Want a job as our secretary? First, pay us 688 kn!

‘Imagination’ continues to follow some of the most recent job adds. One woman had to pay a considerable amount to get a job interview.

One woman, who is looking for a job, sent us an email in which she describes an interesting experience in Croatian employment market. She responded to an add in which Rejuvenation Center was looking for an administrative secretary. After sending her application, she received a very peculiar response.

To be more exact, she was asked to perform certain tasks before she was even allowed to participate in a job interview. Some of those tasks were as follows: see the company website and learn more about the E Rejuvenation program, then sell the E Rejuvenation program worth 688kn and write five sentences describing how you presented the program and email it to their company. Of course, you should contact them only if you managed to sell the product.

But that’s not all. They also add that if the potential candidate performs all the qualification tasks, they would then be invited for the job interview by email. Small print at the bottom of the email added that all three tasks need to be performed within three working days.

The lady in concern, who asked for anonymity, noted that the letter stated that she needs to be able to reference her ‘customer’ before she gets invited for the meeting. This indirectly means that they are running the “pay us, and we will invite you for the job interview”' policy.

First, they change the job conditions and then they abolish it altogether

She forwarded disputed email to Posao.hr, a job-hunt website where she first learnt about the position, after which she received their apology and assurance that the author of inappropriate add would be warned. Their email also states that the Posao.hr is only a medium and that they do not participate in selection process of companies who use their services.

The lady was then advised to contact the management of the disputed company “because only they can provide more information regarding their job proceedings”. Posao.hr stressed how they believe that employers usually respect criticism and how they would modify their selection process. This eventually is exactly what happened.

- We have received a complaint from Posao.hr in which they informed us that some people had issues with our job competition, so we first changed the conditions before we abolished the post  - said Tomislav Sekovanic, a man listed as a contact in the job add.

Sekovanić did not want to give any further information or comments regarding the situation.

The positive thing about the whole story is that the website Posao.hr granted and forwarded the complaint, as promised, and thus prevented any further problems in this somewhat questionable job post.