Candidate Challenges: Software Engineering vs Marketing

The job market remains tough. (See image.)

While coding challenges for software engineer candidates are appropriate, marketing challenges remain an inappropriate request from potential employers.

Even should a marketing candidate be rejected, what’s been performed and submitted is ultimately unpaid consulting work.

The most notable delta between the two challenges in question is whereas software engineering has correct answers — eg. What are all of the different ways that numbers can be combined to equal the number 4? — marketing challenges request a candidate’s ideas, the number of which are as infinite as the number of candidates who’ve applied; thus this particular ask breeds mistrust.

Because if a marketing candidate’s current body of work isn’t sufficient enough for a company to make a candidate an offer

This same stance is echoed in "Stop asking candidates to make a marketing plan for your job interview process" by Jane Elizabeth for The Startup on Medium: https://lnkd.in/gp9ZQRu7

Are unpaid assignments in job interviews fair game?

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/unpaid-assignments-job-interviews-fair-game-nurturedbynatalia?trk=public_post_feed-article-content

Tests in general: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_k5xxzo_1q/?igsh=ajhpYnNnYXFyZnk2

Reddit Graph: https://lnkd.in/g_fJFa4X

Career Analysis: Quantitative

Career Analysis: Quantitative


I am grit.

Career Snapshot
• 26 positions held overall since college
• Contract: 10, FT: 7, PT: 4, Freelance: 5, Internship: 1
• 6 promotions (23%): 2 to full-time; 1 managerial, and 3 director level, with 2 pay raises
• 13 years of post-college employment at a rate of 2 paid jobs per year (omitting 38 volunteer roles during that same time frame; approximately 3 volunteer roles per year)



Job Loss Analysis
• Layoff/position eliminated: 7x; approximately 30% of offers resulted in job loss despite promotions and pay raises
• Laid off: 5x (19%) -- laid off less than 1/5 of the time -- 81% job retention rate
• Position eliminated: 2x (7%); 100% due to cost reasons and all instances were following a promotion
• Resignation: 4x (15%) -- bit.ly/toxicmgmt


Company Analysis (includes companies in more than one category)
• E-commerce: 9 or about 35% of companies
• Software as a Service (SaaS): 7 or about 27% of companies
• Digital media: 5 or 19% of companies
• Social networks: 4 or 15% of companies
• 5/31 or 19% of companies were corporations and Fortune 500 businesses, the remaining 79% were startups


Role Capacity
• 10+ years in the startup ecosystem
• 4yrs + 6 months in enterprise
• 3yrs + 9 months in SaaS
• 10yrs + 1 month in social media
• 9yrs + 1 month in e-commerce
• 8yrs + 8 months in community
• 6yrs + 5 months in influencer outreach
• 4yrs + 9 months in retail
• 4yrs in events
• 3yrs + 5 months in product development
• 2yrs + 1 month in B2B
• 8yrs in B2C

---
Observations:
- I'd been laid off far less than I felt I'd been.
- I'd worked for more SaaS companies than I'd fully taken stock of.
- 3/7 or 85% of instances of total job loss were due to toxic management
- I hold 10x the amount of volunteer experience than the average LinkedIn candidate.
When it comes to instances of job loss, the main theme is undermining.
As someone who’s focused on improving women’s rights, there are far more women who’re responsible for my being harassed or let go than I’d like to admit yet there it is.
When on teams with lesser means and comprised of those who're not marketing savvy, my position will likely be eliminated due to cost only to be refilled with a candidate who's both more familiar or presumably cheaper.
However, if I’m around funded teams of so-called peers then (strangely) I've been sabotaged and my work was confiscated and misappropriated.
Otherwise, it's smooth sailing so long as I'm paid a living wage and management isn't toxic.

Despite this, I remain resilient and now possess a great deal of character, maturity, insight, and objectivity.

My most valuable, hit-you-over-the-head trait is grit which studies say is everything: https://lnkd.in/gapzrds8

Brain Scrapes Sans Offer

Disclaimer: I am aware that the title of this blog sounds like a modern art gallery installation by a German artist.

Brain scraping 🧠 is when a candidate is interviewed when either there is no job or the job had already been filled but the company just wants the candidate’s ideas and for free.

Being a marketer is very tricky.

Interviewing as a marketer can be even trickier.

Companies will sometimes inappropriately request that marketing job interview candidates complete homework for them. Recruiters: do not ask this, and marketers: do not do it.

