Should You Jump Through Hoops for a Job or a Freelance Client?

With layoffs and a less than stellar economy, prospective employers expect candidates to go through longer and more frustrating hiring processes. Likewise, some clients will expect freelancers to jump through hoops to gain a project. So what to do? Should you go along with this? If so, how far?

Links:

https://theintercept.com/2022/07/29/bank-of-america-worker-conditions-worse/

https://washington-mail.com/a-great-backlash/

https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/07/02/death-by-interviews/

https://www.makeuseof.com/signs-to-drop-freelance-client/

https://www.reddit.com/r/freelance/comments/8ayhbu/jumping_through_hoops_to_get_paid/

Links where I can be found: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/2023/01/30/updates-housekeeping/

Need more? Email me: https://causeyconsultingllc.com/contact-causey/ 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to the Causey Consulting Podcast. You can find us online anytime at CauseyConsultingLLC.com. And now, here's your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, Hello, and thanks for tuning in. In today's episode, I want to contemplate the question, should you jump through hoops for a job or a freelance client? Full disclaimer here as I so often do. It's not advice. I don't give you advice. I don't tell you what to do or what not to do. I opine for your entertainment only. And that's it. I'm not in your shoes, you have to make up your own mind and come to your own conclusions about your individual situation. I'm really just asking this question in general, but then also more specifically, not for any individual person, but in light of what's going on in the economy? Do you feel right now that things are churning and burning and doing great, and that the economy is robust and resilient? Do you think the consumer is in great shape? Do you think that the job market is full of life and vim and vigor, a less than 4% unemployment rate to open jobs for everyone unemployed person? Why there's a veritable smorgasbord of beautiful jobs that pay a living wage, anybody would be happy to have them. They're just there and right for the beginning? No, of course not. No sane person is going to say yes to that. And seems like we hear about more and more layoffs all the time. Companies closing down companies downsizing, the people that are tossed out onto the eyes of Gotham have a very difficult time finding anything. So the question becomes, should you jump through hoops? I warned I don't even know how many umpteen million times about that leaked Bank of America memo that was on the intercept back in July of 2022. Where this person is allegedly saying we hope that conditions get worse for American workers. We want that balance of power to come home back to corporate America. I put out so many warnings that the great resignation was not going to last forever. And I was on the leading edge. If I wasn't the first person breaking the story, I had to be damn near close to it. Because I was on the leading edge of telling y'all when I felt like the great resignation was over. And I felt like it was time to cool it. The thing of it was the job market had the same FOMO and Yolo and artificially manipulated overheated bubble conditions, as did the housing market. I mean, if you were even vaguely paying attention to either the job market or the housing market back in, say, 2021, you saw these things. I was so incredibly busy in 2021. And it wasn't difficult to find projects. And you could really make your own rules and set your own terms and the client would have to go along with it. Well, the same thing was true for job seekers, if somebody didn't want to jump through flaming poodle hoops enough to and in some cases, companies were doing same day hiring. If you show up and you're coherent, and you have a pulse, you have the job. I mean, it was a crazy time. And I knew that we were in a bubble, I knew that we were in a boom cycle, and then it wasn't gonna last forever. Because the boom cycles never last forever. Think about the realtors who tried to tell people with a straight face, you know whether they were lying, and they knew that they were lying, or whether they were drunk on their own hopium? I don't know. But they would tell people this is not a bubble. We would just never have another 2008 This is not a bubble. These prices are gonna stay high forever. If you don't buy now, it's like you've missed the last lifeboat off the Titanic. It's now or never this can last forever. And it's like, no, it won't. No, it won't. And it was the same thing with the job market and the great resignation. Do you really think that corporate America this behemoth corporate America was going to allow john and jane Q public to have the upper hand forever? If