Clarity Calls

Reader,

Today’s is a brief one, one where I’ll share the lesson in the intro in case you, too, are in a hurry and just wish to skim and dip:

If they don’t know what they want from you, don’t stick around to help them figure it out.

I was in the running for a lucrative role these past two weeks.

The company’s Talent Acquisition Specialist (TAS) contacted me via LinkedIn (shocker).

I was happy to oblige a meeting request even though their onboarding process seemed messy right from the jump.

Took a 15-minute call with this TAS, during which she explained the role and told me the next step would be to attempt a test task to gauge my editing acumen.

This company is headquartered in Malta, but they have remote workers worldwide.

I bring geography into this because my first point of contact with them, the TAS, is Kazakhstani and has AWFUL written English.

I understand English being a second language, but 🚩 numero dos was how she and her people would be able to gauge my command of a language they’re only just figuring out themselves.

Anyway, with dollar signs in my mind and a never-say-die attitude in my step, I took their elaborate test.

Because the instructions were in such rudimentary English, I sought clarification on approaching one of the tasks.

So I interpreted the instructions venye nilijisikia and submitted my responses.

She said their “Head of Content” would review it and return with feedback by Tuesday.

Tuesday dawned and dusked across the known universe, and I still hadn’t received communication from anyone in the company.

This was already a clear sign that they didn’t like what they saw.

Or that they’re sucky communicators, which would be surprising to exactly no one.

I gave them two days before penning a follow-up email, which the TAS responded to 12 hours later:

Well and good, but:

1. Anyone with half a grasp of the language could tell that the “to” slip-up was a typo, not something I failed to exclude from the original text because I believed “it was common to use.”

2. That 3rd task she’s referencing made no mention of the desired submission needing to be “creative.” And why would it? This is an editing and annotation role. I just typed up a bland hypothetical interaction and submitted it. Suddenly expressing that they wanted a Nicholas Sparks-type plot is confounding at best and sleazy at worst.

In my response to the TAS, I said all this in more delicate language.

Still, even if they somehow see the error in their ways and offer to make me their new Head of Content (because honestly, what is the current one even doing?), I doubt I’d be game to continue this process with them.

They’re ESL employees.

They suck at giving instructions.

They suck at gauging candidate competency.

While attractive, those dollar signs they proposed for this role wouldn’t make up for the headache working with them would inevitably be.

The trash has taken itself out, and I’m grateful.

This is precisely why I dislike interacting with young companies, rookie clients, and anyone who doesn’t have a grasp, however little, of how to do what they want you to do.

Stress tupu.

(But for the right price — which such characters can’t afford — I’d look past it.)

Lesson(s) 2:

#MakeInconvenienceTaxesSociallyAcceptableAgain

Hope. :)