Fake jobs, ghost jobs, joke jobs, clown recruiters, and other absurdities encountered whilst job-hunting in a dystopian employment landscape circa 2013-2018...
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I realize it’s not nice to make fun of people (and corporations are people!) but I’ve got nothing left to lose...back in February 2014 I applied for a design job at this company. I received an email from their "director of marketing," asking me if I have “experience building websites.” Well, gee, I state in my resume and cover letter that my experience includes digital design including websites, plus my portfolio has a few screenshots of some sites I designed. You’d think this person would have done their homework into my candidacy or, at the very least, know how to read, no? But I kindly responded in the affirmative. She replied with, “Do you have samples of your work I can review including any past website work or an online portfolio?”
Oh, for the love of dog...the link to my portfolio is on the top right of my resume AND in my cover letter. Sheesh. I should have known this was not going to end well. She finally invited me for an interview the following week (a one-hour drive from my home each way), and I met with her and another woman who didn’t really contribute anything during the meeting. Because this girl was incredibly young and painfully inexperienced, the "interview" consisted of me doing 90% of the talking. She really couldn't offer anything to the conversation. After maybe 10 minutes she said she’d like to have me come back and meet with their development team who were not available that week (so why did she bring me in that week and not when the development team was available?). I said that’s fine, just let me know when and I’ll be here. We stood up, and then the fire alarm went off.
We left the small conference room and I was shocked to see that this girl was heading back to her office (behind closed doors) without closing this meeting professionally with a “thank you for coming in” or “we’ll be in touch” or walking me to the elevator or even with shaking my hand. I shouted to her over the alarm and all the evacuating people “when can I expect to hear back from you,” she was clearly flustered to see me behind her and quickly said “next week,” and then I offered a hand shake. And I left.
Of course, I never heard from her again. Two months later the job reappeared on LinkedIn, only this time it required candidates be a programmer and a photographer in addition to a designer.
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In December 2015 I applied for a multimedia designer position at their Groton location (a ninety minute drive), and was invited in for an interview. I met with three people including the hiring manager, the current designer and an HR rep. Not long after the interview began, the hiring manager proceeded to tell me not to feel bad if I don't get hired for this role because they'll most likely be hiring again in the summer. I thought it was quite strange to be told such a disheartening comment at this stage. He then pointed out that this is a contract role which may or may not get funding for more than six months or a year. The designer then pulled out and read from a list of standard questions, one of which included the severely stupid "where do you see yourself in five years?" Considering that they just told me this job is not guaranteed to last more than a year and that no job today is guaranteed to last more than six months, I wanted to say out loud, "Really???" Instead, I attempted to answer a little more diplomatically by pointing out that we are now in a gig economy and I don't think ANYONE can answer this question today, ending it with "I hope to be healthy and happy." At the end of the interview the designer told me she knows a designer who just quit at such-and-such company down the road so they definitely have an opening and I should check it out. Again, why are you telling me to go apply to another company if you're considering me for this job? Unless, of course, you're not considering me at all, this job is completely FAKE, it's been filled already and you only brought me in to check off an EEOC box...
True to their word, I saw the exact same job being advertised in May 2016. No doubt they've picked their candidate and they are going to waste the time of a few applicants as they did mine. Very sad.
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I’m just going to share my Yelp review of Aerotek:
As an unemployed graphic designer who has hit upon some very hard times, I swallowed my pride and applied for a typing job they advertised last week. Previous to my design career, I worked in office admin during/after college; my total work history encompasses 27 years, and I type 130wpm (I typed 80wpm on a manual Underwood in high school). I'd like to take this moment to point out that my very first job with no work experience, no degree and no references was as a typist back in 1986 (after my first year of college), earning $5/hour. Adjusted for inflation today, that translates to $10.71 today.
I had previously met with someone in the Westford office, which was a waste of time and downright offensive. I met with some kid half my age and the meeting ended on the negative observation that in order to proceed I'd need three references from my admin work of 20+ years ago ("You can't just call them?" Um, no, kid, I cannot just call someone I worked for twenty years ago; in fact, my boss from that job is dead.) I tried my best to I explain that my references attest to my design background of the last 17 years, but he just didn't get it. Of course, I never heard from that office again.
Back to the typist job I applied for...I got a call from a girl I'm assuming was also half my age, she explained that this job pays $12/hour. I've had my own personal struggle dealing with these embarrassingly low salaries that are more in line with what I earned 25 years ago, but I wasn't going to take it out on her. But then she said, "Oh, you didn't give us those three references. Can you send those over?" Once again, I tried to explain my situation, that I have references for my design career. She then asked if they could attest to my typing skills. I said no, and the call ended. I then got an email from her stating, "I will check in with my partner and let you know what he thinks about moving forward." I replied back, attaching a PDF of my actual performance reviews from one of those old jobs (including the letter written to the CEO of the company begging him to make an exception to their wage freeze to give me a raise due to my exceptional performance). I got NO response to this email. (Does anyone else have the urge to barf at this point from reading this?)
