Reply to: "Bad" Interviews That Resulted In A Contract: Your Experiences

[psychocandy]

I don't know who many gigs I ended up in where I had to ask people for work to do.

One gig I ended up bring in my laptop and using my hotmail account for e-mailing as 2 months into a 3 month contract, they still hadn't sorted me out with equipment. Also very embarrassing for them as I was dealing with external clients a lot.

Happened to me loads of times. Never ceases to amaze me how many clients say something is urgent then cant even be arsed to sort out things like desk/ PC / network access and you end up sitting there for two weeks.

[Gentile]

I tend to find the crap interviews end up with the job turning to be crap. Had an interview with a utilities company once, person who should have done the interview couldnt be arsed to turn up and sent two guys along who didnt have the first clue about an interview or really what the job was!

They literally said 'you have the job, do you have any questions?' I said yes, lots. Turns out the one who should have interviewed me couldnt time manage (which is bad for a manager), didnt have any work for me for 3 weeks and got pissed off when I said I needed to be doing some work.

Call me cynical, but the only gigs I consider to be crap are ones where you don't get paid. There are limits, of course, but I try not to let "artistic reasons" get in the way of my earning a living. If a client is disorganised, or their ideas for their business are never going to work, that's not my concern; I'm not there to be their business guru and I'm not there to inflict my personal taste upon their requirement. I draw the line only at environments where I literally can't get any work done because the client's anti-pattern idea of security gets in the way (i.e., banks that don't let you use USB drives or the internet, but somehow still expect you to get technical work done to a reasonable quality and within a reasonable timescale). By contrast, I can tolerate having nothing meaningful to do for a few months; if they want to pay me to brush up my technical skills and drink coffee that's their business. Fortunately, most people that are paying a premium for a contractor don't want to work that way and actually do have a clear idea of the result they want; they just need my technical skills and experience to realise their business goals.

[norrahe]

I tend to find the crap interviews end up with the job turning to be crap. Had an interview with a utilities company once, person who should have done the interview couldnt be arsed to turn up and sent two guys along who didnt have the first clue about an interview or really what the job was!

They literally said 'you have the job, do you have any questions?' I said yes, lots. Turns out the one who should have interviewed me couldnt time manage (which is bad for a manager), didnt have any work for me for 3 weeks and got pissed off when I said I needed to be doing some work.

I don't know who many gigs I ended up in where I had to ask people for work to do.

One gig I ended up bring in my laptop and using my hotmail account for e-mailing as 2 months into a 3 month contract, they still hadn't sorted me out with equipment. Also very embarrassing for them as I was dealing with external clients a lot.

[ThomserveBAS]

Monday morning, and my third and final client has come back with an offer - months of planning, interviewing and quite frankly panicking and I get 3 out of 3!!

[sbakoola]

Also beware of interviews that seem to easy, they're HIDING SOMETHING !!!

[Contreras]

Alarm bells! Alarm bells!

Why would anyone be so desperate to hire someone (a first time contractor) that they would do it without even seeing them first? Could it be that they are afraid that you will see them?

Well that and/or the OP hasn't had a chance to gauge their market worth yet and the client is getting a bargain.

[BolshieBastard]

I tend to find the crap interviews end up with the job turning to be crap. Had an interview with a utilities company once, person who should have done the interview couldnt be arsed to turn up and sent two guys along who didnt have the first clue about an interview or really what the job was!

They literally said 'you have the job, do you have any questions?' I said yes, lots. Turns out the one who should have interviewed me couldnt time manage (which is bad for a manager), didnt have any work for me for 3 weeks and got pissed off when I said I needed to be doing some work.

[bobspud]

Alarm bells! Alarm bells!

Why would anyone be so desperate to hire someone (a first time contractor) that they would do it without even seeing them first? Could it be that they are afraid that you will see them?

This exact thing happened to me seven years ago. I thought, "Phew, I hate interviews, I'm glad it's been so easy. All those months of waiting, and pop, I'm in after 20 minutes. The guy didn't even sound too friendly!"

Well, it took a few days on the client site to realize what a highly charged situation I had got myself into. The company had gone through a couple of takeovers. As a result the tech team was totally paranoid and guarding their knowledge jealously -- they knew the new executives would get rid of them once they were able to. The management decided to resort to contractors like myself to diffuse things. Of course this did not go down well. The guy who interviewed me did not want to hire anyone, but was forced to bring in the first body by his manager.

Well you can imagine how the contract went. I don't really need to go into details. After three months I demanded a huge raise in rate to compensate for all the aggro. This was too much for management, and I was out the door.

