# Alderwood Talent Partners — Candidate Journey Standards (Confidential)

**[SATIRE]** — by The Satire Desk · inspired by a second round that turned into a shouting match, an interview cancelled minutes before it began, a four-round rejection, three interviews ending in a paused role, and a hire that finally tested the real work

ALDERWOOD TALENT PARTNERS — CANDIDATE JOURNEY STANDARDS
Confidential. Circulating this to a candidate would constitute feedback, which is not something we provide.

SECOND ROUND
Keep the first round warm. Save the raised voice for the second, ideally within minutes of the introduction. If the candidate mentions having worked holidays and 3:30am shifts, treat the sacrifice question as rhetorical and carry on. Lecture on professionalism. When it is over, tell the candidate the panel was delighted, and invite them back for a third round. The decision was made in the second round. The third is for the paperwork.

SCHEDULING
Confirm the interview. Cancel it minutes before it begins — before the candidate has a link to join. Offer no reason and no reschedule. Two years of searching ends best with an appointment that simply stops existing.

ROUNDS
Three interviews is where a process should already be finished. If you continue, continue for the backup list. The candidate you intend to hire gets the offer quickly; everyone else gets another round. When you finally reject them, they will have worked it out by the third anyway.

THE PAUSE
Extract three interviews, five references and a salary number. Then, at the final decision, pause the role — a discovery you make at exactly the moment the candidate is waiting to hear. Close with “we would love to stay in touch.” Meaning: we are running a business of openings that do not open.

SIGNAL
Tell the candidate you only need the real work to decide — then decide on the real work. This is a genuine error on our part and we are looking into it.

— Alderwood Talent Partners. We move candidates forward. Constantly. Toward the door.

*Source: [Inspired by recent recruiting stories (via r/recruitinghell / r/antiwork / r/cscareerquestions) · fiction — Alderwood Talent Partners is invented](https://www.reddit.com/r/recruitinghell/comments/1x1bptx/i_got_screamed_at_in_an_interview/)*

> ⚠️ SATIRE — clearly labelled fiction. Do not cite as real events.

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