The good old boy network..what to do?

I recently saw a job posting internally in my company. I emailed the hiring manager telling her I was interested and had a few questions. No reply for 2 weeks. I emailed again to follow up and she said the posting was down. I looked and found it, and showed it to her..she said oh jeez I guess I missed it, we can meet next week..I'll set up time for you.

No reply again..posting got taken down sometime in the next week. Turns out a friend of hers got the job. Ho ho ho.

I've met with my manager and she agrees with my anger. Mind you I am qualified for the job and it would have been a nice raise too. She is supposed to bring it to a director, which I'm sure she will go to bat for me.

Not sure if it's worth going to Human Resources as well. Part of me says they're supposed to be there for the worker. The other part says that could just as easily blow up on me because now I'm the one who rocked the boat.

I did make sure to do the whole conversation history on email and saved it, as well as printed it and gave to my manager.

Any advice or thoughts will help. I've been there 17 yrs now and it is a career for me. The thought of moving on, while I won't totally rule it out, would be tough unless I really got a huge jump in pay. I'd be giving up a pension plan, plus I'm fully vested in my 401k to which I contribute aggressively. I'd also not get 5 weeks vacation time elsewhere for some time, and a 30 minute commute each way with no highway and not going into the city isn't bad.

 

Id get ethics and HR involved.

 

Yes, HR is there for the employee, but not as much as they are there to protect the company. And a lot of it depends on the company culture and the particular people in your HR department. I agree that you probably don't want to go to HR directly if you have higher-ups going to bat for you already, but you can still help yourself. I'm sure your company has a policy guide of some sort. Bone up on the relevant policies and if any of them were violated, bring up the specifics with your manager. Let her fight that battle with HR.

I suspect they won't reverse course on this one, but the odds are that if you make a legitimate case and don't piss them off, then the next time something comes up they'll feel they owe you, and you'll have a leg up on everyone else.

 

It was filled internally but knowing now with whom I'm sure it was a setup..the 2 were friends for a long time prior

 

And yes on the manager being my channel. I do have a good manager and believe she does care. I did mention to her as well I feel maybe it is something HR should be involved in..but said that I think she and the director could discuss that and I'd be happy to speak to the director as well

 

A lot of company's play favorites and HR is in on the BS , it's all a game anymore . It's not what you know it's who you know