How do we encapsulate and make tangible, readily understandable, and our bevy of knowledge? How do we convince a hiring manager that the skills we’ve gain ed are legitimate and applicable, that we actually know what we know and that we are the one the company needs to hire?

When a company has its choice of marketing candidates for a role, those stuck not having been a VP yet face a specific kind of problem during the interview process: brain scraping

First, what is a brain scrape?

A meeting that is basically disguised as an interview but its meant to act as a free consulting session for the company.

Example: if you’ve ever been asked the insane question of how would you market this product? during a <1hr interview (esp. w/ a startup) then you know what I’m talking about.

No, I’m not pitching your product/service to you for you. There are too many unseen and opaque factors to me at play and thusly I’m bound to get this wrong and fail. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Recruiters: please don’t ask how would you pitch this service/product?

So, what generally happens afterward?

Supposedly interested parties will review the entirety of one’s portfolio site, possibly yet again,, lending the impression that they are interested in hiring us? Meanwhile, the same parties are making note of what tools etc a candidate has used (along with reading their mission statement) in order to figure out how to position themselves along with mold their protégé/recent hires. AKA not you.

For this reason, brain scrapping can be used by startups with limited funding or by SMB in smaller, less tech savvy towns. The brain scrape tactic is vulture agnostic like that.

While I don’t have a cure for the brain scrape tactic used by companies to pray upon marketers who’re reaching for that next rung in their career, what I can do is validate their experiences with this: You’re not crazy, and I’m sorry this happened to you too.

A/B Testing: some of my favorites

A/B testing (also known as split testing) is the process of comparing two versions of a web page, email, or other marketing assets and measuring the difference in performance.

Think of it like a competition. You’re pitting two versions of your asset against one another to see which comes out on top.

Your champion is a marketing asset — whether it’s a web page, email, Facebook Ad, or something else entirely — that you suspect will perform well or that has performed well in the past. You test it against a challenger, which is a variation on the champion with one element changed.

After your A/B test, you either have a new champion or discover that the first variation performed best. You then create new variations to test against your champion.

Some of my recent favorite helpful guides and graphics:

How to Run Split Tests and Optimize Your Website for Conversions


Bits and (Contract Work) Pieces

Company, offering a 6 month contract: …Well, we need someone with long term experience, your résumé has a lot of short stints?

Candidate: The role I am interviewing for is contract work, I have lots of contract experience, and my experience also spans 10 years collectively overall.

Company: We just need the most experienced candidates for the job.

Candidate: (You called me? What?) “Understood.”

Company: So, did you just not want full-time work? What happened there?

Candidate: I am interested in the nature of the work, I do not control what form the work comes in — contract or full-time, etc. — I do not control who hires me, I can only interview for it.

Company: pauses, thinking and listening sounds

:-|

In Defense of Contracting: A Rant

I awoke this morning at 4:34AM. I sleep next to my laptop. A lot was on my mind. Seeing as how I couldn't fall back asleep, I started writing instead...

 

Here, now...

When 9am rolls around, I've nowhere in particular to be.

When I do start working, nothing will change from the position I'm in now -- I'll still be in bed, on my laptop, in my pajamas. Welcome to the world of being a (remote) contract worker.

Sounds cushy, right?

There are no bonuses, no vacation days, no health benefits, no 'family' of colleagues.

Company budgets are tight, competition is stiff, and companies don't necessarily have any intention of bringing on contractors they hire in any permanent manner at a later date. However, they will allow you think so if it means the possibility of getting you to generate more and better work for them, at the price already negotiated, again w/o any gaurantees.

Have at it, kiddo! *dangles carrot* Har-har.

 

You can't sit with us

It started with hiring managers...

The comments, "Your background is...interesting."

The doubting questions, "So do you want to work full-time?"

The silent judgements, "Your background isn't like most of the candidates we reach out to, but..."

 

Where a candidate with a more traditional background [4yr university, (M)BA degree, full-time employment history] might require 1-3 interviews before being made an at-market-rate job offer, someone with a lesser-traditional background [2nd tier university or art school, BA equiv. degree, contract/diverse work history] can be asked to give as many as 6-8 interviews for similar roles within the same company for lesser wages. I know, I've lived it. Meritocracy much? Not on your life.

 

Though silent, the message is clear: You are not like the rest of us and you can't sit with us.

