Recovering interviewing expenses

Dear Bob …

I have a good one for you. Have you ever heard of a company that makes you use your credit card for traveling to an interview and use their travel company and pay their administrative fees? Is this common now?

Well, this happened to me. A gut feeling told me that this was fishy but I ignored it.

I had an out of town interview scheduled for Friday and had planned on leaving sometime on Thursday. My trip to the airport is 70 miles and the flight approximately one hour. However, the weather turned treacherous, a semi overturned and blocked the freeway for five hours, and I could not make my flight. The company tole me it was OK to cancel and proceeded to reschedule for the following week at their convenience.

Meanwhile, an offer came through which was too good to pass up and I did not wish to lose this opportunity. I called the other company and canceled (with 4 days to spare) and told them that I was no longer interested in pursuing the position. Well, they stuck me with the airline ticket, the change fee, hotel, and their travel agency administrative fees.

The question is, is this professional? They certainly are not fostering any type of goodwill. It is a small world out there …. I was being completely honest. Should I have lied, taken the trip, and then told them I was no longer interested?

In the past, (or is that past era) my interview situations with other companies have never asked me to use my own credit card and they took care of every expense. All I had to do was show up. I asked this company to reimburse me, but they said that I canceled twice so I had to pay. Half of the folks who were scheduled to interview me did not show up on the first interview due to the bad weather as well. Only one person was flying in and they had no problem with weather and their proposed timeframe made it convenient for their weekly meetings. So no one was inconvenienced on their part.

Do I have any recourse? What is the best way to remedy this other than taking a couple of swigs of alcohol? I’m just so glad I joined another company that is first class.

– Accidental loan officer

Dear Loaner …

That’s a new one. No, I’ve never heard of a company that asks prospective employees to bear the up-front cost of travel for employment interviews. And yes, that should have raised some red flags. It’s one thing for an employer to ask employees to pay their expenses up front and file expense reports. It’s quite another for a prospective employer to do so.

You should have asked this: If this is what the first date is like, what kind of marriage might you expect?

You might, out of academic interest, do some just-too-late research to see if the company has an unsavory reputation or if this was simply an anomaly. It’s possible the whole company is scummy. It’s just as possible that its HR department has experienced budget pressure, that someone in HR thought this would be a painless way to cut costs, and that the rest of the company is actually a good place to work.

Not that it matters now.

I think that in your situation I would have asked the company that made the offer you accepted for a week to decide, and shown up for the interview, for two reasons. First, you might have received an even more attractive offer – you never know. And second, since you were the one out-of-pocket, it would have been a simple way to protect yourself from a problem that wasn’t difficult to anticipate.

So far as recourse, theoretically you could always take these folks to small claims court. I think you’d be wasting your time. Even if you win, it is as you say a small world out there and the last thing you need is to get a reputation for suing employers or potential employers.

Have a drink to celebrate your new opportunity and newly-acquired valuable experience and ask your tax accountant if the lost money is deductable.

– Bob