How-Not-To: Interview Candidates

Welcome to WorkLife Wednesday, where we take a look into best-practice leadership methods to make your WorkLife awesome.

Good morning. It takes an average of 15 minutes to fill out a job application, and that doesn’t include the time it takes finding jobs worth applying to according to your requirements. Unfortunately, finding the right job and connecting with the hiring manager are two totally different things. Many applicants will likely only connect with 5-10 hiring managers for every 100 applications depending on the field they work in, which makes it really sweet when you finally do get a hit on an application.

It’s exciting to dream about your life in a new role, but the feeling of hope wears off after the first month of applications getting denied, or never opened. Then, seemingly once all hope is lost, you get an interview invite. This invitation breathes life back into your mind and soul, as finally, there’s proof your hard work isn’t wasted.

“The hiring manager was impressed with your resume, and would like to set up a time to meet.” Reads the email from a recruiter. It’s the perfect job too. More responsibility, more work-life balance, more of the passionate projects you love… what could go wrong?

DISCLAIMER: These are real requests and messages from a marketing firm in Charlotte, NC, named The Plaid Penguin sent by a reader of the newsletter. As an award winning agency, their work speaks to the level of talent that they acquire. However, it does not excuse conducting an interview process in this manner.

The Plaid Penguin is a leading hospitality, branding, and communications agency. It has won recognition for its award-winning design, communications, public relations, and marketing services. The agency is known for its comprehensive digital marketing offerings, including website design, SEO, social media marketing, data analytics, and digital advertising.

A few of their local clients in Charlotte include a few restaurants; The Salted Melon, Fin & Fino, and Harriet’s Hamburgers (important info we’ll get back around to).

Just take a scroll through their website and you’ll understand the demand for high quality marketing they achieve. Admittedly, their methods for vetting talent has proven (and obvious) success. It’s important to note that I’m telling the tale of just one experience with the firm. This newsletter is meant to highlight the “don’ts” in how to interview candidates.

For the sake of anonymity, let’s call the applicant Ashley.

Ashley finally found a marketing job that will challenge her; a Brand Strategy Manager at The Plaid Penguin. Based on the overview of the job listing, she knows every day will provide new challenges. This role focuses on transforming business requirements and market trends into actionable marketing initiatives, leveraging storytelling and content creation to meet goals. Responsibilities include managing social media, analyzing campaign performance, and collaborating with creative teams to maintain a fresh content library. The position ensures timely project delivery and maintains regular communication with clients to report progress. (link to job listing) Very cool!

She completes the application and gets a call from the recruiter a week later.

“Ashley, we’ve reviewed your resume and believe you would be a great candidate for the Brand Strategy Manager position. Before connecting you with the hiring manager, I’d like to clear the air around salary and in-office requirements…”

🟢Transparency ~ Gets ahead of the awkward dialogue before an offer is sent.

“…For this role, we’re offering $55k total compensation. In-office requirements are 5 days per week in office and sometimes weekends depending on project deadlines.”

🔴Compensation ~ The national average total salary for Brand Strategy Managers ranges from $94,000–$159,000. The Charlotte Observer describes “comfortable living” in Charlotte as needing a total salary of $62,110 for a single person household.

🔴Work-Life Balance ~ A person needs time, both to complete work tasks and hang out with friends/loved ones.

This salary range and work-life balance made Ashley question the ethicality of the company in other regards, but the company’s reputation and the experience the job would provide overshadowed anything else.

“That all sounds great.” Ashley lied, nearly tongue-in-cheek. “I can’t wait to meet with the hiring manager to discuss what I’m capable of in this role and what working for Plaid Penguin could do for my own career.”

The recruiter proceeds to set up an interview for Ashley with the hiring manager and it goes well. Both parties share their passion for marketing and vision for the Brand Strategy Manager position. At the end of the call, the hiring manager ensures Ashley they would be in touch soon.

🟢Good rapport with hiring manager.

🟢Next Steps were confirmed.

The following day was a Friday, and Ashley received an email with a promising headline that read “The Plaid Penguin”. Eager to continue this journey with The Plaid Penguin, she opened the email like a kid on Christmas, but her smile slowly tapered and her eyebrows rose and she read.

🟢Work Sample Requested ~ A common practice in creative fields to evaluate a candidate's work ethic, skills, and how well their abilities align with the job requirements.

🔴Impossible Timeframe ~ Candidate was given 2 1/2 days to deliver a full marketing campaign, email newsletter, 7+ social media posts which include original Instagram reels, photos, and graphics.

🔴Plagiarism Threat ~ Company ensures candidate that they won’t use any ideas or work beyond this exercise, but why not just use hypothetical companies in that case?

🔴Free Labor ~ Using real clients to get work samples from candidates is free labor. Again, use hypothetical companies. This is only OK if The Plaid Penguin compensates the applicant for their trial project and includes usage rights to the intellectual property in the agreement.

Ashley told me, “I wanted to do my best on the take-home assignments to prove I was the perfect candidate for the role, but I have have deadlines at my current job and the due date for The Plaid Penguin isn’t enough time to do even half of the work they requested. Honestly, I thought they were going to ask me to choose 1 of the 3 assignments. LOL.” She laughed. “I’m going to compromise and do my best on #2.”

Ashley replied:

🟢Being polite goes a long way.

🟢Compromised to complete the work assignments.

🔴Could use a more positive tone. Instead of "unfortunately", she could have said "Even with my upcoming deadlines at my current job, I was able to...", to twist it into a positive. Hard to do in the moment! Additionally, to really sell it, she could’ve waiting until Monday to turn it in.

Ashley was proud of herself for accomplishing this task, proving that she really does belong in marketing, and if the unreasonable requests weren’t met then this wasn’t a business she wanted to work for anyways.

🟢To the point. Quick letdown.

🔴Rude communication, snarking at the fact she completed one exercise. How about, “Thank you so much for the hard work you completed for us. We know it wasn’t easy to complete this with your upcoming deadlines at your current job.”

That was it. The communication between the two abruptly ended with a harsh letdown that you could only laugh at. As if the long hours for a low salary weren’t insulting enough, Ashley now was not appreciated for the free work she had done for this company.

Although the verbal interviews had gone according to plan, The Plaid Penguin crosses the line with the request of labor without compensation, intellectual property threats, impossible timeframes, and rude behavior after the applicant completes the requested assignment.

Truthfully, this interview process seems like a scam to get free work out of talented applicants. Maybe The Plaid Penguin didn’t intend to come across this way, but the abrupt let-down email feels like they got what they wanted and ran off with it.

Reply with your thoughts…

• Does The Plaid Penguin deserve grace in this debate, or was it completely mishandled on their end?

• Could Ashley have done anything different?

_{Written by Bailey Hepler}

ASK BAILEY

Yep, I’m now taking questions! Respond to this email with an office dilemma and I will include it in next week’s newsletter with my thoughts 🙂

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