An unsolicited, anonymous mass email from a platform soliciting project proposals
Have you ever been asked to provide operational or project-planning suggestions before or during a job interview?
【The person involved】🖋🖋🖋
A while ago, I received an email from “an employee in the Administration Department.” It was a very strange email exchange.
The content is below. Has anyone else received one?
📨📨📨(Original text reproduced↓↓)
Dear Sir/Madam,
Sorry to bother you! 1111 Job Bank is undergoing comprehensive reforms and striving to become more youthful and customized. In addition to the main 1111 website, we are also setting up Taiwan’s one-of-a-kind university network, the TUN community platform (https://university.1111.com.tw/zone/university/index.asp).
You are welcome to browse the site and share your suggestions and ideas with me. If approved by the supervisor, we will arrange an interview to discuss where you could contribute.
If you are able to join us, in addition to offering excellent compensation and free lunch and dinner, we can also provide a luxury residence near the company, next to an MRT station, as employee accommodation.
We welcome your reply at your earliest convenience. Thank you very much!
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【The person involved】🖋🖋🖋
It was obvious at a glance that this was a mass email sent to people in the marketing talent database, fishing blindly for project proposals. However, since I wanted to pursue an interview opportunity and was curious myself, I replied with a simple PPT addressing visual and page problems that users would notice at a glance, along with suggestions for optimizing the platform framework—about four pages in total.
In my reply, I emphasized that since I was not yet employed by 1111, the proposal was my personal copyrighted work, so I could not provide overly detailed content. If they were interested, they could arrange an interview and make an offer.
🔙🔙🔙Unexpectedly, I received another reply from 1111, as follows🔙🔙🔙
Hello! Sorry to bother you again!
Since your suggestions have received the attention of senior management, we would first like to ask what times would be convenient for you to interview?
The interview may be conducted by video or in person!
You should also prepare a presentation for the interview. It must include an evaluation of the existing platform and how it could be improved, as well as how the university-network community platform should be marketed in the future so that students will become aware of it. You may add any other content yourself!
In addition, we have a somewhat presumptuous request: senior management hopes that you can also conduct a comprehensive review of and provide suggestions for the 1111 Job Bank website!
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【The person involved】🖋🖋🖋
（Wow, didn’t I already say that if you’re interested in the ideas, that also means you recognize them, so we could discuss the interview and offer then? But instead, they asked for even more...）
So I replied again↓↓↓
1. In one or two rounds of email exchanges, you have not mentioned what position your company is currently recruiting for?!
2. Regarding providing a more detailed operational presentation, your initial email was not an individual contact but a mass blind-copy email soliciting business suggestions for your company. Since I was very interested in pursuing an interview opportunity, I replied with some preliminary suggestions and stated that any details would need to be discussed as an employee after joining.
3. After all, your company is a professional talent-recruitment platform with many years of experience and should place great importance on patent and copyright protection. Moreover, I am not yet an official 1111 employee and cannot continue providing project proposals free of charge.
If your company is interested in my operational concepts, after you make a formal offer, I can enter the company and discuss the details in depth with the supervisors and colleagues. Therefore, I’m afraid I must decline your request for additional proposal planning at this time.
If your supervisors and HR are still willing to proceed with an interview to discuss the job details and employee benefits, we can arrange one on X/X or O/O.
🔙🔙🔙This supervisory-level employee replied again as follows🔙🔙🔙（Original text reproduced）
Ms. X:
What the job bank is currently seeking is marketing professionals to support the establishment of the university network. The position or title will be determined according to your qualifications; anything from a manager-level role to vice president is possible!
We fully understand your position and insistence, so we will not ask for any more details!
Since the president of the job bank has something to attend to on O/O, and X/X is the job bank’s monthly meeting, may I ask whether Ms. X has another available time, in the morning or afternoon?
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【The person involved】🖋🖋🖋
I had originally thought about meeting the president or supervisor, but I really felt it was not worth it. Why waste my time going there to trade words with them? I did not reply with a time when I could attend, and they did not follow up either. So clearly, this was a scheme to collect project proposals.
I asked some friends, and one had also been invited to an interview in the past and was asked to write a SWOT analysis 🙄🙄🙄🙄
I also posted a question on LinkedIn, which prompted a former 1111 employee to say: “Speaking as someone who has been through it, opinions may vary. They have always used this method to select candidates, but at least you don’t need to worry too much—they won’t take your ideas and use them elsewhere.”
I don’t agree with that response, because I often encounter companies like this: after they have asked you questions and tested you, you still don’t get the job, but they use your ideas. Hello?! Who says it is reasonable to get this work for free? If you want me to write a proposal, pay me for it—you don’t need to hire me.
What kind of manager-level or even vice-president-level position is recruited through blind mass emails sent out fishing for candidates?
Without even mentioning what position is available, they use all kinds of incentives to lure you into giving away your ideas?
If a company employs so many project planners, operations staff, and even senior executives, yet none of them has any ideas or can manage or operate a platform properly, and then needs to use its own platform’s members to send out mass anonymous emails collecting proposals,
then why not fire the entire project-planning department and senior management and just give me the salaries? 🤑🤑🤑🤑🤑 I’d accept that~