The Interview is a 2-way street

You are not the only person being interviewed; you are interviewing your potential employer as well

The process by which you are interviewed for a position is not one-sided; far from it, you should view this as a chance for you to get a sense of the place you might choose to work and the people with whom you might work.

Imagine you have been contacted for an interview, and the initial screening has gone so well that you have been asked to meet with the first of a few senior executives within the hiring company on the next day.

You prepare for the interview with research, and wait with a growing sense of disgust as the appointed time for the call comes and goes without any contact.

These things happen, and even though you might view this as somewhat unprofessional, you contact the HR manager or recruiter to see what caused the meeting to be missed. Simple overbooking, they tell you, and a new time is scheduled for the next morning.

As the clock hands spin to :30 minutes late, you realize that you have been forgotten two times in a row.

Now what?

Stick a pin in your immediate thought, and have a think about what the actions of the potential employer have told you up to this point. Missing one meeting is clearly a forgivable mistake; missing two in a row tends to suggest that the position for which you are interviewing may not be all that important to the person (s) doing the hiring.

Missing the meetings is itself a bad sign, but not informing you that the meetings were to be missed is unprofessional and disrespectful. This is where you, the candidate, have to think long and hard about the company with which you are trying to meet. Is this how they do business? Will you have the same amount of difficulty with internal communications? If you can assume that a person working for the company in our example scheduled and then blew off two meetings with a potential customer would be disciplined or even fired, does the fact that you have been left forgotten show a bit of corporate hypocrisy?

We are all desperate at times, and as such we likely have chosen to overlook such signs because circumstances demanded income over all else.         

You have as much right to interview a potential employer as they have to interview you. You have a right to ask questions about culture, and style of leadership. You have a right to ask for time to speak with potential colleagues about life within that company. Any company that balks at allowing you to determine whether they are a good fit for you, based on your standards, deserves a hard look as a place that is likely not what they seem.

You have value. You are bringing to that potential employer something they need, and you have skills that they can and will use. Despite the apparent disparity in power- they are Goliath and you David- you are equal in the ability to say "no". Don't be afraid to use that word to protect you from the oncoming light at the end of the tunnel when you are pretty sure it's a train.