you did, you must have been really on a good trip. You smoked some good stuff there because No, no, no, it was not going to be allowed to go on forever. And I feel like we've been in this period that I have labeled the great backlash. I even had an interview about that precise topic. I talked to the Washington mail back in June of 2023 where I talked about the great resignation was already finished and had been for quite some time, and that there was what I called a great backlash against it. And in fact, here's what I said. Is there a backlash against it? I definitely believe so. I think we can say there was a great resignation. And now there's a great backlash against it. The economy has boom and bust cycles. Sure, but I think at this point, we see some CEOs really taking a sort of impish Glee in punishing employees with RTO mandates and conditioning jobseekers by putting them through the wringer during the interview process. It's terrible. What do you mean by conditioning jobseekers, part of corporate America stock and trade? Is the idea of will you go along to get along? Or will you be a problem? It's really about conformity. Will this candidate conform with our attitudes and expectations? or would this candidate be more of a maverick? Generally speaking, the maverick candidate is passed over in favor of the conformist. I told y'all part of this continuing great backlash, especially in light of how the economy has worsened and the job market is in shambles is to prolong and protract the interview process. So if you're a job seeker, how many flaming poodle hoops do you jump through in order to get a job? If you're a freelancer? How many flaming poodle hoops do you jump through in order to get a 1099 project or an independent contractor gig? At what point do you say I have to walk away from this because I think it's complete lunacy. Last summer, I published a blog post titled death by interviews, because there was a story going around on CNBC about a woman who had nine interviews for a job she didn't even get. And one of the things involved a written case study exercise, and it's like, odd. But I mean, I warned y'all that this kind of thing was coming. I warned you about the great backlash. I told you that employers are not going to put up with on the spot hiring forever. And now there's that sort of payback is hell mentality. I think you job hopped up ons had your fun. And now it's time to pay the piper. I'm not telling you that I agree with it to be emphatically clear. I'm just telling you, unfortunately, that it's going on. And I would expect it to get worse. Because I don't know where the bottom is on this economic jalopy that we're driving I we're being forced to ride around and we're certainly not driving it. I don't know. My predictions at this point are not optimistic. I understand that that turns some people off. Some people get very angry if a content creator goes on a podcast or a blog. And they're like, I think we're in the poops right now, guys. Just being honest. In that blog post, I also wrote back when I was in grad school, I remember having a Shakespeare class that was only offered during odd falls, the professor quipped and I have the feeling this is gonna be an odd fall, I have the feeling that this is going to be an odd year. Over the course of 2023 I have experienced some pretty unprofessional situations in the freelancing market projects getting canceled before they started, project managers hiring subs and then getting fired, laid off resigned, and then all the subs get canned to managers backstabbing the contract labor and blaming all problems on them. There's been a real here today gone tomorrow vibe that I've seen as I've been freelancing. And as I said, if the market was really hot, and still candidate driven, these layoffs would not be happening in quote, and that has unfortunately carried over into 2024, I'm still seeing the same kind of weird instability. But where that has decreased, it has given way to just the lack of opportunities period, there are fewer opportunities to choose from. And the people offering those opportunities, whether you're talking about a full time w two position, or whether you're talking about a 1099 freelancing gig, the people offering those opportunities know that the opportunities are fewer and farther between. So that empowers them to do things that they shouldn't be doing, to ask people to jump through hoops to require 5678 interviews as though they're hiring a president of the company or a CEO or CEO when it's an entry level role. So how much of that do you want to put up with? And the short answer here for me is, I can't tell you any firm answer as I always say, I don't give you advice and I can't tell you what to do or what not to do. But I think it's important to know going into a situation.

