Ordinarily I would write a post like this on my geek blog because I stumble into bottom feeders mostly on the geek side of life. That’s not to say they don’t exist on the writing side, au contraire, they are vast and flamboyant on the writing side. Big name companies churning out SEO trash, wanting 100% unique content, fully researched and edited for under $1/article. Most will then run that article through some kind of “replicator” process which will change a sentence or three in each new generation. Only the truly bored end up working an entire week straight without these guys paying them.
Today I’m talking about a far too common variant of the bottom feeder species.
I stumbled across this contract this morning, which is what prompted this warning for our recent grads and other gullible readers. It seemed like a legitimate contract. They needed a geek writer. I tend to use geek writing to either cool down from an intense IT project or to warm up after riding the bench a while. It’s nice to keep your hand in it without having to endure a 36+ hour marathon debugging session. I highly recommend it.
So, I clicked. Almost instantly I got the following email.
Asking senior level people to take a test is the ultimate insult. It indicates a completely worthless HR department. One which is unable to read a resume and too lazy to skim the thousands of professionally written things you have available.
One the geek side of life this is why no senior level developer will even consider going to California or working for one of those “Silicon Valley” darlings in any other state. Their “hiring process” requires developers to spend a day with them and write a test program, then they have you come back for another day later, until you’ve spent about a week there. One of the favorite test programs is the Roman Numeral Calculator. If you’re a developer, save that link.
Whenever you click on a job/contract link and almost immediately get an automated test email, this is a bottom feeder. I was forced to empty my trash recently or I could take a picture of another new bottom feeder technique. Automated interview questions. I kid you not. This wasn’t an email with a list of questions for you to type answers to, they wanted you to click a link which would either initiate a robo call to your cell phone, or, if your computer had a microphone let you verbally record your answers. If the recruiter actually looked at your resume they could then choose to hear your answers.
Now, in the world of programmers, it is not uncommon to ask to see some code, especially from fresh graduates. You all think you are ready for the real world, but, in truth you aren’t even close. Most institutions of lower learning simply stole your tuition dollars and taught you little of value. Asking senior level people to take a test instead of reviewing their body of work is a red flag. You don’t want to work there.
