Bad Behavior at the Interview = 🚩🚩🚩

Job hunting right now stinks. I get it. For that matter, responding to RFPs and placing bids as a freelancer is no walk in the park either. If you are speaking to a prospective client or a potential employer and the interview process is: weird, rude, disorganized, combative, protracted, overwhelming, etc., can you expect this behavior to improve if you accept the job or the project?

In my experience over the years: no!

Links:

https://hbr.org/2022/06/10-red-flags-to-watch-out-for-in-a-job-interview

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 talk about red flags during the job interview process and or the job proposal process. If you're a freelancer or you work on a contract basis, that proposal process can also be similar to a job interview process for a full time w two job. I always say standard disclaimer here. 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. You have to come to your own conclusions and make your own best guesses about how to handle things in life. nothing's guaranteed, we know that for sure. In my experience, if the interview process for a job is terrible. If the proposal and intake process for a contract or freelancing gig is terrible, it's not going to magically get better over the course of time. If we think about the interview, or the intake process, really being when people put their best foot forward, if the best foot forward, they have really stinks. What do you think it will be like when you're actually working for them or working with them? Spoiler alert, it's typically not going to be any better than it was when they rolled out the red carpet and told you all of their fancy fineries I get it, believe me. There are times in life, when you're going to be sitting there saying, Sarah, I need a j ob ASAP. I need cash as soon as possible. I don't have time to be picky. I don't have time to worry about best case scenarios. I need to land a gig quickly. My savings account is almost gone. Or I've been laid off for six months, I've had no real nibbles. This is the first thing and yeah, maybe it kind of sucks a little bit. But gosh, I gotta get something, I get it. Which is another reason why I say I don't give you advice and tell you what to do or what not to do. If you are in a situation of doing what the crisis demands, because you're about to go broke. You're about to get evicted, you could lose your car, I get it. So I'm not talking about, hey, I have to take this job because I have to all limp along. And if it totally sucks for the next six months until I can find something better. I'll do it. Again. I totally do. In general, if the job interview sucks, if they mistreat you, if things are right, it's not going to improve once you're actually an employee at that company. By the same token, if you are a freelancer, when you're in that proposal, negotiation intake process, if they are flaky, weird, rude, combative, at that stage of the game, how in the heck do you think they're going to behave when you are engaged in a scope of work? And you're dealing with them head on? long pause there, so you can think about that for yourself. I will offer up a recent example. I'll have to change some names around but I had a doozy of an experience lately. And I thought this would make a great cautionary tale, a great podcast episode. Because if I'm going through it someone else's to the job market, the labor market being what it is right now a hot dumpster fire. And we're in this bizarro election year where we don't know what's going to happen come November, there's a lot of uncertainty in the market. Things are weird. Things are just it's almost like walking on an uneven surface, or one of those floors or bridges that you find in the funhouse, where things are spinning around you and you're on uneven terrain, and you're not even really sure how to put a foot right to get forward. You just want to close your eyes and get the heck out of there. That's what it's been like. So I know if I'm having weird experiences other people are too. Oh, where do you begin on this one? So this woman, I'll just call her Jane Doe. She came into my funnel via my website and said that she needed some HR slash recruiting help. And my first red flag in this situation was that she didn't appear to have a website for this company. She had a LinkedIn company page but she didn't appear To have an actual real website. So I asked her, if she would tell me more about the company and send me a link to the website, so I could check it out for myself, she did so. And the website was incredibly vague. When I did find it, which I wouldn't have found it on my own, just trying to look through Google, which is, again, a red flag. It had very little information, it was awfully vague. I mean, it, it almost looked like add water and stir ABCD website that tells you nothing. So this was a red flag. She also in morning to have an intake call. She wanted to either do it at night, or on the weekend. And she was adamant about that I can't do it just normal Monday through Friday, eight to five. And I'm like this is a colossal red flag. So we've already had one red flag of the website not being easy to find. And then when I did find it, it was vague. Now she's telling me she can only talk to me at night or on the weekend. So I told her, if you're in a situation where this business is a side hustle, and you're still working a full time w two job for somebody else, I'm not gonna be a good resource of help to you. I applaud you, I get what you're doing. Been there, done that myself. But as a consultant, I really specialize in companies that already have some traction, they already have some flooding. They already have an HR and or talent acquisition department in place. They're not some teeny, tiny startups. They're not mom and pop shops that are trying to make their very first hire. And they have no infrastructure whatsoever. And it's going to be an uphill battle the whole time. I've done that before, but it's not my preferred method of work. I really specialize in companies that are already established. They just need some additional help. So she comes back. Oh, no, that's not my situation. This is not a side hustle. The only reason that I can't be available during work hours is because right now I have to be on site for one of my clients. For the next few weeks. I'm tied up Monday through Friday, eight to five being with them. But this is just a temporary thing. I will be back in my own office soon enough. And I just I had this feeling like, Hmm, I just don't know about this one. At the same time, however, I didn't have to do any kind of advertising or marketing, I didn't have to approach her she came into my funnel. I thought alright, well, we'll see. I've got two red flags here. I feel a bit uneasy. But I haven't even gotten on the phone or on a video call with her yet I don't even know the full picture to be able to really say yes or no to anything. And I went to my little consortium, that's what I call them, my my circle of buddies here that we all own and operate our own businesses. And we get together from time to time either to bounce ideas around to gripe to talk about oddities in the market, et cetera. So I floated the question by them, like a couple of red flags here. I feel a little uneasy. And their consensus was the same as mine, when you haven't even spoken to her yet. So you really don't know what you're saying yes or no to. You've got a couple of things that are pulling you in the direction of probably not. But then again, you may talk to her and find out that everything is legitimate, and she has a great personality and then maybe the two of you totally hit it off. If only the spoiler alert was like the part in the narration, if only it had gone that way. She wanted to have a video call early on a Saturday morning and I'm like, oh god, why that was my next point of like, Oh, really? Around here. Saturday is a much more of a mellow day. That's not a running around getting crazy day for us. Generally speaking. I really like to have a Saturday morning of personal time of family time, having breakfast and not being in a hurry. Everybody can just decompress. We're not We're not expected anywhere. Nobody needs anything, is just chill time baby. So I am loath to give up a Saturday morning especially for something work related. Nevertheless, okay, the job market is a dumpster fire the economy is in a very weird space. I went ahead and agreed to it. The Friday beforehand. We had been busy. I've been busy running errands and then we had a mountain of stuff to do on the farm. When I say that Friday night I was bone tired. I mean it literally my joints hurt I had some sore muscles. When I climbed into the bed that Friday night as soon as my head hit the pillow I was gone. I mean I was like in a coma state of torpor, you're like a hibernating bear.

