I hadn't done a major outing since the lockdown so when I got a mail for an interview invite, I was a tad bit excited to go out. The position was for a 'Front Desk Secretary' at what looked like a startup business consulting firm. One thing struck me, the mail invite looked very familiar, so I went through my previous mails and found a mail from last month from same company. The old invite was for a business assessment test, no job role stated but I did remember applying for a business development executive which is a bougee title for a marketer. I ignored because it looked very vague and I was very unsure about it. A week later I got a reminder mail I had missed my test and had been rescheduled for another. That was weird and desperate to me, down here, no one usually reschedules you for an interview, when you miss it, you miss it. Still, I ignored. I got the recent invite last week, making the third time and I was like, 'fuck it, let me go see what these guys are up to'.
I didn't trust this firm, but I was going to go anyway because I needed a reason to go out after three months of being indoors. And so a day before, I prepped myself, read a little about the job role, had my hair done and ironed my clothes. On the interview day, I got dressed and set out even though I had a banging headache.
I got to the venue on time even though the taxi guy took me blocks after where I was headed and I had to take a walk back to the street the office was located. The building was an office building with the firm occupying a floor. We were about 30 applicants all applying for five different positions. The first thing that hit me as a red flag was the fact there was a front desk officer at the office reception so why the hell did they put out an advert for that role?. I kept cool, at least I was safe, it was a big building with other offices and businesses in a decent location so it wasn't some shady environment.
We were all seated in a hall and given an assessment sheet to answer some emotional intelligence questions or whatever that was. When I was done with mine, I was called in for my interview. The interviewer was a young lady with a straight face but then some smiles in between. She threw her questions at me which included a 'what is your 5 Year plan' that had me stuttering. I was sent back to the hall after this and waited for all 30 applicants to be interviewed. We then had a long ass lecture/motivational speech about the company from one of the staff with a large portion of the lecture centering on how she suffered before joining the company. I kept my cool, she sounded smart, very good voice projection even though the grammar was often off.
We were called in for yet another interview after the lecture and after that, we were told 10 persons would be selected before 5pm that day and once you get the text, you're in for an On-the-job training the next day. At this point, I was hopeful, get selected today and start work the next? Wow. Not bad. They were into trainings and agriculture supply chain. They had a crazy passion for entrepreneurship too and every new staff was to be trained to have the entrepreneurship mindset. It sounded great, maybe they weren't as shitty as I thought.
I was almost at the verge of tears when it clocked 5pm and I hadn't gotten a text. Six minutes later, a call came in from the HR, I was in, I was excited, according to what they said at the lecture, you get the text and you're in. I prepped myself for my training the next day. I got there the next day (yesterday) thinking I'd meet nine other applicants from yesterday only to see we were 30 in number, this time, new faces. People who had earlier been interviewed from previous days were merged with my own set for the training. We went through another round of interview and it was so tiring waiting. The training began, a guy that I though must be the company messenger when I first saw him, handled the first module. Apparently, he was one of the trainers. Next was a lecture from the same staff that had lectured us the previous day. She talked on success and leadership and even played videos. Next was the M.D who happened to be really young, impressive. He looked clean, smart, like he knew what he was doing.
We had another long motivation talk from the M.D about having a vision. I was bored and hungry but had to keep a straight, attentive face. Over 6 hours and we didn't have a lunch or even water break. I'm glad I went with a water bottle, I might have collapsed. Far into his lecture, after making us jump out of our seats several times to signify interest in working with him and being his mentee, he dropped the scam alert I had been expecting. We had to pay 10000NGN to be among the chosen few for the job. Five people paid immediately. We were all made to make a presentation for 2 minutes each as a 'defense' for the training.
We closed for the day and one of the staff asked if I was ready to make my commitment of NGN 10000 in order to meet with the MD immediately and be mentored, I told her no. She asked if I could do half, I said no. She wrote 'no comment' on my form. Another staff pulled me aside to ask same question, she also asked when I'm resuming. I was like the fuck? in my head but I asked when she'd like me to resume and she said anytime. Same people who were being strict from the first day, acting like we needed them so much were now practically begging us to commit by paying a sum before getting the job.
It hit me how much of a catfish they were when an applicant who happened to have the worse presentation ever (it was so bad), was also asked when she'd like to resume. These niggas obviously made their cash from their shitty applicant trainings and gullible job searchers feed their pockets, join them in scamming more applicants or later realize the whole setup is a scam and leave the company eventually.
That my friends, is how I wasted a total of about 12 hours altogether on a catfish job. I still had the banging headache after the whole thing and on my way home I got yoghurt and suya (grilled meat) to calm my nerves at home.
MY TAKE HOME
- I learned never to apply for jobs with no tagged salary range, never apply for jobs with vague details on what they do.
- If they're going to be having such a long training with no provision of even water, run.
- No serious company has all that time for motivational speeches.
- When they don't keep to their word, run.