Job Discussion Forums

[Qaaolchoura]

After responding to a post in the Africa forum that claimed Skype interviews are a sign of a scam in Africa, it got me wondering about something I noticed almost immediately when I started following ESL job sites in my freshman year of college, and have seen sporadically ever since.

There's been a few times where I've noticed that a seemingly run-of-the mill ESL posting for one country requires an in-person interview in a second country (and I'm not talking about the British Council here, I'm talking about various for-profit companies I've never heard of). This is almost always London, where I've seen such ads for posts in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Russia, Kazakhstan, and a couple of Central European countries. However I did once see an ad by some recruiting agency (for a number of countries, including one that I was interested in) that required in-person interviews in New York or LA.

I've almost always ignored these postings, since the pay and conditions are never better than similar positions that interview in the country the position is actually in, or by Skype/phone.

However they've lingered in the back of my mind, and so now I'm asking: what exactly are these companies thinking? It seems like by making this requirement, they're selecting for candidates who are either 1. currently unemployed and living near the city, or 2. who are unemployed and desperate enough to travel some distance, or 3. come from near the city and happen to have vacation time during the interview process. It doesn't seem like this requirement is in any way going to improve the quality of applicants; in fact I'd expect it to lover it. I don't see why, for example, a teacher already in Saudi Arabia, who wants to change jobs while staying in country, and comes from America, Australia, or Liverpool, would bother with these jobs most of the time.

And I doubt this is intended specifically to favor British (or in the one case American) citizens, since it would be far easier to simply make citizenship a condition of the job. So seriously, does anybody have any insight into going on in the minds of the people who run these companies? Is it an attempt at reverse psychology? (It's so exclusive, it must be good!) Is there some sort of logic to it that can't be accessed by those of us without an MBA? Or is it just a sign that these companies are run by old men who are afraid of any technology developed after the death of Queen Victoria and can't grasp how far the world extends beyond the M25?

~Q

[Glenski]

Companies with deep pockets can afford to set up offices elsewhere where they are more likely to get applicants. That is good for people who can't afford to fly across the ocean for an interview. It becomes a cattle call for interviewing, but so be it. So, it's not all shady.