Maybe I'm ready for the funny farm?

For God's sake, please tell me this will NOT happen to me in the United States!

OK, so I go out for this interview today with a company of environmental scientists. They want somebody who can manage their LAN and backups, Win2008, LINUX, et al.
I sit down to interview, get asked the usual questions; "how do we do this, how do we do that, can you write scripts, can you write macros for Excel, blah, blah, blah". etc.

Then, at end of interview, I get this:

"We MAY get back to you in about 3 weeks, we've been bringing highly skilled people in to help us to define what we need"

"Say what?"

So, they've just used me as a consultant for an hour or two, and not paid me any fees!

This seems to be confined to Western Australia. If I find it's the same in other places in the world, I am out of IT forever!

My head is still spinning.......

Andy.

WTF indeed! I'd send them a bill for your time!

I would suggest you keep your guard up even when not in Australia. I've just got some first hand experience with corporate dealings (when I chose to become a freelance artist). Fortunately the people involved including my father and his friend had some experience with these kind of things...

They were particularly careful, don't mention this... don't drop a certain price like this or else ... careful with this topic... I was a bit freaked out the first time that I just planned on keeping my mouth shut.

Some further deliberation after the dealing were "hoping they would slip and give this info" etc. It's like a freaking jungle/wilderness of word maneuverings.

EDIT: Probably he noticed you were susceptible to giving such info etc. and took advantage of it...

Yup, it's a fine line in job interview between demonstrating your knowledge and them picking your brains for all your hard-earned experience. Been there, been flicked with the wet towel....

Send them a Thank you gift box, with a spring loaded ravenous blood lusted koala inside.

Unfortunately, even in the US, if they haven't offered to pay for your time BEFORE the interview, it ain't likely going to happen. I've never been paid for an interview, and haven't heard of anyone being paid for an interview, although travel expenses are usually reimbursed - although this is agreed to up front!

FishTaco, if you think that's outrageous you'd simply COMMIT SUICIDE over US company tactics in general toward job seekers or employees.

Your story, in my eyes, is very tame.

Vulg, care to share a story of how things happen in the USA?

Is there a language issue here guys?

I said bugger all about being paid for an interview.

I resent somebody advertising a job they don't know how to scope, and then using MY IT skills to scope it for them!

Not a language issue, just us interweb-dwellers jumping to conclusions at this line:
You intended to emphasize the consulatant part, we just focused the "not paid" part.

So, with that cleared up, yes that is a shady practice, and it probably happens often other places. It's a sure sign that you don't want to work there, though!

I'll share one off the tip of my brain.

Went to a group interview once (I no longer do these, ever, and not because of this particular story even).

About 8 of us spent an hour or two filling out paperwork and waiting around.

When the time came the interviewer asked one question: "What's the difference between a reason and an excuse?".

One by one we gave our answers.

Then the interviewer announced that the interview was over.

EVERYONE was very, very ticked off at that!

Vulgarity,

Oh, that must have been a PITA.

I guess one of my biggest gripes about where I live, is the fact you get screened, you do interview, and then you wait four-five weeks and hear nothing.

I have a number of different copies of my resume. One of them, usually the one I send via email, is condensed, and easy to read. When I get to interview stage, I have my certificate, even result of my psycho-metric testing, so if they try to run this sort of thing by me, I can hand it over, and say "it's all in there".

I think governments should also step in and limit a little bit the questions that get asked. For example, one I get quite frequently here in Australia is: "What do you like to do on the weekends?" what relevance is this? I've never understood. I usually say a stock standard answer; "I catch up with friends and have a beer".

There will be a day when I get an interview that I don't want, and I promised myself that if I got that question I would say: "I f**k my girlfriend in every room of the house possible, I f**k her into next year"........LMAO

It WILL happen one day, the day it does, I will post my finding here for all to laugh at.

LMAO

Andy.

Yeah - I'd be tempted to invoice them for services rendered.. Include a resume and say you think you can help them out and that you see "potential" for their growth.lol...