- August 6, 2008
- 11 Comments
Leading candidates on again, are we? Not cool.
In last week’s post, I talked about CareerBuilder.com’s survey of lies job seekers tell on their resumes or in interviews, which generated some thoughtful and interesting – if not always completely relevant – commentary.
One comment that stood out from the rest was from reader Michele, who wrote, “How about when the company lies? I have been on many interviews when the interviewer lies to make the position sound more rewarding and the company in great financial condition.” Well, Michele, I’m glad you brought that up – for two reasons.
First, I agree with you 100 percent: companies who misrepresent themselves and the position for which they advertise to recruit employees are just as bad as candidates who lie to get jobs. They do a disservice not only to the candidate, but to themselves, as well. (High turnover rates, anyone?) As a former employee of one such company, I can vouch for it.
I once got a job for a company whose management led me to believe I’d be performing copywriting and graphic design. Needless to say, it was quite disappointing -and not a little bit humiliating – to get to work on my first day and discover that, despite a fancy title and a decent salary, I was relegated to the kind of menial tasks I performed as an intern in my college days. Only with less respect.
In my seven months with the company, I saw seven people resign, many of whom had been there less than six months. (By month five, we had to stop having goodbye parties in the office because it was simply too expensive to do so every few weeks.) And within two months after I myself broke free resigned, four other people followed suit.
Obviously, I wasn’t alone in feeling betrayed by management. I spoke with several co-workers who expressed similar disappointment with their positions. They came into this company, a fundraising consultancy, believing that they could start a career in this industry, only to find out too late that the promised chances for upward mobility didn’t exist, and even the bonuses they were led to expect as part of their salary were taken away. They found out, like me, that they needed to “know your place on the food chain,” as my former supervisor once said so tactfully said to a colleague.
Now this particular company had a lot of internal problems that alienated its staff – too many to list here – but the main problem stemmed from its culture of misleading both current and potential employees, a problem that, unfortunately, isn’t unique to my former company. (Ask Michele. She knows.)
Second, (and here’s where Michele’s comment comes into play) I’m currently working on a three-part series of literary genius articles about the importance of employee onboarding (read the first article in the series here), which can make or break a new employee’s experience at a new company.
Now here’s the tricky thing about onboarding: it really needs to start before the new hire’s first day even begins. That is, effective onboarding (which leads to more confident and knowledgeable employees, more satisfaction, higher production, lower turnover…oh, I could go on!) needs to start with being honest with the candidates in what their roles and responsibilities are.
Of course not every job you need to fill is going to be fitting-Heidi-Klum-for-her-wardrobe exciting, but sometimes, you gotta call a spade a spade. After all, if you’re hiring people under false impressions, chances are they’re going to quit eventually, leaving you back at square one – only with a little less money.
Read about the 10 Commandments of Employee Onboarding, and keep a lookout for the rest of my three-part series.
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- Categories: Employee Attraction, Employee Engagement, Employer Advice
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Last June I was contacted by a Head Hunter regarding an Executive Position with a Religious Organization in Texas. The first interview was great, full of offers and promises (401K, Medical/Dental/Vision, Vehicle Compensation, Fuel Compensation, Bonuses, etc…)
I was all exited when the interest progressed to the point that I was invited to New York (all expenses paid)to a dinner party in which I was interview again by 6 different top executives, again, offers of a bright future, promises of rapid advancement and benefit galore were thrown on the table as our dinner progressed; that same night, a few hours after or dinner ended (about 11:00 pm EST), I got a phone call confirming that I was selected for the position. Imagine the excitement, I was in the middle of Times Square trying to ease my nervousness, and got hired!, what could be better than that.
For obvious reasons, I was not going to discuss benefits or salary over the phone, I considered that to be rude and non-professional.
Next day, when a flew back home, the first thing I did was to contact the Head Hunter, I gave him the news and asked about benefits and salary, he said he would get back in touch with me after contacting the person who hired me.
To make a long story short, the HH said that the salary was 20% less than what he initially said the position was offering, and no benefits of any kind for at least 12 months.
He suggested to contact the Hiring Executive directly…
Their response: Good Luck to you, we withdraw our offer…..
Who’s to blame here?, Me for believing what I heard?, The Head Hunter for offering something that did not exist? or the Company for lying about the benefits and salary?
I think is a combination of factors, the excitement of a great opportunity, with a very promising future for the job seeker, that refrains you from thinking clearly about the offer, and the overstatement of possibilities and rewards from the employer, hoping that with the offer on the table, the job seeker would be to exited to think about it twice…
Suffice it to say, employers should do their homework when interviewing potential employees. (reference checks, etc, etc, etc…)
The same thing goes for employees when interviewing with a company. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve used Careerbuilder and received a slew of resumes for a posted job, only to discard more than half because the person applying had no clue to the job they were responding to. Furthermore, it is a joke to think that ANY person would accept a job at a company in which they have zero knowledge and have done absolutely no due diligence.
My advice: DO YOUR HOMEWORK. That is all. Good luck in your job searches.
