Probably not enough vitriol for the Pit, but man, I don’t know if they don’t understand the basics of English, or they’re just making lame excuses, or what.
It’s not common, but I’ve heard this before. I ask specific questions so I can get an idea of what the job actually entails. Then I’m rejected for my “lack of interest,” usually after I’ve ended the interview with “I’m very interested, thank you.” What?
In this case, it was a phone interview, and the job description they’d sent me was VERY VERY BROAD. Basically it asked for skills pertaining to the entire process, start-to-finish, of creating an email campaign. Let’s be clear: I have all these skills. I’ve worked in places where I was the only one in the email design/execution department. I’ve done freelance where the job required one phase or another of the process, but I’ve worked on all phases at one time or another. I also know that big corporate entities compartmentalize that process WAY more than small shops do. I take it as given that they’re not about to let me handle the entire process, just one small part of it. So, I wanted to know which part they would be asking me to work on.
So, other than mentioning that I have (extensive) experience in all phases, that was the only thing I said. I did not, in any way, say that I wanted to be put on some other phase of the process. I did not say I wasn’t interested in the job’s focus. I only asked WTF that focus was.
So WHAT is going on here? I think it’s a fair, intelligent question. They had a broad job description, I have broad experience, if they’re asking for more focus than that (and they were, and we both knew that), I think I can be allowed to learn what that focus is without it being assumed that I don’t want the job.
…and then there are those times, when a department will have budget for headcount which they have not filled. “Use it or lose it” is on the horizon, so a deliberately vague listing is posted with which they hope to attract the “best athlete” …whose actual duties (and retention) will be determined later.
I realize that in the current “job” environment, this may not seem highly likely, but I see it at my shop all the time. It is especially common with contracting companies, who are contracted to supply “x” number of heads.
Around here, we call it, the “friends and family” opportunity.
Sure but what company wouldn’t tell the person that? My next-door cubemate was hired when we had a head available and he was going to be doing one of three things (all of which is was qualified for). We really needed people (we could have used three) so we told him what the deal was.
Really, who wants to work for a company who won’t give you a good idea of what you will be doing?
After I moved back here, I went to a job fair, and one of the companies where I left my resume, hoping for a job in my old field which they do have, called me up and offered me a job, clearly not having read anything on there but my name and phone number, and probably thought, “Here’s our next sucker!”
When I was hired to my current position, a list of product and application knowledge was published as requirements for the position. I happened to be a really good match and took their offer ..and have never used any of the listed applications (licensing problems we were told), nor are my day-to-day responsibilities any more than “remotely” related to my previous experience and product knowledge.
I am not sure which is better: being hired without any idea of their expectations, or being placed in a position that does not fit the expectations they represented.
Either way ..in this or any other economy.. it is better to have a job, than to not have a job. It allows you to keep looking from a position of strength :0)
This is the key to being able to stick with the premise: a job interview is not just to see if the company wants you, but if you want the company: yeah, they have money and you need it, but you have labor and they need it. There are other candidates, and there are other employers.
Frankly, Kaio, it sounds like you dodged a bullet.
Agreed. When they say “you must not be interested” they mean “you must not be desperate”. The job must be awful and they know that if they described it anyone who felt they had the option of declining it would.
My experience has been more along the lines of the job being something shady, like selling time shares to slightly senile elderly people, in which case they don’t want anyone who asks a question.
During my most job search I’ve walked into several job interviews for jobs which were completely unlike the online job description. Including a receptionist job that involved selling knives door-to-door (they were also very keen on getting “character references” from various friends & family). :dubious:
Then there was the “customer service” job with a credit card merchant services company that was advertised as “not a sales job, inbound calls only” by which they meant cold calling merchants and trying to set up appointments for a sales rep to stop by & get them signed up for POS terminals. The job interview involved the manager shoving a pen in my hand and telling me I had 30 seconds to sell her it. I actually called her out on the job description; she got very “indignant” and said they didn’t have “anything to do with that”. My first clue something was fishy should’ve been that the “call centre” shared a parking lot with Chuck E Cheese. :smack:
Oh, and before the interview they had me shadow one of the reps & listen to their calls. Apparently the company goes by at least 4 different names, and many of the calls were to Canada, and the office I was sitting in was just outside of Ottawa. Boy did that woman’s nostrils flair when I politely thanked her for wasting my time. She just couldn’t get me out the door fast enough. And the worst part is when I realized I put in at least 3 other applications to the same company. I actually got another call asking me to come in for an interview at the same location.
My first thought was the job is shady, the job is stupid grunt work, or probably both. And they don’t want any one smart enough to ask questions during the interview.
Or the interviewing manager only has a vague idea of what an email campaign entails, but was ordered by the big boss to find someone to handle it. By asking specific questions and demonstrating competence, you may be putting him on the spot and causing him to view you as a threat to his own position, if you were hired.
In common with a lot of folks, my first thought was that they are trying to hire someone to do cold calls on commission. I’m guessing the part of the e-mail campaign they wanted you to focus on was calling people up to ask if they got the e-mail, and wanted to buy whatever they were selling.
I was out of work for a bit a couple of months back. Many of the responses I got to my résumé were people trying to get me to be an insurance salesman. I have been working in IT for the better part of thirty years, and made no mention of insurance at all.
Being an insurance salesman must suck even more horrifically than I thought. So, perhaps, did the job you didn’t get.
I posted my resume on Monster, and those were most of my responses too. And almost all of them went into the spam file.
I also found that Indeed.com was even more useless. Their “ads” are copied from regional newspapers, and I figured out pretty quickly that the same job would sometimes be listed 10 or 20 times.
Showing interest in the actual duties of the job is a positive, not a negative, to a reputable company.
If your question was construed as argumentative or inappropriate, they’re a shitty company.
It’s also possible that some other aspect of the interview cost you the job. Maybe you’re too focussed on this one question to see the true reason they didn’t choose you. I’m not saying you’re wrong, it’s just weird that a company would exclude someone for, you know, curiousity and interest in the position.
Dunno what else, because the feedback I got was that I didn’t seem interested in the aspect of email marketing that he told me the job would focus on. I said nothing of the kind. The only thing I said that could even, possibly, remotely be construed that way was giving some detail explaining how I had become familiar with all aspects of the process. IMO it’s really really reaching to construe my work history including things outside the job focus (but within the written job description!) as a lack of interest. I asked questions to clarify how the process was comparmentalized and what compartment they would fit me in, because “execution” may or may not include HTML coding or various other things, depending on who’s defining it.
I’m aware of that and agree. In fact, while I knew they were angling for direct-hire, had we gotten to the offer/negotiation stage, I was planning to push for contract-to-hire, so I’d have a backdoor to leave if I needed to. I’ve… heard things about this company.
Although I doubt it was quite so shady as a full-on bait and switch to cold sales, or something. They’re a major national retailer, you’ve heard of them, you’ve shopped in their stores, you have their products in your house. They’d have absolutely no rational reason to do something so stupid. They can get people who are actually there for working a call center. He certainly could have been a micro-manager who didn’t like people asking questions, though.
My major issue has more to do with the dishonesty than wanting the job. Seriously, if we’re not going to be working together, why lie? It’s not like they’d be worried I wouldn’t take the job.
I really need the money, though.
Yeah, that ship sailed years ago. That’s why I was actually considering working there, if only short-term.
Did the interviewer give you the impression that they knew what they were talking about? It’s altogether possible that they evaded your question because they didn’t know how to answer it. Like the person’s job is to interview job applicants, but not knowing much about the work itself.