Spitting into the wind

A few weeks ago I went through several rounds of interviews for a product manager position with a company in the online health insurance space. The vertical wouldn’t have been my first choice in opportunities, but as it happens the challenge was to devise the best ways (over multiple web domains) to inform a vast audience of users about particular healthcare choices.

And by “vast audience”, I mean pretty much every American sooner or later in their life. So every possible demographic, literacy level, education background and blah, blah, blah.

It was a very interesting challenge, and I would have done a superb job at it. (And I do not very often make sweeping statements like that. As in, I so seldom make sweeping statements about my capabilities as to statistically constitute never.)

I say would have because—after a week and a half of complete silence despite pinging the hiring manager, I finally got a system-generated no-thanks email. Not from any one of the three persons in HR and recruiting with whom I had been in contact, but from the “recruiting team”, via a third-party applicant tracking system (ATS). I particularly get a kick out of the use of the first person singular pronoun, combined with the absence of any individual name in the signature block.

What’s particularly interesting about this organization's hands-off approach to communication is that in my first interview, I asked the person who manages the hiring manager what they’re really looking for in the product manager they hire for this position (aside from technical competency). “Empathy,” he said. “More than anything, we need someone with empathy.”

And that’s all I have to say about that.