Yesterday I had my second “interview” with the promotional company. during the first interview the hiring manager talked about office work and learning new marketing strategies and basically a complete experience that would be a great start for my career. the second interview was actually not an interview at all more like a sneaky way to have on the job training with out paying youngor your time, oh and did I mention that it lasted from 9am til after 6pm.
the actual job turned out to be walking a suburban area outside of St Louis, MO attempting to sell coupon books to random people at businesses. the worst part was that none of this was explained at all that any of this would be taking place. furthermore I was told to dress professionally so with dress clothing and shoes I proceeded to walk arounds for hours in the summer heat getting paid nothing and being trapt miles from my car and a way out of this lie.
so be careful of similar companies as this one because there are many of them I unfortunately suffered through this almost exact thing with a different company who cleverly use different phrasing and tactics.
I can almost guarantee the group cj mentioned is named the Titan group. And as the other comments mention, there is a reason these types of companies often struggle to find quality candidates. But as I myself found out nearly ten years ago when I graduated with my undergraduate degree, many of these companies prey upon young professionals. They shouldn’t even be able to call themselves “marketing firms” but instead call themselves what they truly are…low level sales. And I truly feel your pain for having to walk around in professional attire. At least it hopefully provides for a laugh. It happened to a colleague of mine and he had to go door to door selling “as seen on tv” merchandise in a suit.
My son, a college student, accepted a position for the summer with a local firm with several locations. Near the end of July they told him they were closing his location at the end of the month, the site did not fit in their long range plans. Obviously when they hired him and the other employees for the summer, they knew their long range plans. He and the others were left high and dry; he had other prospects that offered employment for the entire summer. No one wants to hire some one and train them for just one month. If they wonder why young workers have a poor attitude, employers only have themselves to blame.
I was hired at a large publicly traded company purportedly as an Exec. Asst to the CEO and the CMO; the pay and benefits were as stated and quite good, but the job description and future was not at all as represented – and these were primary questions I had asked in my interviews. I had no written job description but my tasks turned out to be receptionist tasks – things I did 20 years ago. When they found out I was working on a Graduate degree I was asked what I needed an advanced degree for – I lasted 14 months; about 5 months longer than the previous person. I did due diligence on the company as to its strength, growth probabilities and leadership. It still isn’t always possible to tell if a individuals are being honest in their representation of the job you are interviewing for. In my case they were desperate to fill the position with someone who could handle the travel and fed into my questions with what they thought I wanted to hear. I asked for a year for a job description and was told that my job was whatever anyone asked me to do. The key here was they figured that if they paid enough salary that once they got someone on board they wouldn’t leave. It was a terrible experience and unfortunately due to my age damaging to my career as well.
Most of my career has been focused on privately owned, small businesses. Therefore, it’s hard to do a lot of due diligence.
I interviewed with a company I will call WBG with the office manager, president and then owner. I was interviewing for the senior accountant position. I never met with the controller until the first day when she said to me, “This place is a house of cards, they never have money”. This despite what I was told. The owner and controller had a love-hate relationship and he would scream at her and call her names in the middle of the office. He finally fired her and I moved into her position and office, but without a pay increase. Just short of one year I was gone.
My next company was a single ownership firm. The owner was a pill popping drunk, but an attorney I know recommended me and told me great things about him. I was gone in 7 months. The owner also lied to me about the health of his company, we were constantly looking for money under rocks.
I have always told job candidates during the first interview what I considered to be the bad part of the job for which they were applying. No job has all good parts to it. I would also make arrangements for the candidate to speak to existing employees so they could ask them questions without me being present. I beleive that if I am doing what is best for my company, I want the employee to know EXACTLY what he/she is getting into. “Selling” the job by mis-stating the duties and responsibilities just so you hire someone is not doing the comapany any favors. An unpleasantly surprised new employee is not a productive employee. I am in business to make money. Happy, productive employees help me achieve that objective.
Not really lying, but…
When I walk in the door, instead of the 30-something candidate they envisioned, they see a highly capable, experienced, enthusiastic SIXTY-TWO year old, and the job quickly morphs into something that I no longer qualify for, or they will “let me know” about. They don’t just lie, they discriminate. I’ve been beaten time and again by younger, less experienced applicants.
My rationale is that it’s their loss, but meanwhile I continue to be underemployed and earning an inadequate salary that will prevent my scheduled retirement from occurring, if ever. I fear most the downward spiral to eventually being the one asking the obligatory question of, “Paper or Plastic?”
I interviewed for an HR position at Mattel. The salary was a good one and the biggest perk to me was that the job also included overtime which shocked me as it was a corporate job. The person that interviewed me said that he overtime was a huge perk that Mattel offered. I accepted the job and found out a week after I started that the overtime benefit was not applicable to my position. I was upset but it was still a good paying job at a big corporation so I decided to give it a try. Well I was never trained nor given an orientation as the person assigned to train me came in late an hour everyday, would take two hour lunches and leave early. Her words were, I am too busy to train you so just surf the net until i am done with my work. Needless to say that I surfed the internet for 3 straight weeks. the job was nothing like described. I am an HR manager yet this position seemed more like a secretary position.
I quite three months into the job as I found another job.
LOL – went on that job interview too, straight out of college. My “training” was done in heels and a suit in 105 degree St. Louis heat. I stuck it out for about an hour, then told my “trainer” that I was calling the police to report myself kidnapped if she didn’t return me to my vehicle immediately. The “manager” tried to talk to me before I left the parking lot, but I wasn’t interested at all.
If you ever go to a professional interview and they are blaring pop music in the lobby – turn around and walk out!!