I've executed in more capacities in the last 1.5 years than some have in the last 4-5, have had more projects completed (and some then outright stolen or lifted from by full-time employees, some of whom were even management level) than I can immediately recall, and (since I'm often working from home) work longer/later/more weekends than on-site staff.

Depending on the number of contracts I have at any given time, I have been known to work up to 80hrs/wk. It makes full-time look like part-time w/ vacations.

 

Why, you go getter you

I raise my own salary every...single...month. It's a grind.

At first, I was energized by it. It's hard, gritty, real, and you can eat a bowl of cereal at 1pm sitting on your couch in your pajamas. *clouds open, angel choir sings*

But later? The realization that you're working for (at times, considerably) lower wages while doing the work that everyone else either can't do (either due to time constraints or an unadmitted lack of know-how by the full-time staff) or won't do (because 'ugh') sets it.

 

It doesn't help if you're a go-getter who willingly adds on work that you yourself initiated because you see that things are broken the way they are and that nothing will work smoothly until said broken pieces are fixed.

Never mind the fact that at times contractors get paid a flat-rate and therefor won't make a dime more for their efforts above what was discussed, nor receive a permanent full-time offer 'because budget' or a 'why buy the cow?' mentality held by management. Just be glad they've allowed someone like yourself the opportunity to see how the full-timers do it -- you're welcome! 

Meanwhile, fellow full-time workers appear to ride off into the proverbial sunset with their relatively secure jobs, fair pay, and sense of camaraderie. Must.be.nice.

 

Enjoy your pajama pants

You have become the (contracted) 20% that does 80% of the work.

PJ pants or no, there's a sort of ironic anti-freedom in this...

You're a contractor, meaning you'll be the first and easiest to let go if sh*t starts to get real at the company. Yet security will become more quickly jeopardized if you don't fix what is (and was already) broken (before you got there). You are essentially hired to help fix the very things which are likely from keeping you from being hired full-time, because until they are fixed, revenue is down. When revenue is back up, you will be thanked and sent home. You're hired to work yourself out of a job while being viewed as both necessary and dispensable by management. See the conundrum? 

 

You're not free, you're a bloody wage slave.

 

 

Always a bridesmaid

There's something nice about the sense of security generated by routine. The peace found in structure. What we feel we sacrifice in our sense of freedom, we gain back in other forms such as camaraderie, support, a sense of being understood and accepted, and to know that we are valued while contributing to something greater than ourselves. It all depends on what you're willing to give in order to get what want.

 

The give and take. If contracting is dating, then full-time is marriage.

When you've reached that point in your career and found the right company, you'll know.

I've heard it said that, "People don't change but priorities do."

Well, frustration occurs when priorities have long since changed but external reality fails to accurately reflect the internal changes taken.

 

 

A strength, not a weakness

Perhaps those casting judgement on the contract life forgot about the recent recession that started in 2008 and continued on past 2010? For the companies that still had funding and opportunities available during that bleak and worrisome era, offering contract work was a way for those left standing to continue some form of a career. The cruel irony of having survived the recession through contract work was that when conditions improved, contractors suddenly became viewed as somehow unable to fit nicely back into permanent/full-time work matrix. You are not like the rest of us and you can't sit with us.

 

Recession survivors had scars, battle wounds. The hard truth is, the world struggles to accept that which it doesn't deem immediately without flaw. 

 

I am not broken.

There's nothing 'wrong' with me.

I'm a survivor that can make it in any set of conditions.

I'm still standing because I contracted.

 

Contracting became my strength, I refuse to allow it now to be seen as a weakness.

 

Nobody's Stray Cat

The comments, "Your background is...interesting."

The doubting questions, "So do you want to work full-time?"

The silent judgements, "Your background isn't like most of the candidates we reach out to, but..."

 

Please, hiring managers, stop asking Contractors if they "Really want to work full-time?"

Frankly, most people can't handle the self-discipline found in contract work, so FT is a cake walk.

 

When it comes down to workload + hours, I essentially already work full-time and then some, thank you.

Some of you have have no idea what we're capable of.

Finally, I've been grateful for every.single.one of the contracts I've ever held and currently hold.

The experience they've given me is truly invaluable and I would never discount contracting nor those who have made their way from it. The initial freedom experienced in the formative years allowed me a closer relationship with myself that I would have never gotten otherwise.

Again, truly invaluable. I am grateful. Thank you.