I never applied for the position, but I received a random, almost spammy, text message from a recruiter saying she found my resume on ZipRecruiter and thought I may fit the open "SEO" role they had. I hesitated to reply as it wasn't an overly professional text, but I was intrigued, so I replied
I asked what type of SEO job because there are two very different sides to the SEO game. I am more on the content and strategy side and not the tech side. She simply replied with "upper management." Having managed SEO for numerous companies, I was plenty comfortable being a member of the SEO management team, so I scheduled a call.
A rep from Sweller Jobs (an employment agency) called me to chat. Everything went great, and my salary requirements seemed to align with their budget, so she said she wanted me to speak with the co-founder of the company. It was odd that the recruiter and CEO had the same last name, but I passed it off as coincidence, but my sleuthing later found they are married and Sweller Jobs is based in the same office as FloorForce. Not that this was a big deal, but it was odd when she acted like she had to reach out to the FloorForce folks as if they were in another office.
Anywho... so the recruiter schedules an interview with the co-founder and me on a Monday at 8:00 a.m. It was supposed to be a video interview, so I got nice and dressed up and logged out of my work for 30 minutes waiting on him. He never showed up. After several calls and emails from me, I gave up and went back to work. The co-founder emails me several hours later that they got hung up in a meeting and needed to reschedule for a few days later. So be it.
The following week, The co-founder and I were set for another video interview, so I again get all dressed up and logged out of work only to have him call me instead of going through video. Not a huge deal, but it was inconvenient to get dressed up for nothing.
The interview went great, and he wanted me to speak with other members of the SEO team in a few days. Oddly enough, that chat never happened. Instead, they had me interview with the CEO of one of their vendors AdHawk -- I eventually put together that AdHawk acquired FloorForce, which is why they wanted me to interview with the CEO. We set up a video interview for the following Monday.
Monday came and again, I got dressed up and logged off work only to have it end up being another phone call. Still not a big deal, but the lack of organization was starting to scare me.
The AdHawk CEO, started asking me about the SEO software I use and how I approach SEO. I answered all the questions, and he seemed pleased with the answers. It was crystal clear he was more of a PPC guy than SEO, but not a huge deal -- that's why they were interviewing me. The CEO seemed to think everything went well and said he would get with FloorForce for next steps... then the radio silence happens. One week passes by without a peep, so I email the recruiter at Sweller Jobs.
The recruiter gets back saying she will circle back with the FloorForce folks and get back to me. I never heard from her again. The same day, a job pops up on Zip Recruiter hunting for an SEO Account Manager via Sweller Jobs in Sarasota, FL for less than half of what my salary request was. Clearly they either had no intentions of hiring a manager for the SEO team or they were simply using me as a budget-setting candidate.
Totally unprofessional approach and even more amateurish to just abandon someone who'd been through three interviews with them. After all this, I am a little relieved they decided to go elsewhere.