If something seems too good to be true, it generally is. If I were in your shoes these days, I would ask for a face-to-face before taking it. Or just take the another contract.

Exactly what I was trying to say with the warm corpse! It's not just contractors that can be desparate. I have had my fair share of crappy gigs Where you think Christ if they take me I don't want it because someone is lying

[Gentile]

Alarm bells! Alarm bells!

Why would anyone be so desperate to hire someone (a first time contractor) that they would do it without even seeing them first? Could it be that they are afraid that you will see them?

I mostly agree, and I've turned down interviews before where their site was within easy travelling distance yet they still wanted to do a phone interview rather than a F2F, for exactly the reasons you said; when they turned down my suggestion of a F2F I immediately wondered what they didn't want me to see?

That said, what I said earlier about the reduced need for due diligence owing to the absence of MOO when recruiting contractors does cut both ways. I've never had to walk on a project because it was so bad, but I'd have no qualms about doing so if it turned out I'd been sold a pig in a poke after starting. And in the meantime I'd be showing willing and good faith by giving the client the benefit of any doubt. In this present climate, unless there's another accompanying red flag, I wouldn't bin a contract just because the offer process had been unusually fast and easy from their end.

[ThomserveBAS]

Or just take the another contract.

This advice is easier to take now I have another (better) offer on the table so thanks

[darrenb]

What I found strage though was;

a) I was interviewed by a contractor (under NDA)
b) I only did 1 20 minute telephone call
c) I got an offer!
edit:
d) I thought I'd blown it

I certainly wasn't expecting that!

Alarm bells! Alarm bells!

Why would anyone be so desperate to hire someone (a first time contractor) that they would do it without even seeing them first? Could it be that they are afraid that you will see them?

This exact thing happened to me seven years ago. I thought, "Phew, I hate interviews, I'm glad it's been so easy. All those months of waiting, and pop, I'm in after 20 minutes. The guy didn't even sound too friendly!"

Well, it took a few days on the client site to realize what a highly charged situation I had got myself into. The company had gone through a couple of takeovers. As a result the tech team was totally paranoid and guarding their knowledge jealously -- they knew the new executives would get rid of them once they were able to. The management decided to resort to contractors like myself to diffuse things. Of course this did not go down well. The guy who interviewed me did not want to hire anyone, but was forced to bring in the first body by his manager.

Well you can imagine how the contract went. I don't really need to go into details. After three months I demanded a huge raise in rate to compensate for all the aggro. This was too much for management, and I was out the door.

If something seems too good to be true, it generally is. If I were in your shoes these days, I would ask for a face-to-face before taking it. Or just take the another contract.

[Scrag Meister]

My first successful contracting interview was a telephone interview and they were asking about testing methodologies and processes that they were using and I had no idea what they were on about.

So I wrote that off and went for a couple more interviews over that week and they rang me back for a face to face, that I subsequently got and was there 3 years.

No accounting really, then again they employed a complete knob once, so he must have interviewed ok, who was in and out in 3 days. Luckily they put him on a 2 week probation with no notice, cos at interview they realised he was either a genius or a major liability, turned out to be the latter.

The only reason he made it into the office on Day 4 was because the agent couldn't get hold of him on the evening of Day 3.

[ThomserveBAS]

So you next post will be a 'what do I do' or accepted one but don't want it now?

Nope - I will be making that decision for myself - as much as I appreciate advice, I need to make those decisions for my business myself

I know which I would prefer, and I still have hope for the 3rd coming through, but of the two offers I have I am pursuing one subject to the contract being up to scratch.

[northernladuk]

Today is getting better - just had my second offer of the day!!

So you next post will be a 'what do I do' or accepted one but don't want it now?

[psychocandy]

It's quiet out there right now, but at busier times I found that most contract interviews were "easy" in comparison to permie ones, at least where the ClientCo was serious about getting the work done. The vast majority of contracts that go ahead, you hear about them, apply, and interview that day or the next, then you hear back from the client on the same day as the interview, usually when you're on the way back home. Whenever there's more than a 24 hour delay in arranging the interview, that's invariably been a sign that they're not serious about engaging any contractor in my experience. The ones that are serious about it just get on with it, because they know they can bin you if you turn out to be no good. The tyre kickers and deadbeats treat it more like a permie recruitment process, with delays of weeks before they even deign meet you for the "urgent" work they claim to need done.

Yep. Agree. Always put off by the ones who want a phone interview, then a face to face and still take ages.

Usually then when they eventually make a decision after 2-3 weeks, its a thursday and its ESSENTIAL you start on the next monday. Yeah **** off - gotta get contract sorted first boys.