I was contacted by a recruiter via Linkedin. After a brief phone conversation, we scheduled an in-person interview. The recruiter had no details on who I would be meeting with, and what I could expect from the interview, other than that were would be some sort of writing exercise, and I should budget "several hours." I ended up answering the same questions over and over again from the same people, which is a glorious waste of everyone's time. I met with four different people, and got a tour of the plant. I wasn't even given the interviewers' last names. Everyone was very kind and spoke highly of the company's benefits. The entire thing lasted nearly 5 hours, which might work fine for the fresh-out-of-the-Ivy-League management candidates they march through there, but isn't very kind to those of us years into the workforce. The writing exercise wasn't too difficult, but it seemed to be the most important thing, as everyone who interviewed me asked about it. You only have an hour for something that they, by their own admission, will take weeks or months to actually conceptualize, tweak and publish. It's a test of how you think about a problem. The final product isn't as important as that. Less than a week later, I got an email from the original recruiter saying they were moving on with other candidates.

Most basic phone screening I've ever had for a position. Conversation lasted no more than 10 minutes. The recruiter started off saying they wanted to "hear a little bit more" about my experience and the kind of position I was looking for. I'm going back to get my MBA so I can pursue content operations, and I was immediately shut down once I expressed that. "This is more of an individual contributor role and there's no planning involved, this role isn't complex in nature. I'm not sure this is what you're looking for." I took this as a statement that the "Content Developer" position wouldn't be the type of dynamic role I said I wanted but it still sounded like the position was within the realm of content work, so I then asked if this entails content publishing whatsoever. I was told, "No, this is more about the organization of information so customers can better understand our products on our website." As someone who has worked in content publishing for more than 8 years and has a formal journalism education, this statement confused me greatly. The research, writing, ORGANIZATION, editing and creation of content for publication – for subscribers/clients/customers – on web or in print is the definition of content development. My mind was kind of blown that a recruiter looking for a Content Developer wouldn't have a grasp on that and be able to distinguish between that and whatever it was they actually wanted. First red flag. The recruiter then described the insane benefits package and told me this would be above my pay range. It was very strange to me that the recruiter was giving me a sales pitch so soon into the conversation. Second red flag. Anyway, they described position in detail. It would have involved light copywriting, glorified data entry, choosing images and deciding what word to use to describe product colors/size. After that, I was told I'd have to make presentations of my work for approval and that's when I ended the interview and thanked them for their time and clarification; I was pretty underwhelmed by that point and it seemed like they were trying to sell this as very simple work that I would get paid boatloads of money to do, not fulfilling content work that would help me develop my career. Again, I wasn't asked one question about accomplishments or skills relevant to content development. This role would be better suited for someone with aspirations to work in merchandising, specifically PIM. NOT content development. Again, I find it mind boggling this company doesn't seem to understand what's required of its own roles. Advice to HR: Maybe re-think the job title on this one. It's extremely misleading.