if I included her name. 

Another commenter raised the larger point that these ham-fisted approaches to recruiting compliance officers are a reflection of poor corporate culture, too. 

“The hiring process really does say a lot about a company’s culture,” said this compliance officer, who works on AML issues in Brussels. “A chief compliance officer role is critical, with significant personal responsibility. If a company shows a lack of responsibility, responsiveness, and proper processes right from the hiring stage, it’s hard to imagine succeeding in such an environment. In those cases, I actually see it as a lucky escape.”

I agree with the sentiment entirely, although it’s tough to see such mistreatment as a lucky escape when you’ve applied to 900 jobs with no replies. The ghosting, rescheduling, and sudden “we went with an internal candidate instead” replies are enough to make you scream. 

As fate would have it, I wrote about these same issues several weeks ago in a post about the job market for compliance officers these days. Let me repeat what I said then: that the overall need for compliance professionals is still strong; it’s the process of hiring compliance officers — and just about any other white-collar worker, really — that has gone bat-poop crazy. 

No wonder in-person interviews (with paper resumes, to boot!) are suddenly making a comeback. They never should have gone away in the first place. AI and foolish fixations on process have left job-seekers feeling as dazed and exhausted as the French army straggling back from Russia in 1812.

Recruiters need to do better. If that means walking away from useless automation technology, so be it. I’m all in favor of working hard to find a diverse pool of candidates, and thoughtful use of automation technology can help with that goal. But ever more automation for the sake of ever more automation is seldom a good thing. The technology is supposed to work for the humans, not vice-versa. 

Possibly a Happy Ending

As for Ramella, I did ask him whether I could write about his experiences, and he agreed. “I was hesitant to draft the post initially, for obvious reasons; conscious of the burning bridges analogy,” he told me. Still, he said, “Happy to contribute where I can. Can’t call myself an aspiring leader/ethical advocate if I’m a hypocrite.” 

I appreciate his bravery, and the public service he’s done for compliance officers everywhere by calling out the job market dysfunction today. 

And as a coda, he did subsequently post a message from the executive at Fidelity who allegedly put this chain of events into motion. The man regretted Ramella’s frustration, and asked to discuss his experiences via a phone call. Here’s hoping one is scheduled soon.