Where does it get into the law of diminishing returns? At what point would you say? I don't even think I would want this job if they gave it to me or I don't even think I would want to work with this client if they finally got If they're behind and said, yes, we want to hire you, it is so important. Whether you are talking about interviewing to be an employee inside of company, or whether you're trying to get your bid accepted for a proposal, whether you're looking at a freelance gig, pay attention to the way that you're treated during that interview or during that intake process. That's really the point where people are going to be by and large on their best behavior. So if somebody acts like a rotten piece of garbage, during those initial interactions with you, Oh, honey, in my experience, it is not going to get any better. There's not going to be some magical moment like, Well, you're in the fold. And now we like you, we're going to treat you better. If they can't even be bothered to treat you well, during the interview or the intake process. Imagine what it's going to be like, after you've signed on the dotted line and made a commitment. I think back to Ben Stiller, and Happy Gilmore, you're in my world. Now, grandma, you'll go to sleep, or I will put you to sleep. That's typically the kind of attitude that you get from those folks. If they're going to be rude and demanding and out of hand when they're interviewing you, or they're vetting you for a contract assignment. Once you get in the door, it will not improve. I have never seen or even heard of a situation where somebody went through a terrible interview process and they were treated like pond scum, but then everything magically got better once they got in the door. So that is a point to ponder. And that's something to just consider. Now I know. And I've talked about this on the air before, we have to think about doing what the crisis demands. If you're in a situation where you need a j ob ASAP, or you're a freelancer, and you're looking at your savings account going Holy smokes, I need m o n e, why ASAP, then you might have to deal with the crisis demands. And you know what my hands in the air, I've been there and done that an unforeseen medical bill, an unforeseen veterinary bill or, oh my god, we're in a drought. And I'm going to have to buy a lot more hay than I was expecting. Because the animals don't have anything to eat, the ground is literally burned. And I'm going to have to figure out how to come up with this money. Who happens and we're adults, we know that sometimes we might have to deal with the crisis demands and take on a job or take on a project that deep down, we know it's gonna suck. We know we're not going to have a good time, but we just have to get to that money. Outside of those situations, though, let's say that you're gainfully employed, and you're thinking about taking another opportunity because it might be better. You need to really check that out before you make that leap. You need to pay attention to how they would treat you during the interview process. If you're freelancing, and you're thinking about picking up another project, you don't have to have it your bills are paid, but you're just looking into it for some extra money. Do you want to put yourself through a living hell? Questions to ask on make use of.com. They have a blog post titled eight signs to drop a freelance client and move on. There are eight signs are number one, the client keeps making unreasonable demands. Number two, your daily tasks are always beyond the scope of your assigned projects. I'm going to give that one to two hands up hallelujah moment. I have warned you before about people like Teddy, the tailgate negotiator, be really really careful about people who all of a sudden they want things that are not in your scope of work, they're not going to pay you anything extra. They just want you to do it because they feel like they have you by the short hairs. Be careful with people like that. The same thing is true. If you're talking about a full time w two job, you have a job description, and all of a sudden some manager decides to dump a bunch of extra work on you, but you're not getting paid for it. And it wasn't anything that you agreed to do. Number three, you feel like the client doesn't respect you or your time. This is a big one that you also need to vet during the interview process. Again, whether you're talking about a full time job or a freelancing gig, how does that person treat you? Not long ago, I had somebody that said hey, let's get on a call at such and so time and so I was ready. I was prepared. And it was like Bueller, anyone? Bueller? And so after 10 minutes, I thought okay, my time is too valuable. I'm so sick of this culture where people are inconsiderate of one another's time it's just getting to be on my nerves. And so I just said it looks like this meeting is not going to happen. I wish you the best of luck but I'm out. I totally just Shark Tank the guy. And he wrote back later. Oh, like like, Oh crap. I'm sorry. I forgot to cancel this meeting but I actually already hired another freelancer. Last night, and I thought, like, I'm just long pausing, because I don't want to cuz this is my daytime broadcast, but I was just like, Wow, all right, well, bye Good luck, I mean something else. Good luck to you there pal. If somebody doesn't respect your time, if they don't do that during the interview process, they're not going to do it later. That's a big red flag. So like, let's say that you're interviewing for a full time job. If the person is 30 minutes late, if they no show no call, and then they want to, like goof you around like your time is not important. You don't matter. Oh, sorry, I forgot I had to take my kid to the doctor, and I didn't make it today, can we just do this tomorrow, pay attention to those things. In my experience, that kind of behavior is not going to get any better as time goes on. Number four, the output you produce is potentially damaging. Number five, the scheduled payments are consistently late. Number six, you work long, uncompensated hours, number seven and overall toxic work environment. And number eight, the client can't provide a steady workload. This I think also comes back to things like flaky clients. Sometimes a flaky client is not just somebody who doesn't respond. It can also be somebody that gives you inconsistent work, inconsistent information, there was a gig that I worked on. I really liked the guy that I was interfacing with. And I really liked the company that I was doing this HR related project for. However, one Saturday morning, apropos of nothing, they just said, Hey, we got to pull your contract, hopefully, we'll be able to bring you back soon. But right now we just have something else we need to take care of sorry about you. And I thought I would have to think long and hard about whether I would ever go back and do anything for them again, because that's highly inappropriate and flaky. You don't just pull the rug out from under somebody like that. Now, with 1099 work, legally speaking, you can, in most states, again, talk to an attorney if you have legal questions, but in most states, they don't have to give you any reason they can just pull a contract and tell you, you're done. Now, we don't need your services anymore. But best of luck to you with no notice. To me, that's the sign of a crap client. If they would treat you that way. They clearly don't respect you. And it's just not good behavior. It also makes me wonder about the solvency of the company. If you would get yourselves in financial Dire Straits to that point where you need to tell somebody working 1099 That you don't need their services anymore. With no notice at all. What kind of cash flow issues do you have, like? That's suspicious.

