‘Career Theater’: How We’re Setting the Stage for the Job Market’s Final Act

20 min readSep 5, 2024

My 7-week chronicle of a recruiting agency’s exhausting bait-and-switch

Ah, the tortured, insecure, lost-in-the-hedge-maze life of a freelancer.

There’s nothing quite like that exquisite anxiety of never knowing where you’ll be working in a few months’ (or weeks’) time. To me, it’s always been a special sort of hell. I’m not saying this with the detached, condescending nostalgia of a fortysomething dad staring in wistful wonder at the spartan confines of his kid’s college dorm room. No, I’m saying this as a fortysomething writer who remains baffled by our broken job-search experience and its resulting unemployment rate, not to mention the rising number of companies capitalizing upon both.

As a freelance writer, I always felt especially vulnerable to the elements and keenly aware of my surroundings: an industry where everyone’s in a mad scramble to drink from the same ever-evaporating puddle on a summertime sidewalk. But now, it’s even worse: millions aren’t simply scrambling to find a job, but scrambling to find something — anything — real. And that’s because companies keep popping up for this very purpose: keeping job applicants on the run — distracted, confused, hurried, harried and/or or generally freaked out.

Fortunately, I recently scored a full-time job. (Take that, Indeed! I did it 100% without you, but I’m not bitter or anything.) This doesn’t mean I’m completely closed off from part-time work because like most any freelancer, I’m a sun-skeptical haymaker, and like any writer, I don’t understand the meaning of “downtime.” In other words, when I’m not on an assignment, there’s no end to the number of shitty scripts and never-quite-right novels I can write for myself. No matter what, I’ll be writing something, so I might as well get paid to type.

This is why, when a LinkedIn recruiter tapped me on the shoulder with a contract job, I answered.

My experience is that, At Best©, she might actually have a real job available. At Worst™? Well, I’ll be mildly amused by the blatantly dead-end experience. This time, however, neither of these things was true. What I discovered didn’t annoy me; for some reason, though, it pissed me off like never before. Which is why I started to spite-reply to the recruiter, pretending that I was interested in this faux writing job of hers. Plus, because I’m not a person programmed to let things go, I wanted to see where the bullshit led. Before I knew it, I’d strapped myself in for what became a 7-week plunge into the maddening, ridiculous depths of a company hellbent on kinda-sorta-maybe-not-really-but-yes-for-real scamming me. I’m not convinced even they knew what they were after.

It was an eye-opening experience that revealed not just the bottomlessness of their deceit, but the secret to rescuing our job market.

Seven weeks ago via LinkedIn (or, what feels like a lifetime), a recruiter from Digitive — one of those generic companies that comes across as intentionally ambiguous but potentially legit — said they had something for me. We’ll call this recruiter “Rashida.” Rashida said she had a contract writing position — and that things were moving fast. I got all the standard You’re a perfect fit boilerplate I expected, but then she drops some attractive extras: flexible hours, a 100% remote setting, a benefits package (unheard of)…

I went through my usual thirty-second research routine:

Passably realistic website? Not just a landing page. Check.
Is the recruiter a real, live person? Can’t tell yet. But… check.
Is the job real? Well…

That’s where this journey begins.

Spoiler alert: there’s no writing job for me at the end of this rainbow, but I discovered this early on, so you’re not about to read a seven-week slow burn. After all, it almost goes without saying that there was no job. But that fact won’t stop a company like Digitive from pretending there wasn’t. At this point, I feel like I have the upper hand.

They don’t know that I know that they don’t know that I know.

They had a Whole Thing planned out for me, you see, including some pretty calculated ways of trying to convince me about a job. They’ve got this down to a shifty science. Fakery, it seems, is their whole raison d’être. But there was something else going on. I felt it swelling inside me: the desire to take Rashida on a lesson-teaching ride that was every part as inventive and implausible as whatever she (or “Digitive”) had planned for me. These days, I feel entitled to smack anyone who contacts me with these sorts of lies. But where most people can let this stuff slide, I’m not evolved enough to simply just delete the messages and move on.