So, there you have it, folks. I am officially unqualified for a typing job with a salary circa 1986, even though I've been a member of the workforce for 27 years and I type 130wpm. Shame on you, Aerotek -- and you, too, Corporate America!!! When the majority of us have been relegated to a Reagan Administration salary and nobody can purchase your crap just watch this country collapse to Third World banana republic status. And when that happens, don't forget to say YOU BUILT THAT!
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Here is the letter I sent to this company’s board of directors in December 2015 (never received a reply, of course):
On October 28, I applied for the Senior Graphic Designer position you advertised on your website (job description attached). One week later, I received your rejection email stating my experience “does not match the requirements of the position.” I have 17 years of design experience, meeting every single requirement listed in the job description, so I was a little baffled by the rejection email.
I immediately emailed your HR department demanding that you remove me from your database as I do not want my personal information residing on your servers. Within 30 minutes of sending this email, my visitor statistics revealed that someone in your organization viewed my website and portfolio; my LinkedIn profile also received two anonymous viewers from your organization.
Number one, I would like to know what the true “qualifications” are for this position. Clearly, you rejected me for something not mentioned in the job description (like the applicant’s age).
Number two, I’m even more curious to know why this job has just been newly posted – after two months, am I to believe you received zero qualified applicants in a state where talented designers are a dime a dozen? Again, considering that you dismissed me as “unqualified,” it begs the question of what the hidden qualifications are for your perfect job candidate.
Finally, I’d like to know why your HR department went to the trouble of reviewing my website and LinkedIn profile after receiving my email requesting that I be removed from your system. Logic would dictate that the time to have performed this task would have been BEFORE rejecting me. I am confused as to what they expected to accomplish here (quite frankly, it makes them look like a bunch of childish idiots with too much free time on their hands).
Unless I hear otherwise from you, I’ll assume that either your company is guilty of discrimination, your hiring team is completely incompetent, or that this job is not even real and you’re merely “tire kicking.” All scenarios reflect very poorly on you, and I will continue to warn every design professional in my social network to avoid your company.
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My experience with this company wasn’t all that exceptional, but as it was an incredibly illustrative example of what I experienced so many times as a job hunter, I’ve decided to include the story here. I applied for a graphic design position advertised in April 2014 and had a telephone interview with their HR rep. She was the typical HR rep I've been encountering since I began looking for work in 2013 -- an inexperienced, giggly, twentysomething girl. She did not ask me a single question in relation to my design experience or anything design-related, but rather read off a number of generic pointless questions from a checklist (questions more suitable for a management or administrative role). I tried my best to answer these questions (and I truly do not understand what companies expect to get out of these useless phone interviews), and she ended with telling me the next step would be a face-to-face interview. After the call I emailed her the standard thank-you, to which she did not respond. I received her rejection email two weeks later. As I was fully qualified for this position (I have 17 years of experience) I would really like to know what exactly was the criteria they used to disqualify me from even having a real interview.
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Bain & Company was recently ranked by Glassdoor as the best place to work. Even funnier, Stinkassachusetts was ranked the best state in which to live. Let’s see how the best company in the best state treated me when I applied for a senior graphics coordinator position in August 2016.
I have twenty years of experience designing/developing presentations so, naturally, I easily earned an initial phone screening with the HR rep. One of the questions she asked me was, "Tell me about a time when your attention to detail made you successful!" She was impressed with me enough to schedule me for a phone interview with the hiring manager, who also asked me, "Tell me about a time when your attention to detail made you successful!" She in turn scheduled me to come in to their Boston office for an interview. After first making me perform a PPT test (to prove I haven't faked my career), I met briefly with her, and then she left the room after conferencing in another person from their NY office, who proceeded to ask me "Tell me about a time when your attention to detail made you successful!"
The following week I got a voicemail from the HR rep saying they are considering me but due to Labor Day "things have slowed down" so it may be awhile before I hear anything. NEVER heard from them again.
In January 2017, I noticed they were again advertising the same job. I applied only to use my cover letter to let them know what I think of them. I received an email from an HR rep saying that the woman who was in charge of sending me a rejection email had left the company before doing so, and they apologize for the oversight. As for why I wasn't chosen for the job, she said, "I am unable to comment on the reasons as to why your candidacy had not been successful at the time."
I remember a time when it was standard procedure to tell candidates what part of their background or personality fell short. I can recall being told everything way back when, from "she just didn't like you" (people aren't nice in Stinkassachusetts, so a nice normal person will be subjected to loads of this here) to "you seemed too serious.” She then regurgitated the standard "Looking at your resume right now, I can say that your previous experience and qualifications, though impressive, do not quite match the requirements of the current role. We therefore unfortunately will not proceed with your application any further."
