If you’ve spent any time on Twitter over the last couple of days, you’ll have seen it; the worst job advert in the world, also known as 'Office Administrator, Tea House Theatre'.
For some reason I can't quite fathom, it's been deleted from the website that hosted it (and presumably... approved it?) since it began creating a stir online, but luckily for us, screenshots last forever. So if you need a little refresher before we begin, here you go.
Let's be honest: everything about this job advert is The Worst. From the pitiful salary, to the mad laundry-list of job functions and requirements, to the terrible, patronising tone.
Here is exactly what I hear in my head, every time I read this job advert (picture one of the Red Men from Question Time saying all this - you all know who I mean):
'Dear Millenials.
I am a very important person in the Arts. You should all be jumping at the chance to work as a General Dogsbody for me, Important Arts Man. But instead, two of you this year have had the audacity to show up here and mutter about things like 'sexual harassment' and 'lunch breaks' and 'not knowing what an IBM computer is', before quitting simply because I refused to pay you on time.
You're so lazy and entitled. You all want a huge salary and a medal and a puppy just for showing up. It's not like back in my day when we went to uni for free, walked into a job for life thanks to our dad's connections and bought a house for about 50p but moaned the whole time about how hard we had it.
Why are you wasting money on avocado toast instead of Central London flats? But also, how dare you cruelly kill off tacky chain restaurants, overpriced department stores and the diamond industry by choosing to be slightly more discerning about where you do spend your limited disposable income, which you don't even deserve because you should be working for me, making me more money, developing business management systems and most importantly, IMPRESSING ME for - after tax - less than your rent costs per year.'
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Now, if you haven’t looked for a job in the last few years, you might be slightly surprised at the venom and vitriol of this job advert.
Not me.
Although most are slightly more covert with their hostility than ‘HG Iggulden’ and ‘IF Rushton’, it seems that the majority of recruiters or hiring managers now see young jobseekers as completely replaceable, and not worth wasting any time or pleasantries on.
There are, of course, a rare few gems that answer their phones, call or email when they say they will and give clear, constructive feedback if you don’t get the job. But I’m not talking about them. I’m not even talking about the plethora that just ghost after an interview that seemed to go well. I’m talking about those that treat us with complete indifference, or worse, outright contempt.
I absolutely love freelancing, but it hasn't been stable enough to allow me to move into a £800 per month before bills houseshare in Hackney yet (and please, let's not get started on the ludicrous price of rent if you want to live within a 30 minute walk of a Zone 1-3 Tube station). So in order to not go bankrupt, I’ve been searching for full-time work in London on and off for the best part of six months. Honestly, a lot of the time it’s been miserable. Jobs in London in general, but especially creative jobs or jobs in the arts, have hundreds of applicants queuing up for each vacancy – so no matter how passionate you are, how much you want it, how much it’s exactly in line with your skills and experience, it always feels like you should be grovelling in adulation and thanks that you’ve been given the rare privilege and opportunity to interview for an underpaid, mid-level job at a small firm with no pension and no prospects. Because there’s someone better, more experienced and willing to do it for less right behind you.
There are some legitimate reasons not to hire a candidate: whether the company has simply found someone better, the parameters of the job have changed, or there isn’t a good culture fit. But time and time again, those aren’t the kind of rejections most of us are getting.
In a futile attempt to illustrate the dour mood of job-hunting for a vaguely interesting London job in a field that won’t make me want to kill myself and will allow me to pay my rent and eat at least one hot meal a day, here are a few completely true stories from my job search between February and June of this year.
THERE’S A PORTRAIT IN THE ATTIC
The CEO of this branding and design agency looked incredulous as I talked him through my skills and experience, almost as if he thought I was… lying?
There was a reason for that, as I found out half way through the interview when he asked how old I was. Clearly, no one ever taught him that a lady never reveals her age, because as I stared back at him in disbelief, he explained that he just didn’t believe someone that ‘looked so young’ could have all the skills and experience I was claiming to have, and that he was unsure I would have the ‘gravitas’ needed to deal with his Very Important Clients.
Unsurprisingly, I didn’t hear back from that company after the initial interview, despite chasing up a couple of times. Although with the benefit of hindsight, they might not have dodged my calls so hard if I’d threatened to take them to a tribunal for age-based discrimination.
Here’s a hint for any future potential employers flummoxed by my youthful good looks: Get my CV out and subtract 18 from the year I graduated high school to find out when I was born. That way, you’ll save yourself the trouble of asking an embarrassing – and illegal – question.
NOT A BRAND AMBASSADOR
A slightly pretentious, trying-too-hard-to-be-quirky-e-commerce company asked to see my personal Instagram before they would even deign to give me a telephone interview for a social media job. Fair enough I suppose – I was going to be doing their own social media.
Luckily, they seemed to have good taste because the recruiter told me the hiring manager thought my captions were hilarious (she’s right), and we set up a phone chat for the next day.
