Bad interview, possibly illegal?

I had an interview that was appallingly bad. The person was disinterested, rude, etc. This person asked me about my Hispanic surname during the interview. I am not stereotypically Latin looking. I am also nearing 50 years old. Upon leaving the interview I had an email from the person which was sent in the minutes BEFORE the interview saying how nice it was that we met but no thanks. This person had excused themselves just minutes after meeting me before we sat down to talk so had time to send the email. I've been told I have a case for the EEOC but part of me just wants to write a letter to the President, HR and their head legal person to inform them of what happened and how it was totally against their stated values. This company is very well known for how it treats its employees - good pay, bennies, low turnover, etc. I don't want to just walk away because I know this is not right. Should I go to EEOC or write the letter?
Additional Details
I should add that I was interviewing with this person because this person called me in for the interview. They had read my resume and called me to interview. In addition, I was asked to interview with someone else first and that went EXTREMELY well, resulting in my getting the go-ahead to be interviewed by the person who originally contacted me. It seems clear to me that the person who invited me to interview and then rejected me based it solely on my age and /or nationality since the rejection email was sent after meeting me but BEFORE we sat down to talk.

Prorkycake

I've had a somewhat similar "bad interview". It was a prominent banking company and I was interviewing for a personal banker position. At the time, I was a cash office supervisor for a high end retail company. This company also advertised equal opportunity, etc so on and so forth. This was in Washington State, so if you know anything about Washington State, there is usually a lot of driving. The position was for a bank 3 minutes down the road from my house, but they were doing the interviews an hour away in Seattle! I did the group interview. I got asked for a second group interview. Killed my third interview. Meanwhile, I got to know the other two final applicants fairly well. They were both inexperienced, and by that, NO money related experience. Neither of them were enrolled in college. I, on the other hand, had over a year of supervising over 15 cashiers, did cash training, and over 4 years of retail cash handling experience. I graduated high school top of my class with a 4.0 GPA. These other two gals were lucky they graduated. I saw one of them was advertising her 2.9 GPA. The only difference? They were both young, blonde, perky and skinny. I, on the other hand, have had children, and am fluffly. In the final group interview, they were ridiculous. Their answers made me cringe because they were that inexperienced. However, I wasn't given the job. They chose the prettiest of the two. And yes, the interviewers were ALL men.

Was I discriminated against? Not in the sense of the legal definition of discrimination, but discriminated against because I wasn't a 20 something frat girl. Heck yeah! All I did was laugh and thought, "I feel sorry for whoever's account she is trying to reconcile and the person that needs to train her."

They are going to choose whoever they want to choose. I did write a letter to the president of the bank explaining my experience, the names of the two individuals that interviewed me in the group interview and the final interview, the names of the two bimbos I interviewed with, a detailed description of the events and the information I knew of the two other applicants (they allowed me to see their resumes which were less than mediocre), attached my resume, and sent copies to all the HR departments for their region.

I was written a formal letter of apology by the head of the regional HR and started getting flooded with interview requests (they had an online system you registered for). I deleted my account with them and found another place to work.

My opinion. Fight the battle internally. In my opinion, it isn't worth the grueling battle for a job you didn't get and a place you don't ever plan on working for. Good luck. I've been there.

Joe

Although illegal, age bias (as well as other forms of bias) are commonplace in hiring.

They are also next to impossible to prove. (Consider the possibility that the manager already knew who he/she was going to hire, and was just going through the motions of interviewing other candidates. That's not age or race bias.)

I hate to say it: But the only result of your complaint (either to EEOC, or upper management in the company) will be to flag yourself as a troublemaker.

This manager didn't want to hire you. Don't burn your bridges with the company as a whole.

Paula P

I think you should write formally to the company telling them what happened and asking for a written explanation.

lucy

The only thing that I can add from the other posters, was in the group interview, what ages/gender/nationality were they? If they are were in their 20's, 30's, and you were the only one age 50 might show age.

But most likely you made the 1st round and the 2nd one either knew by then that others were better qualified or any other reason. Many companies will put you thu up to 3 interviews to get a job, which is frustrating and then find out they are not interested.

But in this job, they could have had possibly 100 people they interviewed for the 5 jobs available. This could have been done over the course of a week or more to eliminate each candidate one by one from the 1st groups then the individual interview.

Smiling

Why do you take it to the race, age, gender level.

How about... on paper you are the weakest candidate. The company has a policy that they have to interview 3-5 candidates. Right before she met with you, she interviewed the top candidate, who was a perfect fit. Givig you a complete interview would have been a waste of your time and her time.

Saying that she didn't give you a real interview because of your hispanic surname, might be true but there is NO WAY to prove this happened.

Start looking for jobs somewhere else.

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