General Etiquette > All In A Day's Work

Job hunting/interview questions - two odd scenarios

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SiderisAnon:
Both situations sound perfectly normal to me.

The demo company is hiring you to work at location X, but their office is at location Y, so that's where they do their training.  While the hour and a half drive sucks, I've been expected to go further for training before.  Companies generally expect a new employee to go where the trainer and materials are, which may be unrelated to the job site.  (Even for a part time job.)

The retail company doing all the tests at a specific time and rejecting you because you can't make it sounds like retail to me.  I can remember it being standard when applying for retail positions that you must be available to work any shift, any day, any starting time, or you just were not hired.  I've seen many applications where they have a chart for the days and ask when you're available.  They expect every answer to be "any".

Retail is not about treating the employees well.  It's about using the employees as a throw-away resource.  If you're not 100% ready to suck up whatever they throw at you, many companies would rather find some poor schmuck who is.  If you can't come in for a test on 12 hours notice, how available will you be when they have to fill a shift on 20 minutes notice?  (Yes, I know not all companies are that way, but too many are.)

Ceallach:

--- Quote from: WillyNilly on May 01, 2012, 02:25:33 PM ---Both these scenarios sound very typical and normal to me.

While I can see how it didn't occur to you, its quite normal that the demo person would be an employee of the products company not the retailer.  And so therefore its quite logical that the interview and training for the demo job would be at the product company's location - most likely they are training a bunch of people and it makes much more sense to have several trainees in one place with one trainer then to send multiple trainers to multiple locations to train demonstrators individually.  Not to mention you would no doubt pick up more info in a class with other people asking questions, an in a location where you would learn more about the product and the manufacturing company.

As for the math test, again, seems rather typical to me.  Many larger retailers in fact will have tests 2 or 3 times a week and if you apply say Saturday morning they might ask you stick around till the afternoon and test the same day.  And of course if you say "no" to the test for any reason they are going to throw it out - can you imagine if they held on to them?  I'd bet no one comes out and says "I won't take the test" or "I'm terrible at math" everyone says "oh that date/time doesn't work for me" and then blow off the job opportunity completely - if the store held onto all those applications they'd be drowning in them!

--- End quote ---

I agree with this.

The only error I can see is that the recruiters failed to provide adequate information earlier on in the process.  Not necessarily in the ad, but at least during the initial communication with the candidate they should have clarified those crucial points.  Quite apart from courtesy to the candidate, it wastes the recruiter's own time dealing with a candidate who won't be interested because they're missing crucial information! Rookie recruitment mistake IMHO.  But the scenarios themselves are understandable and not that odd.

Girlie:
I worked in Big Name Grocer for five/six years, and all of the demonstrations we had (food/product samples) were from an outsourced company that hired its own people to come into our store and showcase their wares. Big Name Grocer did nothing but provide the floor space, and maybe help with set-up of the product display. So the first scenario seems like it could be legit, but I'd still approach with caution: My first step if I was interested in a job like that would be to call the store near you and make sure that they actually do use that company for their product demonstrations. A manager there should be able to tell you. Second step would be to make sure that if the subject of ME giving THEM money ever came up, to run out of there. Like the wind.

The second scenario sounds odd. Just...odd. Quite frankly, after working with the various management teams I've been with, I would be VERY hard pressed to accept a position with a company that couldn't be even the tiniest bit lenient. If they aren't decent during the hiring process, they're not going to suddenly become nice after you start working for them.

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