How to understand that employers are not in their right mind?

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TOP signs that are better not to ignore. The list had been compiled while interviewing for a marketing position at an IT company, but it will be relevant for many positions:

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• “The first six months 20 thousand, and then 200.”
• “And the previous marketer’s eyes were burning…”
• “Already leaving? We usually work until 9…”

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1. This is a vacancy from some individual entrepreneur who is on the verge of creating an innovative product. The product will undoubtedly lead both you and the company to unprecedented success. The team needs a natural-born leader with burning eyes (and eventually, burning ass). By the way, what exactly this product is unclear; most likely, it’s a financial pyramid.
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2. The interviews stretch over 5 or more stages. A separate point is the test assignments where you are asked to complete a week’s worth of work. A polite way out is to explain that you are interviewing with several companies/still working in your current position, so you don’t have the time to spend on such a lengthy test assignment. Generally, paying money for a large test assignment is considered good practice.
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3. In one form or another, phrases like the following are present: salary is limited only by your capabilities; we pay as much as you earn; there is no limit to the salary range; the previous marketer became a millionaire.

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4. A powerful sales funnel is needed, with many incoming leads, but there’s no money for advertising. The business owner is fervently shaking the book “Marketing Without a Budget” (a great book, I recommend it).
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5. In the “Advantages” section, it states: no dress code, friendly team, professional team, white salary, and company-sponsored tea.
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6. A random assortment of various requirements, as if someone couldn’t control verbal diarrhea. I’ve seen several job postings where a lone marketer was expected to manage social media, develop a podcast platform, organize offline events, run multiple blogs, launch advertising campaigns, work with printing, participate in industry competitions, rankings – this is an incomplete list, mind you. And all of this for 80 thousand per month, please.
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7. They expect the marketer to start everything from scratch and quickly: positioning, PR strategy, advertising strategy, sales funnel, and a new toilet to replace the wooden one outside. Instead of a logical note saying, “You will build your team for this task,” there’s a phrase, “You are active, work not until 18:00, but until results are achieved.”

8. Office work 5 days a week and no other way. It’s strange in 2023. Such companies still offer corporate transportation because their office is somewhere on the outskirts of the city.

9. It’s unclear what happened to the previous marketer and whether they are even alive. Or former employees are openly criticized during the interview. Or you hear something like, “We’ve already changed three people in this position in a year, can’t find a decent one.”

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They avoid discussing salary until the very end. The second stage of interviews is already completed, and the financial question is pushed back. In one large design studio in St. Petersburg, there’s an interesting principle: torture the person with interviews and tests, not disclosing the salary range until the very end, so that in the end, they would want to join so badly that they would even agree to a salary below expectations. These folks have apparently reread Kurpatov, rewatched Stepanova.

More often than not, these sins are committed by small, quasi-IT companies that have been on the market for a couple of years. During interviews, they still like to say, “We lived for three years on word of mouth; we didn’t need any marketing. And now, with the word of mouth fading, clients shrinking, we’re hiring a marketer to bring us leads. By the way, there’s no budget for marketing, I can handle advertising with my own money. And we’re a big family, incest is not uncommon for us.”

By the way, I run my channel about marketing, horses, relocation, and IT (yes, just like that). Subscribe; there are many posts like these there.

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