jobs.dcrecruiters.org

There is a disturbing trend that seems to be most prevalent in hiring practices related to emerging fields.  Examples of job descriptions from that last few years where this dynamic might have been heightened are the emergence of Six Sigma in process engineering, the migration from Perl to PHP in computer programing, or the emergence of Social Media within the field of online marketing.
 
In order to describe this phenomenon I will use a hypothetical example, and for the sake of our discussion I will make up an imaginary emerging field, and call it “Quark Manufacturing”.
 
So let's say you are in this field and you see an add on Craigslist for a Quark Manufacturing Specialist. Your excited to see a opportunity in your field, so you forward your resume and become doubly enthused when you get a call from a hiring manager at said company explaining that they were impressed by your resume and would like you to come in for an interview.

 
Pleased as can be, you arrive at your interview and meet with the hiring manager. He begins his litany of questions with whoppers such as, “what exactly is Quark Manufacturing?” This catches you off guard because you'd expect a competent hiring manager to know something about the field he is hiring for. Thinking on the fly you convince yourself that he must be testing you, and beaming with pride, present a cogent answer.
 
Anxious to get on to more serious questions your floored when he says, “our competitor down the street has just invested big bucks into a new quark manufacturing division, so there must be something to all this stuff, I am just not sure if our company needs to get involved in the field at this time”. At this point in the conversation the wheels in your head really start turning, as you try to figure out what-in-the-world is going on.
 
The answer is, that the company, is likely on an information gathering expedition. What they have done is invested $25 in an add on Craigslist and for their money, filled a work day with prospective interviews. The interviewees will break down into three groups. Subject area experts, quasi experts, an wannabes.
 
If the hiring manager is any good at sorting B.S. from reality he'll be able to tell the wannabes from the experts and sift through all the information he has gathered. At the end of the day, he'll have a pile of valuable information, most likely compiled from multiple subject area experts, all for a investment of $25.
 
Let's look at this situation from a couple of different angles. From your point of view, you wasted a day that could have been spent chasing down more viable leads, and you wasted whatever transportation costs where involved getting you to the interview. In regard to how this type of interview treats prospective employees, the behavior of the company in this example is deplorable.
 
From the company's point of view, they are doing exactly what they should be doing. They are gathering information and spending as-little-as-possible to do so. In addition they always have the added benefit of plausible deny-ability if anyone calls them on their trick. “We were just testing the candidate to see if they knew their stuff.”.
 
Here is your take away if your a job seeker. If you figure out during an interview that the company is just fishing for information, your challenge is as follows...
 
First, try to give away as little actionable information as possible. What they want is freebies, so that is exactly what you should try not to give them. Second, do your darnedest to prove to them that they absolutely need said position at their company and if they don't get involved sooner-rather-than-later, they will be setting themselves up for major competitive disadvantage. Third, convince them that you are the person who should implement this work for their company. The best way to do this is to point to examples of your past work where you can say, “look, I am able to do this type of work with extreme proficiency.”
 
In all honesty, finding yourself in this kind of an interview, sucks. But unfortunately, life is such that we encounter hustlers all the time, regardless of whether they are out on a street corner, or behind a desk in a corner office. They key is to make the most of these situations.
 
As bleak as such a situation might appear, it provides you with two significant opportunities. The first is in sales. As the saying goes “all successful people are in sales”. If you are going to have a thriving career in any field you will be selling yourself, your project proposals, or just your ideas on a regular basis. Use the interview as an opportunity to practice selling yourself in the most harsh of climates.
 
The second opportunity is to gather information yourself. It will be very hard for the two of you to have such a conversation without the hiring manager giving away some information, about either his company or the industry, that you did not already know. Keep in mind that in most cases a job search is comprised of more than a single interview and that even crappy interviews, like the one you are on, can yield seeds which will bear fruit later.