I’m in the middle of a long interview process with a company and they asked me to write a report on these three lines of evidence. The evidence is relatively weak, however, so I emailed my contact (who is generally very responsive) 4 days ago. The day I emailed him was when I had originally said I would give him the completed report, but I wanted to know about how to handle weak evidence. I haven’t heard back, so should I just write a report pretending like the evidence isn’t shaky, write a report that may hurt the client by admitting the evidence is shaky, or wait it out?
Showing dishonesty during the interview process encourages further dishonesty in your career. If they’re the kind of employer and client who loves shaky evidence, then you’re a perfect fit for the. No one can be perfectly honest. So trying to do the right thing at all is pointless. What do you have to stand to gain? Certainly not self-respect if you’re willing to work for a corporation. Corporations may be people, but they are soulless and moral-less ones.
You already showed complete dishonesty by promising a report 4 days ago that you apparently haven’t even sent. If you ever are in a time machine, send over the initial report with questions. Since this has already happened, the only helpful advice is to hope for time travel.
They can criticize your work if they get your best guess draft of a report. They’ll wonder why you didn’t just KNOW what they wanted without needing so much help. Mind reading powers are expected in most positions. As you probably don’t know – since you do not yet have time travel in your century – mind reading genetically was engineered in the year 5319 to help employees suck up to hiring managers.
In a real life work situation where you were already pre-hired for a job, you might go to your boss and ask for assistance. That way you can make your boss feel super important about having your opinion. This is interview situation where they are using the imbalance of power to request free work. So you really have to write out each variation of the report. Each of the three versions should be more work and least free than the last.
So first write the report that pretends the evidence isn’t shaky. This is a work of fantasy and should be the easiest to make. Fantasy writing is just lying where a good portion of the audience will dress up as the made up lies you made. That’s how I came up with the year 5319 thing. You’re probably planning now your friend group costumes as time traveling hiring manager and his mind reading suck up employee. As you noted, this version can’t hurt the client.
Admitting problems would hurt the client. No reasonable client would admit problems and try to resolve them. They won’t appreciate having flaws pointed out. That would make them do real work. However, you’ll need to write the version of the report also from your perspective. Write it in a wishy-washy tone that shows that you need more evidence, apologizing profusely that it’s your own fault that this happened. Explain that you’re probably misunderstanding throughout. If the words “I’m sorry” aren’t used at least a dozen times, throw out everything you wrote and start over.
The third version of the report explains that you’re waiting it out. This version should be written in a narrative structure similar to the 2003 book the Time Traveler’s Wife. Include characters from throughout the interview process. You may also use excerpts from this in your Glassdoor review of this shamble of an interview process.
Invoice them for work if you don’t get an acceptable offer letter for the position.
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