After the interview, you will usually either be contacted with an offer of employment or an automated message stating that you have not been selected for the role due to the high number of highly qualified candidates that have also applied for said role.
Some employers may not even contact you after the interview, which I think is very disrespectful and completely wastes the time of candidates.
And let’s say you do receive a job offer – I don’t mean to sound pessimistic here, but you should take everything that is said with a pinch of salt (that is, unless you also have this in writing).
In my experience, as well as industry colleagues of mine, many employers will outright lie about working conditions and make empty promises in the hopes of you accepting their job offer.
Some examples of what I and my colleagues have heard are as follows:
- “The latest that you will ever finish here is 11pm”
The reality is that, on most days, you will finish much later than 11pm. When you question this, your manager will deny ever telling you this and go on to say that you are nagging and not committed to your work.
- “I know that the salary is low, but we will increase it after 3 months”
The reality is that they may never increase your salary. I was in a position where my prospective manager at the time actually told me that I would be getting a raise after 3 months without me asking. When I did not receive this raise after over 3 months, I asked my manager about it and he denied ever saying this.
- “I know this is not the position you wanted, but after 3 months we will definitely promote you”
- “Wow, you are doing very well, if you continue pushing we will definitely promote you after 3 months”
In this case, many places promise a promotion (generally after 3 months) to either get you in the door working for them or to encourage you to stay. When this promotion does not come about, you will naturally ask your manager about it, who will proceed to deny ever promising you any type of promotion, gaslight you and insist that you still need to prove yourself before they even think about promoting you.
Further, when you ask what you will specifically need to do/improve on to get said promotion, they will most likely not be able to give you key action points and just throw generalisations your way such as “you need to improve”, “you need to prove yourself” and “you need to step up”.
So, even if you receive your dream job offer, it is incredibly important to research and investigate the company thoroughly. And, if you do decide to begin working at said company, proceed with caution. Although the industry will take a while to adapt to more effective and efficient recruitment practices, you must always stay true to yourself. As long as you work hard and persist, driven by passion for the industry, you will progress in time to where you deserve to be.
