The man never mentioned my resume, never asked about my work experience or salary requirements, had absolutely no interest in me as an individual or asked any of the usual questions a company asks when trying to size up a potential employee.

Instead he was interested in my clients, the

I had a chilling experience the other day. A man from Kenexa called me, ostensibly to recruit me for a job in New York as a Search Marketing Analyst for Microsoft’s new MSN search engine.

The first time he called he said he was looking for someone to do work for Fortune 400 clients. I told him I was really busy and that I usually deal with smaller clients. He didn’t think that would be a problem … he was very insistent to talk to me. I suggested I’d call him back, so we left it up in the air and for a few weeks I forgot about him.

Then he called me a second time, telling me I was supposed to call him and set up an interview. He practically begged me to do a 45-minute phone interview to see if I was right for the “job.” He e-mailed me and sent me a very generic job description that was more like a newspaper ad than anything else.

Well, hey, something smelled fishy about the whole thing, but if it was for real how could I turn down a chance to get some high-paying work from Microsoft, so I agreed to the interview and we set a date.

The phone interview was unlike any job interview I have ever had while working for Fortune 400 companies in the past.

The man never mentioned my resume, never asked about my work experience or salary requirements, had absolutely no interest in me as an individual or asked any of the usual questions a company asks when trying to size up a potential employee.

Instead he was interested in my clients, thei

Then he called me a second time, telling me I was supposed to call him and set up an interview. He practically begged me to do a 45-minute phone interview to see if I was right for the “job.” He e-mailed me and sent me a very generic job description that was more like a newspaper ad than anything else.

Well, hey, something smelled fishy about the whole thing, but if it was for real how could I turn down a chance to get some high-paying work from Microsoft, so I agreed to the interview and we set a date.

The phone interview was unlike any job interview I have ever had while working for Fortune 400 companies in the past.

The man never mentioned my resume, never asked about my work experience or salary requirements, had absolutely no interest in me as an individual or asked any of the usual questions a company asks when trying to size up a potential employee.

Instead he was interested in my clients, the

Then he called me a second time, telling me I was supposed to call him and set up an interview. He practically begged me to do a 45-minute phone interview to see if I was right for the “job.” He e-mailed me and sent me a very generic job description that was more like a newspaper ad than anything else.

Well, hey, something smelled fishy about the whole thing, but if it was for real how could I turn down a chance to get some high-paying work from Microsoft, so I agreed to the interview and we set a date.

The phone interview was unlike any job interview I have ever had while working for Fortune 400 companies in the past.

The man never mentioned my resume, never asked about my work experience or salary requirements, had absolutely no interest in me as an individual or asked any of the usual questions a company asks when trying to size up a potential employee.

Instead he was interested in my clients, the

The phone interview was unlike any job interview I have ever had while working for Fortune 400 companies in the past.

The man never mentioned my resume, never asked about my work experience or salary requirements, had absolutely no interest in me as an individual or asked any of the usual questions a company asks when trying to size up a potential employee.

Instead he was interested in my clients, the

The man never mentioned my resume, never asked about my work experience or salary requirements, had absolutely no interest in me as an individual or asked any of the usual questions a company asks when trying to size up a potential employee.

Instead he was interested in my clients, their budgets, my current involvement in search word optimization, how much time I spend on each client and was very interested in only the most negative experiences with clients, asking me to name them more than once (which I refused to do). This went on for about half an hour, with him finally asking me “Can you give me some of the specifics of an optimal life-cycle and what happens in that life cycle?” Almost like he didn’t know.

I answered that with “I can’t give you specifics without looking at my data.”

Then came the kicker …

“Do you have your data with you?” he asked, grinding his teeth in desperation.

“On the first phone interview?” I thought, blushing madly.

Man, this guy really wants everything doesn’t he? He wants to know nothing about my qualifications for this “job” but he sure doesn’t mind asking me everything about my clients, my strategies and pretty much how a small, successful web design and online advertising and marketing company like Valor Cross Media keeps its clients and now he wants to see my data?

Hell that’s like asking for sex after a bad meal at Denny’s on a first date.

So I said “No.”

Well, you can actually hear the groan of defeat from this guy. He obviously wa