Job Discussion Forums

zenbone · Joined: 04 Mar 2010 Posts: 10

I understand that my post might be harsh or viewed as a bit rough, i am not one to start flame wars and i am not part of the "its the internet" bully crowd. I am not a trouble maker, far from it. I was however expressing what happened to me so that others do not put a lot of faith in the job offers they receive until they are landing in japan.
I want to be completely clear here... the level of dedication to the company and offer I thought was genuine was unparalleled. When it came crashing down i realized i lost a year of my life (i am NOT right out of college so trust me, IT MATTERS). Life was on hold, you cannot truly appreciate the meaning of this as each day floats by and the only thing you are waiting for is that email with your placement assignment. Imagine purgatory... you are not quiet in heaven and you are not quite in hell. Just kinda trapped in the middle. That is what it is like waiting a year for a position to materialize. Now, just for the sake of it... imagine you are waiting at the velvet rope and you are told to wait then a whole bunch of people that just pull up pop right on in and join the fun. How would you feel exactly.
I tried very hard to stay away from this whole mess but when i discovered that they held a hiring session in San Francisco in November 2009 (1 year after me) and then hired a whole group in January and they are all in Japan now i could not let it go?!? how exactly am i supposed to feel? how exactly would you feel?

kathrynoh · Joined: 16 Jul 2009 Posts: 64

I was also in the position of being offered a job with ECC and ending up not being hired. I don't believe this was a delibrate decision on the part of ECC or common policy.

I was offered a position after an interview in December 2008. At the interview session they said they would not be hiring as many people for the following year. This was very soon after the GFC and their enrolement numbers were way down. Coupled with this, many of their workers particularly from the US, had decided to renew their contracts instead of going home.

During last year, I received almost monthly communications from ECC. From about mid year these emails became more pessimistic - can't remember the exact wording - and also encouraged those people waiting on offers to pursue other opportunities.

At the beginning of this year, I got told I wouldn't be offered a position as there were few opportunities available and those would go to people with specialised skills. It was only through this forum that I found out that ECC had interviewed and hired staff subsequently.

I must admit, I was angry about that at the time but I can understand their position. The economic climate was unstable and they couldn't make decisions based on previous years.

I can also understand wanting to reinterview rather than employ people they'd interviewed 12 months or more beforehand. I was told I could reinterview except that they are only interviewing in Canada this year (I'm in Australia).

It was my decision not to pursue other opportunities and I given a pretty strong indication I wouldn't be hired while there was ample time to apply for other positions for the April hiring period. I chose not to do this as I had a well paying contract here as well as my own laziness.

Being in a 'holding pattern' for a year wasn't a good experience but I figure it's much better than reallocating to another country and then having the company go bust and ending up unemployed after spending a load of money.