A Series of Inconvenient Truths: #2 Exploitation

Let me start this off with a bit of a disclaimer, the events depicted in the story are real, current and extremely relevant. I will not be giving away any unique characteristics that will enable you to identify our protagonist, as I am diligent to protect their identity.

I met Paul on a business trip and he impressed me with his progressive ideas, strategic thinking and customer oriented mindset. He had a geniality about him that made you click with him instantly. He spoke "customer", he understood how to connect it to the "Why" of the business, how to create value and articulate it. This part of the backstory is quite important, as establishing Paul's character, after all, is a centerpiece for Customer Experience, for creating understanding and empathizing with our persona.

He was an up and coming professional, single and ready to mingle, enjoying the buzzing atmosphere of this booming fast paced city. His commute to work was a long one but that was alright, he had chosen the closest flat in the closest tower to his office, and had some flexibility in his mornings or afternoons.

The nature of his employment was not routine, he had new projects coming in very frequently, and he needed to be tech savvy, up to speed with all the market trends, and some of his assignments were time sensitive too.

Now, this part of the story is slightly unclear to me, but for whatever reason, Paul's relationship with his boss began to take a rocky turn.

Paul became unimpressed, undermotivated and overworked. He was clambering on for sheer life. As an expat, he had to ensure that he had a secure working contract, otherwise, he couldn't maintain his modern lifestyle anymore. He would have to go back home and join a pool of young professionals, all highly equipped, well spoken, and smart, who are fighting for a small piece of the pie, in a country riddled with overpopulation, poverty and inflation.

He shuddered every time he imagined going back, not because he didn't love his homeland, but because socioeconomic conditions were well below what he had become accustomed to. He did really miss his family and friends, and was frustrated as movement back and forth was impeded by the pandemic travel restrictions.

Paul soldiered through for a few months, seeking advice and mentorship from close friends and colleagues. He tried to connect with different people, network internally and externally, in the hopes of finding a better opportunity.

Now hope is a very powerful thing. It is a curious thing. It leads us to believe that tomorrow will be better. Not my intention to turn this into a 700 page volume describing the attributes of hope, but again, quite relevant to our current narrative.

A couple months in, Paul began to get some traction in his job seeking quest. He had pulled every string he had, and was living on his last breath of motivation, sleepless nights, pushing himself to the limit. He began getting calls for different roles he might be a good fit for. He interviewed far and wide, realizing he was on borrowed time, Paul even considered changing his career path, he was not leaving any stone unturned.

A lot of flukes took away Paul's enthusiasm chip by chip, but he kept the flame going nonetheless. Hope was still there.

One day, Paul was just over the roof, an exclusive recruiter called him in, for a role that had loads of potential. It was brilliant, everything he could have asked for and more. He could have a shot at creating his own team, a large organization, a key enabler for customer centricity. He read the job description, the expected salary, about the company culture, even met a few people who sung the praises of the company far and wide. Hope flourished from withering embers within Paul's heart into a blazing flame, fueling his passion for the next 2 weeks.

You see, Paul had also met the company's CEO and founder, a soft spoken man in his late fifties, a sleek gentleman, seasoned in the industry, with a sharp eye for talent. The CEO was one of the most charismatic people Paul had ever met. 5 minutes into his meeting with the CEO, he was ready to help him build his business, scale up, expand regionally, globally, whatever he wanted.

The CEO asked Paul to suggest an operating model that will help the CEO to scale up his business while ensuring that customers' needs are anticipated and met. He wanted Paul to develop a holistic vision, and create a presentation about the solution that will either convince the CEO to hire Paul or not.

Paul, armed with hoped, built the most badass business case for his model, he stayed up all night, working the math, reaching out to experts, scoping the market, thinking ahead, and laid out the most impressive slide deck one could ask for. Paul had even gone out and bought himself a new suit, he wanted to impress in his next presentation, the exclusive recruiter told him to expect a call in order to arrange this next meeting.

Having delivered his presentation on time, that night, Paul could finally sleep with his mind at ease. He was going to be able to stay in this exciting world, work on his passion, someone believed in him, he was going to get the call, present his business case, intrigue the CEO and start building something awesome at this new company. You see Paul's old boss had given him an ultimatum and when the time was up, Paul had had to resign, so he was living indeed on borrowed time.

The next morning, Paul was awoken by the tingling of his phone, the tantalizing sound of an email firing into his inbox. He had sticky fingers, he couldn't contain his excitement, he started imagining how proud his parents would be, he had to apply his fingerprint quite a few times as his sweaty fingers were interfering with the device unlock mechanism.

This is taking too slow... email loading...

Paul gasped, having finally opened the recruiter's email, which started with a blunt:

"Good morning,

Feedback concerning your submission -

There are inconsistencies in your calculations, common sense failures! Your work is too high level, you have not given us enough to convince us to hire you.

I will be in touch if anything else comes up.

Kind regards,

Recruiter"

Paul's heart and face sank, hope was replaced by a surging feeling of incredulity, how could this happen? He looked up every detail he could find about the company, he refined his logic and calculations multiple times, he even sourced the needed components and/or overheads with actual vendors, running sensitivity analysis, common sense he had gained from his 15 years experience in this field. Paul was dumbfounded.

Now, what does this have to do with exploitation?

Paul is one of many who are ticked into providing free consultancy. A company who wants to recruit you has every right to interview you, slice and dice your personality, get a panel of experts to analyze you, conduct language tests, and even call in for multiple interviews. Sure, they can ask you to develop a suggested solution, especially as you apply for a senior position. They want to ensure you are the right fit, you have what it takes to lead, innovate or build.

But we have to draw the line when the expectation is that you develop a comprehensive business case without sufficient data, or within 2 days, a task which could take their internal teams months to deliver on.

Exploitation is when you interview candidates who have the charisma, the skill, the competency to uplift and scale your business, you suck them dry out of ideas, throw them out and revel in this free information that you can now use.

It is not fair to assume that individuals have the luxury of working on a complex business case for free, unlimited time, unlimited resources, unlimited knowledge of a completely new discipline.

It is completely disrespectful to give Paul the impression that he will be presenting his business case, where he will be pitching his ideas, where he will be elaborating on his logic, and then letting him down. Isn't this after all why you wanted Paul to build this business case?

The one thing I have kept from you since the beginning of this article is why I care so much. Paul came seeking support from me among others, he put his trust in me, he confided his situation to me. He showed me his work, which was very commendable, I poured my heart and soul into helping Paul and providing my point of view. I respect all the effort Paul had put into this. I feel that I have failed Paul personally. If I have, I apologize.

Up until the writing of this article, I have not heard back from Paul, I hope he has found what he was looking for and hope and opportunity have come a-knocking on his door again.

#recruitment #CX #developmentjourney #mentoring #coaching #recruiter #hiring