Read a couple of interview reviews for the same position and thought it'd be amusing to add my experience because it was a complete waste of my time and looking back now, the whole process was kinda hilarious so, here's my experience.
1st interview: what was supposed to be a 30-minute call turned into a 1 hr 30-minute call BECAUSE the recruiter needed me to take a writing assessment ON THE SPOT with no notice in advance. She asked me basic interview questions and then said, "I need you to do this writing assessment and you need to record your screen so we can see your process." I've never been asked to do an on-the-spot assessment with a screen-record before, EVER, for any interview process... but I wanted a job, so I complied. I told her, I don't know how to record my screen, so she offered to do it for me on Google Meet via screen record. The assessment was basically: take this piece of writing from the to-be-published book (Ohh, I'll elaborate more on this later) and edit it. The assessment took another hour...
After the assessment, the recruiter reached out to set up a second interview with the senior writer and some director guy involved with the hiring process. We set up the interview for Monday because it was already Friday, the end of the week.
2nd interview: I hopped on the call with the senior writer and the director and they asked me basic interview questions like: what are your career goals? Why do you want to work for Techolution? What makes you stand out from another writer?
Then, the assessment came up. Apparently, I did horribly (no surprise there). They wanted me to go back to the assessment and fix it in front of them, on the video call, on screen-record. Again, no notice about additional work for and during the interview. So I spent another 45 minutes trying to fix up what was already pretty terrible writing to begin with, plus my edits from the first time.
My mind blanked and I kept telling myself, come on, brain. You can't do this to me now.
While reviewing my work, the senior writer was like, "Can you rewrite this in AIDA format?" and then "Tell me why this sentence doesn't work." The whole process was brutal. That call was another hour and 30 minutes?
After the call ended, I never heard back from them. Not even a, "you were so bad, we couldn't believe our eyes. Literally. So, yeah issa no from us, dawg." I guess they didn't need to say anything lol. I was slaughtered on that call.
But, let me get started on the book/assessment.
If you're confused, trust me, I was too. The position on the job description was "Content Writer/Strategist." The recruiter let me know it was a three-month, in-person, position in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and then after those three months, it would transition to a remote job. This role needed to start on-site because the writer would work closely with the CEO of Techolution to help him ghostwrite his book. Was that anywhere on the job description? Not that I remember and, that doesn't really fall under the role of Content Writer/Strategist, anyway. It's always surprises with this company, ain't it?
The assessment was a tiny portion of the early material from the book that was to be ghostwritten. Upon my first read, the content read like someone had used a text-to-speech tool and free-flowed a circular narrative about the history of two unicorn tech companies--can you guess which ones--and derive a lesson learned from this history. As one would expect with going from verbal storytelling to words on a page, the content read horribly. This was what I was working with.
I'm not trying to make excuses. Sure, I could have done terribly on my own but, I was already working with subpar content. Thrown on the spot, yeah, I don't expect good writing to come from that.
Besides, based on the instructions of the assessment and the assessment itself, you're not looking for a writer. You're looking for an EDITOR. So this role isn't for a content strategist or even a typical content writer. Say it as it is. You're looking for a contract editor. At most, a contract ghostwriter.
It's really funny reading the other two interview reviews for this position because yeah, I remember seeing the role re-posted on LinkedIn under different names: "Content Writer," "Content Strategist," "Ghostwriter" ...
Have y'all found someone yet or are you still reposting the same job with a multitude of fabricated job titles?