Greetings jobseekers,
Our first Halloween campaign brought a bountiful harvest of bad recruitment stories. Our 3 course meal has a bit of everything: bait-and-switch soup, crazy business people on a stick and frozen greed for dessert. Without further ado, here are the best submissions of this competition:
1st place: The Trap
I applied for a Marketer position and after a few days I was called to schedule an interview. The person who called me was clearly taking some medication but the description seemed really cool. The interview was scheduled for a whole day because I also had to complete some tests.
The office where the interview was taking place was in a basement, it smelled funny and the lady that “welcomed” me was in serious need of coffee.
I waited for about an hour until a guy came to ask me some questions. After 45 minutes of interrogation, sorry, interview, I waited another hour (thank God they had Wi-Fi), went to have lunch at the nearest Chinese restaurant and then had to make another battery of tests. In the end, they said that my curriculum was very impressive but still needed improvements. Then they tried to sell me a service to improve my CV so I would get more interviews.
2nd place: The Call
I find the weirder the area code, the higher the chance it’s a bogus recruiting call. This one was pretty weird. When I answered, the person on the other line asked if I would hold for his supervisor. This had never happened before, but I said sure. I needed a job, so I put my scepticism on hold for the moment.
When the second person answered, his first comment was “this resume is no good.” I asked what type of experience they were looking for, since I’m pretty junior, if they only wanted senior developers we could save some time. He told me it didn’t matter, that with 2 years of work experience I could apply for any job and then I could be making $50 an hour if I cooperated. He said he’d like to edit my resume and clean it up a bit before he submitted it. If I was “cooperative” I’d be able to get this job. He kept using that word “cooperate”. How and why could I be uncooperative? How would that serve me?
I told him he could improve my CV. We hang up and within 5 minutes I have an email with his “edits.” My entire resume was gone. In its place was a work history at a fictitious company where I had supposedly worked for the last 2 years. At this company I had worked with at least 3 technologies I hadn’t touched in real life.
I called him back and he asked if everything was ok. I told him I don’t know Java or Angular to start with. He retorted that it was just a matter of removing that before submitting. I told him it wasn’t going to work out and hung up.
I am curious though, what would have happened if I let him send it. How would that interview go when they asked me a technical question about Angular? Or even better, how long would I last at a company that thinks I have 2 years of experience and multiple languages I don’t know.
3rd Place: The Grudge
I was looking for a new development job after 6 years at a software consultancy and realising I wasn’t progressing in any way. A recruitment guy calls me to say he might be able to get me an interview at a local company with excellent pay and and great potential. The only thing I have to do is authorise him to send them my CV. Of course, I gave him permission and, a few days later, other recruitment guy calls and says the company has seen my CV and they want me to come for an interview. A couple of interviews later, I’m offered the job and accept. On the last day of my old job I get a call from the first consultant saying that, unfortunately, I won’t be able to get an interview at the company because I’m too inexperienced and I should apply for jobs that are lower paid. Bemused, I say nothing about my interviews and job acceptance and thank him for his time. In my first day at the new job I ask about the first recruitment guy. “Oh him!”, my boss says, “We banned him from sending us CVs since he showed up in our office and refused to leave unless we agreed to interview some of his people.”
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