Putting aside the fact that this is a job I've done for half my life, explain to me how I was qualified enough last August for three rounds of interviews, but I am suddenly completely unqualified for the exact same role? I've concluded one of two scenarios here:
(a) This job was completely fake, only posted to satisfy EEOC regulations; they had a full team of graphics coordinators, so it would only seem logical that the promotion would go to someone internally.
(b) They didn't know how massively OLD I was until I came in to their office on that third interview. Now that they are aware of how old I am, they clearly want nothing to do with me. Boston is second only to Silicon Valley in its hostility towards older workers -- "old" being over 35. Anyone who doubts this should simply look at the video in the banner on their Glassdoor page, which is full of twentydumbthings.
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In April 2014 I was contacted by a recruiter from Collabera about a contract design job at Bank of America. I was a bit skeptical as the job description teetered on the more technical side rather than creative, but he insisted I was more than qualified, so he submitted me for the job. A few days later he emailed me asking if I can provide any samples of my work. I said, “You’ve got the link to my online portfolio, didn’t they get that?” He replied, “They want to see more.” I took a deep breath and pointed out that just about everything important I’ve done is on my site, if they want something specific I’ll need to know what that is and see if I can dig through my files to provide it, then I asked him what specifically are they looking for. His response was, "I don't know." Sigh. I could see this was turning out to be another waste of time and said that if they can’t tell me specifically what aspect of my experience they need to see more of, then I can’t provide anything. I thought that would end it, but surprisingly he contacted me back later saying they wanted to interview me.
Met with two young guys. Interview lasted for an hour and I actually thought it had gone rather well. The second kid even walked out and chatted with me down the elevator and into the building lobby. I left feeling surprisingly optimistic. Two days later I received the email from the recruiter saying I didn’t get the job, reason was “applicant not qualified.”
??????
How did I go from “qualified” to “unqualified” here…I certainly didn’t present myself any differently than what I present in my CV. If I was unqualified, then why did they waste my time (I paid $35 just to park) and get my hopes up by bringing me in for an interview? Seems to me these kids were unqualified to be deciding whom to interview...
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This is just another useless organization posting as a “staffing agency” in the decrepit state of Stinkassachusetts. On February 2, 2016 I applied for a senior design position they advertised on LinkedIn. I received an email from a woman from this agency on February 26 requesting a phone call. By this time, I had forgotten just what job this was so I did a search through my emails looking for “bay shore staffing.” What should appear but an old thread from September 2013 with this same woman. Reviewing the conversation, I was reminded that she reached out to me after coming across my resume on Monster saying she was trying to fill a design position, we spoke on the phone, I sent her my resume, she said she’d submit me to the hiring manager…and I never heard from her again.
Fast forward to this latest encounter which went down in the exact same fashion, i.e., we talked on the phone, she said she'd submit me to the client, and I never heard back from her. Like I said, typical Stinkassachusetts staffing agency.
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I applied for a designer position they advertised back in June 2014. It appeared to be strictly a print design position as there was no mention of web development -- HTML/CSS, JavaScript, etc. I applied and was almost immediately contacted the HR rep for a phone interview.
Of course, this went down just like every other phone interview with an HR rep I’ve had — no real discussion of design anywhere. I asked if there was any programming required, “Will this require advanced programming or do you have a team who manages your website?” She very slowly responded with “...I...think...that’s a part of this job.” In other words, she didn’t know and was just guessing. Whatever. I said I’ve got HTML/CSS in case that skill is needed. She said the next step would be yet another phone interview — seriously? — and THEN if you pass you’d be invited to an in-person interview. About a week later the HR rep called me to tell me the team is not interested in pursuing my candidacy because they are focusing on finding someone with “a more technical background who can do web programming.” Then the job got re-posted on LinkedIn — with not a single change to the description, i.e, no addition of “must know HTML/CSS, JavaScript, PHP, JQuery, etc.”
According to the LinkedIn statistic, there were 53 applicants after the first posting. Gee, if you’ve just disqualified all 53 initial candidates because they didn’t have the web programming skills you are now demanding, don’t you think you should…oh, I don’t know…add that requirement to the job description?????
Unless, of course, they rejected me because of my age and she just couldn’t make up a more credible excuse...
A few weeks later, they posted it AGAIN on LinkedIn. And, again, there continues to be NO edit to the job description, i.e., no mention of the “technical background” they told me they were now looking for in a candidate. And the LinkedIn stat at the time (which, strangely, has been removed) revealed the applicant count had gone up to 105. No, there couldn't possibly be a single qualified applicant in there...
