Ask Deb: Should I Work for Free to Receive an Offer?
Hi Deb:
I have been in the workforce for decades, and this is not my first time looking for a job. I’ve read your blog about the crazy things that employers put candidates through, and this week, I was asked to work for free in advance of an offer. I don’t mean that they want me to do a project or make a presentation. They want me to spend three days working with the team. I would have to be completely accessible on Slack and responsive to emails during this time.
But wait. It gets better. They are “inviting” me to participate in four different “challenges”:
Business Development Challenge: Identify and bring within [Company Name] as many ESG-oriented startups, organizations, and associations as possible.
[Company Name] Voices Challenge – This challenge consists of (i) identifying, (ii) reaching out, and (iii) publishing as many authors as possible in the fields of sustainability & energy. This makes absolutely no sense.
Growth challenge – This challenge consists of finding “clusters” of emails (of organizations, corporations, NGOs, student associations, or institutions) to be invited to our acclaimed, free newsletter featuring the most relevant happenings in our industry. You will thus master the techniques of A/B testing and online marketing.
SEO/Content challenge –Extract key insights from our [Company Name] voices posts and add them in voices of Wikipedia, demonstrating a perfect balance of digital prowess and content learning.
Please communicate the challenge(s) you want to participate in before [date]. The challenge will start on [date] with an induction call at [time]. The challenge will last 2 weeks, and at the end of that period, your results will be assessed & compared with those of other participants.
Obviously, I will not do this because it’s NUTS, but I thought you and your readers might get a kick out of this.
Jillian
Dear Jillian:
You’re right. This is nuts. Bonkers. Bananas. Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. Positively insane. Of course, I’ve heard of interviewers requiring projects as part of the process. I generally advise clients to decline those because they waste candidates’ time and add little to no value in hiring. This, however, takes #LazyRecruiting to stellar altitudes!
Any of these tasks is a huge amount of work. Add to that their edict that you need to be completely accessible to them for three days and compete in some kind of Hunger Games to see who gets the job, and this is simply exploitative. Who would agree to do this? Also, finding email addresses to add to the company’s target list is NOT demonstrative of “mastery of A/B testing.” It is low-value work that they do not want to pay for. They want candidates to beef up their email list for them for free. Similarly, updating the company’s Wikipedia page demonstrates neither digital prowess nor content mastery—it’s nothing but PR of questionable ethics!
I am happy that you are declining this. This is predatory behavior, wherein the interviewing company is attempting to capitalize upon job seekers’ desperation. It is despicable.
Best wishes in your job search. There are much better companies and opportunities out there.
All my best,
Deb