The recruiter reached out to me initially. I didn't seek out this position. He was really, really nice and did great at his job. But I went through 5 interviews, including one with the recruiter, and was set to interview for a 6th interview with the VP of the company.
Firstly, the company prides itself on culture, expanding culture, and boasting about diversity. Yet, as a woman of color, all of the executives and every single management person I interviewed with were white.
Secondly, every single executive that was interviewing me knew that I had a master's degree and roughly 20+ certifications (literally.) They had me do an online lengthy question and answer. Throughout the entire process, the recruiter had essentially said that I was the only candidate left they were looking at for this position. All I needed to do was a final interview with the VP of the company.
The entire time that I was interviewing, I did NOT get a sense that they knew what they were doing. When I asked them, there wasn't a proper content process in place. There wasn't a good project timeline. There wasn't a procedure in place in terms of how the marketing team works together. There seemed to be a clear overlap in job duties. The process is quite "reactionary" - their words, not mine. There wasn't a process for social or a plan in place. There was no discussion in terms of what budget the social media manager would have because no one on the team seemed to have a clue. They were trying to hire for a social media manager position but do not have any social media presence at all. Which was the point of hiring a seasoned person to help them, or so I thought. Aside from their LinkedIn pages, they have 5 staffing companies total under their belt, and virtually all of their social accounts are dead. The ones they do have hardly have any social media followers. I got the feeling that they were all picking my brain because I'm a senior-level content person for free ideas. Yes, this does happen to candidates. A couple of the execs even said the words, "I'm picking your brain." I thought that was a red flag, because when people do this in interviews, usually they're just interviewing you to get free ideas with no intention of hiring you. They all knew that I had a lot of experience and education.
The day I was to meet the VP of the company to essentially basically get an offer, the recruiter calls to say that the marketing team comprised of all white women, all of which I had more education and just as much experience, said that they changed their minds. They're now thinking of going with someone more junior-level.
HUH? You interview a woman of color like me with lots of experience, and you change your mind at the last minute? Regardless of how nice they tried to come across in the interviews, one of them was threatened. I sensed it. In fact, one of the execs kept anxiously twirling her hair for the entire hour of the interview. It was very odd and distracting behavior. As a POC with education, to be interviewed by all white women who appear worried that I'm going to take their job is a sign of insecurity on their part. If you're so threatened, why advertise this position for 85-100k when you want a "junior" level person? Why interview someone with senior-level experience?
If you want so badly to infuse culture into your company, why have all the executives and management white? If you look on their website, virtually everyone in leadership is white. There is hardly anyone in leadership that's of color. Maybe a few, but the majority are white. This company seems to have good intentions, but they're not quite there yet. Also, as a staffing company specializing in writing up job descriptions and placing people in jobs, they should've known what they were looking for from the beginning. Don't promise someone a job and then decide to retract it and say...oops...we changed our minds.
Also, if you want diversity, why not hire someone like me - a woman of color with a master's degree? Instead, you changed your mind and said...oops...we want someone with less education. Oops...we want to pay someone less than 85-100k even though that's what we were originally advertising this position for?!
What a joke. I was essentially told that I was over-qualified after I'd gone through 5 interviews, including the one with the recruiter. My 6th interview was going to be with the VP.
A good company doesn't hire people this way. A good marketing team knows what they want and writes up clear job descriptions and duties. They don't lead candidates on and spend their time doing this all to have the rug pulled out from under them.
I honestly feel like I dodged a bullet. This company, which claims to treat its employees with respect and dignity, just showed their true colors.
Honestly, I would never consider being placed with a Roth staffing company, nor would I want to work for them internally as a team member.