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I’ve mostly kept my “reviews” here focused on end clients whenever a recruitment firm was involved, but because this was such a fine example of the piss-poor manner in which agencies treat candidates today, particularly in Stinkassachusetts, I’m calling them out here. In May 2014 I applied for a job they had listed on ZipRecruiters. Normally, I would not have applied for a “visual designer” job (because visual designer = UX designer = programmer who knows Photoshop) but the job description explicitly said “no programming” and read like a traditional graphic design job (JavaScript was a "plus") so I took a leap of faith and applied.
I got an email back from the recruiter saying my background looked like a good fit, so we scheduled a phone call. During the call he asked me to explain my background; hmmmm, he’s got my resume, did he not read it? Whatever. I tried to expand on it a bit, and of course he asked about my unemployment gap. Finally, he asked me if I have any UI/UX design experience. No, I don’t (why in the world would I deliberately leave such an important detail off my resume?). He said I’m not going to be a good fit for this job, as “there are too many gaps” in my skills. Now, just wait one damned minute here, dude. You had my resume, you read it (or at least I’m assuming you did)…if my background was so terrible, why waste my time at all here? It's pretty clear that the job description was just a big lie. Which begs the question, did he contact me just to insult me…
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In March 2013, I finally began to realize that there was something very wrong with this job market and that getting a job in my field might have to take a back seat to just getting A JOB anywhere, anyplace, doing anything. This is when I began applying for miserable menial low-paying clerical and retail jobs that paid the same amount or less than what I earned back in 1992 as a medical secretary. I applied for a customer service representative in this place, once in March and again in April. Here’s the screenshot of their webpage where they try to make applicants like myself feel so welcomed and tell you this is not just another low-wage shit job (even though it is).
Not only did I not “qualify” for an interview (hey, I’ve only been working since 1986, what good could I possibly be to any company?) but they don’t even respect candidates enough to send a rejection email. Thanks, Boston Scientific, for being just as decrepit as every other company in Stinkassachusetts.
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I applied for a presentation design position with this company back in July 2015 and received a call from the HR rep. Of course, as with every job screening today, the first question asked was my salary requirements (because that’s really all companies care about). As always, I stated I’m completely open to offers. When she told me the salary I was slightly shocked as it was on par with what I earned back in 1999 (to be fair, the job description said "1 to 2 years of experience required," which meant they're looking for someone under the age of 25, so my bad for applying!). But, because she seemed impressed with my background she said we might be able to negotiate something better when the time comes, so she scheduled me for a phone interview with the hiring manager.
I am still shocked at how nasty and disinterested in speaking with me this guy seemed to be. I sent him several files and also directed him to view my online portfolio (which he clearly had not reviewed before our call), none of which emitted a single reaction from him. I sent one slide with both the "before" and the "after" versions, explaining how the client sent me the "before" version with a request to "make it pretty," and I redid the whole thing to better convey the message. He asked me, "Why couldn't you just make it look pretty?" What? Is this guy for real? I replied, "Well, would you understand the 'before' version as it is, just with prettier boxes?" He said no, so I'm really baffled at that dumb question.
He finally asked me what I found to be downright offensive, "Are you capable of working with CIOs" -- offensive because with nearly two decades of experience you better believe I know how to work with CIOs!!! It was a CIO who directly hired me in the job I was currently holding (the contract gig at Fidelity), and had he bothered to review my LinkedIn profile he'd see some very nice recommendations written by SVPs. I'm not some dumb kid who just got off the boat, and if that's what you're looking for then you shouldn't have wasted my time to begin with. My final attempt to stimulate some positive dialogue resulted in him getting downright nasty with me. I said the Mac version of PPT has serious issues (for example, it's missing the selection panel and the animation pane is missing features). He barked at me, "Well our salespeople all use Macs and you have to be respectful of that!" Seriously, what crawled up this guy’s ass and died? I silently giggled when at the end he asked me if I have any questions. Really? You've barely said anything to me except to yell and be condescending, how exactly can I be inspired to ask you anything at this point? When the call ended I knew immediately I had wasted half an hour (I received their rejection email two days later, thank heavens). I honestly don't understand why this call was even scheduled.
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My experience applying for a job with this company was a perfect example of the recruiting incompetence Nick "Ask the Headhunter" Corcodilos often writes about. One of the hot topics concerns employment personality tests.
After applying for a design job they advertised in December 2013, I received an email commanding me to take A 30 MINUTE PERSONALITY TEST. I deleted the email and mailed them a letter quoting one of ATH's articles, "'People must stop begging for jobs' -- this is where I would place your little 'assessment' which was just an attempt to make me beg for your job opening. I will not beg; I am a human being who has been a member of the professional workforce for 25 years. I refuse to be judged and dismissed by an algorithm because your HR department is too damned incompetent and/or lazy to do it themselves. I hope all other intelligent self-respecting candidates will do exactly the same as I did by dropping your test invitation email into the trash folder. And good luck to your algorithm in finding the 'perfect candidate' from whatever little talent that remains."
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