On a family road trip to Yellowstone National Park and Mount Rushmore a few years ago we included a stop in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. The decision to make a layover there was due to several factors including its position along our journey, interest to see the eponymous falls of the city, as well as the fact that we once considered moving there.

The following is a tale of potential opportunity, deception and emotions as part of a career change. Names have been suppressed to protect the offenders.

When I was at a crossroads over the direction of my career among the channels I was exploring was postings on LinkedIn. One day such a listing caught my attention – a Director of Technology for an organization in the Greater Minneapolis / St. Paul, Minnesota area. Leading tech in an org in an area where individually both my wife and I had once considered living, plus an area where we had friends and not too far from our then home in Chicago, it seemed logical to consider. Before even checking with my wife, I applied. Granted I told her later that day and she was encouraging of my choice.

Within a few days I heard from the human resources / recruiter, and their message started as typical about receiving my application and interest. It then pivoted in a way I was not expecting. The recruiter said the position was actually in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They continued that they had problems finding candidates for positions in the past, and thus had advertised it as being in the Twin Cities. Their message concluded by asking if I was still interested.

To put this revelation in context, it is approximately 237 miles from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls, with a driving distance of close to 4 hours. To say that Sioux Falls is in “greater” Minneapolis/St. Paul is like saying New York City is in “greater” Boston! Look on a map if you don’t believe me, but certainly nobody would ever say there’s such a tie between the Big Apple and the Hub.

This was the first deception, and though I say that today I didn’t necessarily say that then. Looking at the description of the role, and with a few other questions answered and in consultation on the home front, I decided to move forward with my candidacy.

This forward motion included further discovery about Sioux Falls and took a two-prong approach – by reaching out to the local chamber of commerce as well as our dentist who was from that area and still had strong ties with it. Again this is discovery – could we consider relocating there, and what were factors to consider. After reviewing materials received and a few conversations, we decided I should continue the interview process. To be honest my wife and I moved to Chicago with less research on the city than we did on Sioux Falls, but that being said Chicago is a much, much different city.

That next step was an interview with the hiring manager, who was the Director of Marketing and whom this role, the Director of Technology, would report to. The Marketing director was part of the parent organization of this new one, and was to move over into this org. Where some may have thought this in itself as a red flag, I didn’t. Over the years I have seen various configurations of organizational structure and have had clients who were in similar roles and I worked well with them. So in a smaller org, I did not see this, in itself, as a concern.

Then came the interview, which would be done over the phone – remember this was over a decade ago, and video interviews weren’t as common as today. I prepared as best as I could for an interview with a Marketing director, including questions that would determine to me their knowledge of technology as well as other factors such as goals, budget, staffing, etc. I also anticipated questions that may be posed to me and appropriate answers for the level of Technology director.

When the phone rang, I popped into an empty office in my co-working space and took it standing, wearing a headset and holding notes in one hand and using the other for note-taking and being expressive! The Marketing director seemed a little hurried in their banter at the beginning of the call, and then asked me to tell me about myself. As I talked about the breadth of my experience, they cut me off at one point and asked me about something I just mentioned, specifically about email marketing. I proceeded to describe how not only have I setup email campaign platforms for clients but also had developed a product offering around email marketing. Again I was interrupted and asked about details of what I did for clients, and talked about developing goals to tactical email templates as well as managing their email lists. Again, I was stopped midstream and they asked for more specifics about how I setup the lists, to which I talked about working with the customers as to whom opted-in to receive email, and once again I was stopped. They then asked if I could populate an email program with email addresses, to which I replied yes, but it seemed the word took a while to come out of my mouth as I started thinking hard about where the line of questioning was going. They then asked if I was able to take email addresses from different kinds of files and put into one database. At this point I was confused and asked why they were asking questions about this level of work for a position that had Director in its title.

The reply was not what I was expected, where the interviewer asked, “I need to know how low can you go.”

It was that one statement that made the ambiguity I had of the call crystal clear, and exposed the second deception – this role was not at a Director level, rather it was for a marketing or technology analyst at best. There is nothing wrong with those roles, but that’s not what I do or bring to the table, not to mention where I was at in my career. You may as well be asking a brain surgeon to put bandages on skinned knees! I then somewhat tuned out the ramblings of the interviewer and told them I am not the person they are looking for, and thanked them for their time. I was polite on the outside but infuriated on the inside. The HR recruiter had followed-up with me and I chose to take the same high road with them too – I didn’t have to and my inner Italian wanted me to let them have it. But I did not, and don’t look at that decision with any regret.

In the end, what was presented as a job I would have to move several states over for was a job I wouldn’t cross the street for!

Other than my wife I only followed up with our dentist and told him about the debacle to which he was sorry to hear. Where over the years I have had poor to bad experiences with recruiters and HR departments, this was and continues to be the worst of my multi-decade career. And I hope it is never superseded by anyone or anything else.

Deconstructing Deceptive Recruiting Practices

We all face challenges in life and work that sometime seem insurmountable. It is in these times that creative, fresh ideas coupled with openness and honesty are needed to achieve our goals. Using deception and justifying it in the name of the challenge is not only wrong, but can have unknown repercussions on you or your organization. Where I let this one pass me by, someone else could have taken this to social media and caused a problem for the upstart organization. Taking a 360 degree view on their decisions, and considering the candidates for this role, could have avoided all of this.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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