The alarm goes off Saturday morning, which again, I hate doing that I hate sending an alarm on a Saturday morning, that's our leisure day. I get up and I get a bunch of things done. So I can take a shower, comb out my hair, put on makeup and a dress shirt and be sat in my office ready to have this video call. Now get in there. And this woman's admin assistant gets on first, but she has all kinds of technical difficulty being able to link up to the Zoom call that she herself, has scheduled and coordinated. So I'm like, Okay, we're not off to the best of starts, but she finally gets on. And it's like, well, Jane should still be joining us. I mean, she hasn't told me that she's going to cancel or anything so she should still be here he and I'm like, Oh no, right then and there. I just had this pit in my stomach like this was a mistake. This is going to be a giant waste of your time. A few minutes later, when I was starting to get aggravated Jane did show up. She did not look like or sound like she was in her best condition and almost sounded to me like maybe she had been out partying the night before and and tied some on. She kept asking the same questions over and over again and being like to her admin assistant, I'll just call the admin assistant Betty, not her real name, but it's like Betty, have I asked all the questions I said I was gonna ask, Have I done this? Have I done that? So Jane was out of sorts, disorganized, I had to ask her some pretty basic questions that really she should have been able to answer for me upfront, it should have been part of her little 10 cent elevator speech to me. And I just knew this is this was a pointless meeting. You know, maybe I should have just use those red flags as a as a reason to just not do this to just simply not do this. When I came out of the office, the family was like, well, you clearly didn't get ghosted because you were in there long enough to have a conversation with somebody. And I said, No, I didn't get ghosted that would have ticked me off beyond belief. If I had gotten up and rearranged my day to be present for a call and then they just ghosted me that would have really made me mad. But as it was, a it wasn't much better than being ghosted, because, frankly, the experience sucked. They did not impress me any at all. I don't see us working together at any point in time. I think this was a waste of time. So I will not be doing this again. I'm not going to interrupt personal time, family time leisure day, to have a call with somebody like this again, it's just especially when there have already been red flags. It's just not worth it. My sanity, my personal time, my family time, it's not worth it. Especially for something that turns out to be a joke. I feel like for me, that was an important lesson learned. One of the things that I have really worked to balance for 2024 is this idea of yes, I'm in a for profit business, I need to make money that's a given with, I also need my sanity. I need to not be dealing with idiots na holes. I talked on the air before about how I had some times in 2023, where I really got kicked in the ribs proper kicked in the ribs, by people that in hindsight, I shouldn't have really been doing business with them anyway. Yes, there was money involved, and we need money to live, as Bill Hicks would say if you think you're living in a free society, try going somewhere without money and see how far you get. Yes, money is important. I can't mail hopes and dreams and hot air and unicorn Toots to the mortgage company or the utility office. However, at the same time, dealing with rude jerk wads that make your life a living hell, man. That's not a good place to be in or dealing with somebody like Billy the backstabber, they say and do plenty of nice things to your face. And then they try to sabotage the project or they offer terrible feedback at the end of it after you've busted your hind in for them. Now, that's where I'm at. I'm really working to try to counterbalance Yes, I want to make money. Money is important. I also want to stay sane. I want to attract in good clients with good motives that pay good money and give good feedback. Good, high emphasis on the word good. I want to hop over for a moment to an article from Harvard Business Review titled 10 red flags to watch out for in a job interview. And some of these can be applicable not only to a job interview for a full time w two job where you're going to plug it plug in as an employee, but also where you might be interviewing for a contract assignment or a freelancing gig. In this article we read, job interviews are a two way process. You're interviewing your potential boss and employer as much as