Was contacted by Rubi on LinkedIn, who said they were looking for a content marketing manager. The job listing they shared emphasizes that this person would be responsible for creating marketing strategy, messaging, brand voice, brand narrative, working with partner marketing to build out their strategy, and developing social media content.
But when I had my first call (which for some reason was with an entirely different person than the one who reached out on LinkedIn), all they kept talking about was social media creation. It became evident really fast that they're looking for a social media manager, not a content marketing manager. At all.
In fact, when I asked questions directly related to what sort of content *other* than social media the CMM would be responsible for producing, and would they be responsible for owning the blog (which has only a single, year-old blog post), the person I was speaking with seemed iffy and said probably not and that they weren't entirely sure what other content the CMM would be working on.
All of the questions were about my experience creating social content, what social tools I was familiar with using, etc. There were no other questions about content marketing or anything other than social media marketing.
When I asked what the salary band was for the role, this person said they were still working on figuring that out but that it was partly based on their conversations with candidates, to help them determine what would be appropriate, but that to rest assured it would be "very competitive."
Uh-huh.
They also said that a physical on-site would be expected as part of the interview process for candidates based locally. When I asked what the company HQ address was and said that I found what looked like a plausible address online but that it was hard to hone in on what exactly it was, they again said they didn't know and that they're trying to pin that down with the co-founder and CEO. (This person wasn't even based in the Bay Area, but a different state entirely.)
Everything about this process had red flags: the fact that the person who reached out to me initially was not who I ended up speaking with and was instead reaching out on behalf of someone else, the fact that the job title and description are entirely different from what the CMM would actually be doing in their day to day, the lack of a salary band even after Rubi has already started the recruiting process, and the person I spoke with not even being able to pin down a physical address for the workplace.
They tried talking up Rubi by saying how the co-founder and CEO went to Paris Fashion Week and the person entering this role would have the opportunity to travel with them. This role sounds like it's being targeted at gullible, inexperienced Gen Z girls who would jump at the opportunity to say they're working for a "green" company in the fashion space, hoping the co-founder and CEO will take them jet setting around the world with them. In reality, they'll likely just be in an office every day making TikToks about fabric and the environment.
Note: this company isn't headquartered in San Francisco like it says here on Glassdoor. They're located somewhere (again, not exactly sure where) in San Leandro, in the East Bay.
The total lack of alignment between the job title and description and what recruiting, the co-founder, and CEO want from this role is so stark that I'm not sure if they're even communicating on the same dimensional plane. Unsurprisingly, a couple of days after my phone screen, I received a follow-up email that they wouldn't be moving forward with me. Really, they shouldn't have even reached out to me to begin with if they knew they were looking for a social media manager and not a content marketing manager.
This was a waste of everyone's time. Rubi really needs to get their act together and figure out what they want from this role (and, importantly, how much they're going to pay this person and where exactly they're located) before reaching out to candidates. And especially to experienced candidates who don't have time to waste on companies trying to sell them on trendy brand missions and pie-in-the-sky, too-good-to-be-true perks like jet setting with the c-suite.
Unprofessional, slightly shady experience. Avoid.