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September 22, 2023

Do accounting firms have a blacklist and am I on it?

Hi folks, it is DarkAgent and his stinky feet again.

I posted on GC roughly a month ago with a long sob story asking for advice about why firms won't hire me. Thanks to all that replied.

I'm still looking for work and have applied to multiple places over the past month, only to get rejected. Since the positions I applied to were all entry-level positions and I met the on-paper qualifications handidly, I was thinking my continual rejection is just bad luck and I just needed to tough it out for a bit longer. However, a recent event made me question that maybe something else is going on behind the scenes.

I applied to a position in March and had a nice exchange with the recruiter via email. I met the requirements for the entry-level position and have a semi-strong resume (good GPA, internship exerperience, almost done with CPA, etc.). All things considered, I felt I had a good chance of scoring that interview and getting the job would depend on how well I did in that interview. Turns out, I was mistaken. If memory serves (am I getting old?), I applied to the position on a Friday and they sent me a rejection letter (via snail mail…) the following Monday — no interview. I figured, maybe they found someone else — OK, I'll keep looking.

Today (as in April) I noticed the organization has reposted the same open position — the position I was rejected for — seemingly indicating the position is still open. That made me scratch my head: if the position has not been filled, why was I rejected without even the opportunity to interview?

Of course, there could be a variety of reasons, e.g. maybe I'm not as well qualified for the position as I thought. However, after rejection upon rejection from various firms, I'm here to explore the possibility of blacklists.

Does anyone know if firms have hiring blacklists they place candidates on? I have no doubt firms have internal blacklists and that I am on the blacklist of a firm I had to snub due to unforseen circumstances last year. What I'm wondering is, do firms have blacklists that they share with other firms? If yes, is that legal? Maybe I'm just looking for scapegoat to explain why I'm still out of a job but I'm interested to hear the accounts (pun intended) of people who have worked in CPA firms — particularly HR departments.

Thanks!

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