Signs you're interviewing for a fake job

These are the Signs you’re interviewing for a fake job

Be wary if they bring in someone new to ask you questions and the person writes down your answers.

Dear Liz, I got a call from the vice president of business development of a $10-$15 million (Sh1-Sh1.53 billion) company that is well-known in our region. I was excited to hear from them. My current job is okay but I was ready for a new challenge. I was flattered that the business development VP found me on LinkedIn and reached out to me. We met for coffee. It was fantastic. I went to his facility to meet several of his fellow executives, and that meeting was great too.

The job opportunity was called Director of New Markets. Doesn’t that sound fantastic? I ended up interviewing four times.

Every conversation was stimulating. I thought we were close to a job offer. After four interviews, Mark, the VP asked me to come in and meet with his product development manager.

I took time off work to go to that meeting. Anita, the manager I was meeting, was friendly. She and I had a great conversation. At one point during our meeting, I went to the restroom down the hall. When I came back to the conference room where Anita and I were meeting, I stopped at the coffee station. Anita came back into the room while I was getting my coffee.

Another woman was with her. They were talking and I could hear their conversation clearly. Anita said, “Jan, I want you to meet Larry. He’ll be back in a minute. He’s brilliant.”

Keep Reading

Jan said, “Who is he? Does he work here?”

Anita said, “No, the VP of Business Development, Mark, met Larry. Mark says he wants to get Larry on our influential bloggers list so Larry can tell his blog audience about our company. In the meantime, Larry has been a tremendous resource to Mark, me and several other executives, helping us figure out how to market our new products.”

I listened in stunned silence. In our many conversations, Mark had never once mentioned my blog.

He reeled me in like a fish with a fake job opening that never existed — Director of New Markets. He really just wanted me to write about the company on my blog — and he wanted to get my expertise on his problems, for free.

I came out of the coffee area, was introduced to Jan and sat down without saying anything about what I had overheard. I talked with Anita and Jan for a very short time — maybe seven minutes. I apologised and told them I needed to go. When I got home, I thought about what had happened.

Undoubtedly Mark lied to Anita and told her that I was just a friendly blogger happy to dispense free consulting to the company because I liked their products so much.

Imaginary job

I don’t believe Anita would have knowingly participated in the lie — but Mark certainly would! It only took two more days for him to contact me. He wanted me to talk with a customer.

I said, “Mark, let’s get serious about this job offer. If you have a need for a manager of new markets, let’s talk brass tacks.” Mark hemmed and hawed then said, “Let me get back to you on that.” I never heard from him again.

Thank you Liz, for sounding the alarm about imaginary job openings and predatory people like Mark who will misuse a job-seeker’s time and lie to them outright. It’s not ethical, but now I know it happens. I’ll be on guard the next time!

Dear Larry, I feel your pain but at the same time I am thrilled for you — because you are inoculated now. That snake will never bite you again!

Now you know that as a job applicant, you have to stay on your toes. You have to stay vigilant and pick a logical point in the process to say, “So, what are the remaining steps in the hiring process?” You can’t keep giving them more and more free consulting advice. If you do, you will train them to keep asking for free advice forever — without extending a job offer! Here are the signs that there is no job opportunity, and any interviews you participate in are simply transfers of knowledge from your brain to theirs (unpaid).

The job title, reporting relationship and responsibilities change every time you talk to them.

They go weeks without contacting you, then spring out of the bushes and ask you to write something new, research a topic and report back to them, or come back and meet with them again.

They talk to you all the time, but they never lay out the steps in the recruiting process or make any motion toward creating a job offer. On every interview, they bring in someone new to ask you questions — and the person who asks you questions always writes down your answers. If they were going to hire you, why would they need to write down what you say? They wouldn’t.

They could walk up to you and ask you whatever they want to know. They are extremely friendly and warm with you in every interaction, treating you as though you already work for the company though not on the payroll.

They tell you “Gee, you are smart!” or “You know a lot about this topic!” They are no longer vetting you, if they ever were. Now they are merely selling you on the idea of keeping the knowledge coming! When you try to ask pain-type questions about the role you are pursuing, you get wishy-washy answers.

Hiring status

When you ask questions about the realness of the job, they bristle. “Look, we’re still putting the job description together!” they may say in a wounded tone, as though you are out of line for asking about your hiring status after 15 conversations.

As you give them more and more of your knowledge for free, you can feel their enthusiasm for you waning.

Finally, they stop contacting you and act as though your “interview process” never happened. Don’t feel bad about what happened, Larry — it means you are smart and accomplished.

People want your advice. Be happy about that! Your blog is doing you better than you may have realised.

It also means that you need to be more wary in the future, to avoid having your time and energy wasted and your ideas appropriated. Next time, your spider sense will be on full alert!