they're interviewing you. Yes, absolutely. The same thing with freelancing. If you can suss out this person is going to be an unholy nightmare from the get go. As in my situation with Jane and Betty, do I really want to work with them after the way that they behaved? And the sketchy details they gave me about her suppose and Company? No, no, I don't. Number one on Harvard Business Review, constant rescheduling and disorganization. Yup, yup, yup, yup. See, here's the thing, the client or the potential employer is not going to put up with that from you. So why do you put up with that from them? As it says in this article, if the recruiter or the hiring manager ghost you for a considerable, considerable period of time, and by a considerable period of time, I'm talking a week that's a red flag, it shows a lack of transparency and inability to communicate properly. Yup. And what do you think it'll be like when you get in there? If they're not transparent? If they're disorganized? If they're disrespectful of you and your time on the front end? How in the hell do you think it'll be when you're their employee? Just saying, number two disrespecting others, this is a good point to ponder as well. If they're gossiping about current employees, they're trash talking past employees, be careful there. Three values conflict, for lack of clarity or consistency in answers to your questions. That's another big one. If you ask a direct question, such as how long have you been in business? How many years have you been operational? Is this a side hustle, and you just get hot air? Be careful there. Or in a job interview? What's the salary range? If they don't want to tell you, that's a red flag because trust and believe they know, five bait and switch six inappropriate questions or comments, seven lack of connection, eight resistance to change, even if they say they want change, oh, let the church say amen to that. I got in a job once. And I'm definitely going to be unnecessarily vague here where I was brought in to be a change agent. I was being groomed to be like a GM or an operations manager. And the owners of the company swore to me on the holy a stack of Bibles that they wanted change. And they knew it was time. They did not want change. And they fought me tooth and nail. And it was a horrible experience. Number nine, excessive number of interviews or drawn out interview process. Yes. 10 exploding offers exploding offers or job offers that are given with a firm deadline, often on a very tight timeline beyond which the offer expires. I'm going to button on this one and argue just a little bit and expiring offer is not necessarily a red flag. Now if they say we're only going to give you an hour, that's absurd, that is a red flag. But if they say, we're going to need a response within 48 hours, I don't actually think that's a bad thing. You have so many people that ghost and play games and do foolish nonsense on both sides of the equation. Let's be real candidates, and hiring managers playing games and do foolishness. I can understand why an employer would say

48 hours we need an answer or we're gonna give you this offer on Monday by Friday end of business, we need a firm commitment, yes or no, I get all of that I don't think an exploding offer is necessarily a red flag in and of itself. I want to go back to excessive number of interviews and drawn out interview process exactly that five interviews for an entry level position where you've got to go into one of those ghoulish round robin interviews and talk to 20 different people, half of which you'll never even work with, in my opinion, that's a red flag. Same thing with a freelancing opportunity. If somebody says, hey, I want to get your bid on my proposal, and you don't hear anything from them for a month, in my opinion, that's a red flag. How motivated are they? Are they shopping around? Are they trying to get the cheapest option? Have they already hired somebody and then they're going to expect you to come in and clean up the mess of somebody that decided to work for five bucks an hour. You just have to really think about these things. And as I've said, you have to consider what is your time what is your sanity worth? In a crisis situation. You might decide to table those things just to get to The money and survive. But if you're not in that survival, oh my god I'm freaking out root chakra type space if you have the ability to be choosy, in my opinion, it's wise to consider your sanity, your time, your effort, and what the environment will be like. Once you're actually there. Stay safe, stay sane, and I will see you in the next episode.

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