Over on Reddit, we find this thread jumping through hoops to get paid. Hi, lovely Redditors. I am wondering if anyone here could give me a little advice. I have recently completed my first corporate freelance gig, a little training animation for a large global company. Upon completion, I sent them an invoice, they then had me complete a new supplier form for them. I'm gonna say that's kind of a red flag already thinking about my experience as a freelancer, all that financial documentation. First of all, when you do your scope of work, you need to have your invoice and payment terms lined out, you need to make sure that they agree to your timeline. Otherwise, you are really at their mercy as to when they're going to pay you or if they're going to pay you. Some people will just duck out and try to not pay you at all. But anything like that new supplier forms if they need your W nine I mean any any financial or tax related documents, you need to get that taken care of up front. Then it took them about three weeks to request a photocopy of my bank statement slash blank check to verify my bank details. Another huge red flag. Now I'm being told that I have to speak to someone on another continent to verify that I am not money laundering and that I am who I say that I am. Oh god. How much of this is them taking the proverbial piss? This job came through an agency at the university I am attending so I was never given a contract mega red flag. Oh my god like 58 red flags. I was told I was only told that their standard 60 day payment policy after 35 days of waiting to get paid. And I've been told by the agency that this is the first time this has happened. Oh, I'm sure they've worked with the company for about four years and usually payments just go through shortly after invoicing without this ordeal. I'm told it's a legal requirement for them to verify my bank details over the phone from Miami to make sure I'm not doing anything shifty. My words not theirs. If this is all legit, and I'm going to have to deal with this for any other large corporations, what measures should I take in advance to speed this process up? Well, for one thing, as my friend Bill always like to say a hard lesson is a good lesson because a hard lesson is one you don't forget. This was not handled in the way that it should have been in my opinion. You really want to To protect yourself as much as possible, get a scope of work put together, make sure that that client agrees to your payment terms and any sort of financial documentation that needs to be provided. If they're going to be doing an EFT or a wire transfer. If they're going to mail you a paper check, you need to get all of those details lined out before you do anything. You don't want to go off on a wild goose chase and do a bunch of work that realistically you might never get paid for. A lot of people have this idea, I'll just hire a lawyer. I'll call a collections agency. I'll Rage Against the Machine. And it's like, yeah, huh. Let me know after you do that, how well it works for you. You've got some attorney that charges 300 bucks an hour, and you're going to try to use that person to get 1500 bucks out of a company, you're rapidly going to figure out that you will spend more than you will make. I'm not telling you. It's fair. I'm just telling you. That's reality. Hello. Hi. How are you? We live in crony capitalism, the deck is not stacked in favor of you and me. If you thought it was cockadoodledoo, here's your wake up call. So how many hoops Do you want to jump through to try to get a contract? How many hoops Do you want to jump through to try to get a job? I think a lot of it depends on your personal desperation level? How much do you need that there was a guy I met, I'm gonna be necessarily vague because he's, he's still around. And I just want to be protective of his privacy. But he had gotten into HR related work. And I remember having this conversation with him where he was so incredibly clear about his level of burnout. And I was like, Well, why stay in and if you're that unhappy, and he said, I need the money. It would I'm at an age and I'm at a point in my career, in my experience level where it would take too long, it would take more than I want to try to invest to go figure out another career path. And then to get started, I'd have to leave this field and be considered a rookie. And at my age, I just don't want to do that. I feel like I've got about five more years of needing to work the way that I work now, then my wife and I will be at a point where there's enough financial stability, that I could do something different, or I could work freelance or I could work part time and make more of my own rules. But I'm just going to have to eat this dirt sandwich for another five years. Because in order to get what I want financially, this is the price I feel like I have to pay. There may be times in life where we have to suck it up, and stay in a job that we really don't like with a boss that we think is a turd, because we're trying to achieve some overall goal. And sometimes that goal is just eating, keeping the lights on keeping food in the fridge, being able to buy school clothes for the kids, et cetera. Sometimes when we freelance it's the same thing, you might be looking at your emergency fund going, I really don't want to raid the kiddie on this, I would rather work a job that got to hold my nose a little bit while I'm doing it, than to completely obliterate my nest egg and have nothing left in an emergency. That's real life. I think it's important for you to take a little bit of time, maybe treat it as a journaling exercise and think about this in advance. How many interviews Am I willing to tolerate? Or how many hoops Am I willing to jump through before I would just say, I believe that this person is a problem. I would rather lose this contract and deal with somebody that's going to be abusive. I think about that Garth Brooks song unanswered prayers. Sometimes the deals that fall apart sometimes the contracts you don't get sometimes the jobs you aren't hired for turnout to really be a blessing. Stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next episode.

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