Luckily, they seemed to have good taste because the recruiter told me the hiring manager thought my captions were hilarious (she’s right), and we set up a phone chat for the next day.
When they pressed me for some constructive criticism on their own Instagram feed, I willingly told them what I’d do differently if I was given a free reign. Unfortunately, my frankly absurd suggestions of ‘use relevant hashtags to increase your reach and grow your following’ and ‘include some product shots so people actually know what you’re selling’ were deemed too negative, and I received feedback that I was ‘too critical of the brand’ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
QUALIFICATION ISSUES
I went in for an ‘initial chat’ at a digital marketing agency for a job with a more junior title than I’ve held since 2013, and a salary of about £6,000 less than I should reasonably expect to be earning in London at this stage in my career. Although it felt slightly humiliating, I like eating and having a roof over my head, and times were getting hard.
According to the interviewers, they knew I was overqualified, but if I took this job, a more senior role would probably open in the not-too-distant future, and I would be a shoo in. They told me they liked me, and if I wanted to progress to the next stage, they would love to see me again.
A week later, the recruiter was kindly explaining to me that I was just too overqualified for the job and they were worried I would be bored and leave after six months. You see, apparently, in the time between the interview and feedback, I had gained a whole load of new skills and experience without even realising it – which is frankly amazing, I hope it happens to me again this year.
To be fair to that recruiter, he did apologise profusely, and told me the interviewers had asked for me to add them on LinkedIn so they could be personally in touch when something more at my level came up. But this was about six months ago, and those LinkedIn requests are yet to be accepted, so I can only assume he likes making people look stupid.
To be fair to that recruiter, he did apologise profusely, and told me the interviewers had asked for me to add them on LinkedIn so they could be personally in touch when something more at my level came up. But this was about six months ago, and those LinkedIn requests are yet to be accepted, so I can only assume he likes making people look stupid.
The very next week to this whole debacle, I was told by the hiring manager for an in-house role with the same job title and salary, and near identical job specifications, that - despite her finding it necessary to keep a copy of my presentation and steal all my ideas (I’ve checked the company’s website and social media since) – she didn’t think I was qualified enough. So perhaps the word ‘qualified’ actually has an extremely fluid definition I haven’t quite grasped yet…
DATA, DATA, EVERYWHERE
The extremely convoluted, six-week recruitment process at this FinTech ‘startup’ (Are you really still a startup when your business is five years old?!) left me wondering whether I’d accidentally applied for a Board level position without realising it.
First, I had to submit two writing samples. Then I had a Skype interview with the CMO. Then did a writing task to their own brief (a blog post, which did make it onto their website last time I looked). Finally, I got to meet the CMO face-to-face. Twice.
When these meetings both went well, I was invited back for – what I was told – was a ‘chemistry check and a handshake’ with the CEO and CTO. Essentially, well-done Liberty, you’ve finally got a permanent job in London.
Except… when I got their names and did a bit of LinkedIn digging, I discovered I was actually being interviewed by a couple of the guys I’d be working alongside: a Data Analyst and Marketing Manager. The recruiter seemed as confused as I was, but reassured me it was probably to make sure I’d get on well with my team.
So I was prepared to go in there, have a chat about the company culture and their preferred way of working, make a few jokes about how much I love Kanye West, and hopefully dazzle them with my personality enough that they’d tell their boss they couldn’t wait for me to start.
I was absolutely not prepared for a two-hour grilling of really technical, granular questions about data segmentation and analysis. When I tried to explain it wasn’t my forte, or that I would need some of the information actually in front of me – as opposed to hypotheticals – in order to give a proper answer, I certainly wasn’t expecting to be told to just ‘guess’, although I’m assuming they used this tactic so they could feel superior to me when they explained how I was wrong.
In the end, I was not at all surprised to learn I didn’t get that job. The (brand new to the business) CMO trusted her team – rightly or wrongly – and for whatever reason, those guys didn’t like me at all. I was surprised, however, to receive the feedback ‘she doesn’t know enough about data analysis’ for a job that’s still vacant, and still advertised on their website as ‘Content Specialist’.
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Coming back to London after a six-week break in Thailand, I was hoping that I might be treated with slightly more respect in my job-hunt this time around. But if the Teahouse Theatre job ad is anything to go by, things are taking a turn for the worse. And with so many desperate to get their start in the arts – or just make a steady income – someone will end up taking this job – which is far more than the advertisers deserve, and far less than any human should have to endure by the sound of it.
I know I’m extremely lucky to have a fairly steady stream of freelance work coming in, and family in London to live with while I get established (let alone the luxury of a break in Thailand to forget the job-search bullshit for a few weeks). However, I would like to move out before I’m 30. So if you like what you just read and you know anyone who’s hiring for any copwriting or social media jobs, please do get in touch via liberty.b.howard@gmail.com!