Why? Because whenever I’m contacted this way, I know it’s because I’ve tripped some alarm somewhere — I’ve been identified as somehow “weak” which, in turn, makes me some sort of monetary opportunity for bottom-feeding companies like Digitive. And if I’m being completely honest, their messages always hit a nerve because (as I’m loathe to admit) there’s some truth to the fact that I am. Without a full-time job, I feel weak — especially in the face of an uncompromising job market.

But that’s for me to know, and not for people like this cat:

Anyway, via email, Rashida sent her “Content Writer” job listing. I can see almost instantly that a wild ride was ahead. The job title didn’t even match the one in the subject line — plus, it was full of editorial nightmare fuel:

The subject line said “Editorial Assistant” and not “Content Writer.” Red Flag #531. Then, it went and committed the double sin of ignoring either of those titles in favor of an all-new, necessarily generic job title: “Content Analyst/Associate Analyst.”

Whatever.

I know this is where most people cut ties. But I’m not that smart. I am, however, inexplicably angry. How dare they… and all that. I mean, I’m incensed on behalf of the job applicant who might have actually given a shit about this. Then again, I’m starting to feel like I do care — and this bothers me. I can’t afford to care — literally or figuratively.

Anyone seeking a job in today’s landscape (from full-time corporate positions to short-term contract ones) must navigate an impossibly complicated, spectacularly un, and always-evolving landscape — which is exactly what companies like this need to exist. It’s their oxygen. And let’s be clear: a firm like Digitive isn’t technically a scammer, but when you understand what they’re actually doing… well, it makes them so much worse — not only in the time and energy that they steal, but from the hope that they give.

What follows here is Exhibit A in the case of a company built specifically to shamelessly and soullessly tap into the collective fears of 5.9 million unemployed Americans, as well as one random writer who forgot to adjust their LinkedIn “Open for Work” setting. It’s the weeks-long chronicle of a company performing what I call “career theater” — a trend characterized by companies polluting the job-search atmosphere by amplifying desperation, weaponizing hope, and staging charades that keep applicants as far away from any opportunity that is remotely real.

So…

July 23

Rashida introduces herself by blowing up my LinkedIn message inbox. I use LinkedIn so infrequently that I haven’t needed to shut off LinkedIn notifications before, which means I’m getting not one, not two, but eight successive messages in a row from her. For a second, I worry that it’s someone communicating a family emergency. Nope. It’s just good ol’ Rashida, whom I’ve never spoken to before, nor a person who feels the need to introduce herself.
She just comes in hot about a part-time writing job with an undisclosed client who works for a bigger, undisclosed sub-client.
A few messages in, she reveals it’s a big one that starts with a “G,” but if I whisper a word to anyone about who the client is, she might have to kill me. (Kidding.)
Position seems like a good fit, so I agree to discuss it with her.
Seconds after saying “Sure,” she insists that this discussion happen ASAP. Like, Right Effing Now (or “REN,” as the kids don’t say). Again, LinkedIn isn’t exactly an app I check for messages, so when I don’t respond for about ten seconds, Rashida is as displeased as a cat in a bathtub. This is a big, big no-no with recruiters, I’ve discovered, because these aren’t actual job recruiters — they’re parasites who don’t live in the real world. We’re on their schedule.

Here’s a great example from March:

Portrait of a standard LinkedIn recruiter interaction, circa 2024 A.D.

Anyway, I connect with a highly annoyed Rashida six minutes later, and the job sounds pretty good, to be honest. She runs through everything at Warp 10 but needs to ask at least twice if I have any planned vacation. Before I can say “no” for the second time, she hangs up.

And that’s that.

July 30

Precisely one week later (remember this detail), I receive choices.

Less than two minutes later (maybe even faster), an interview invite from someone named Vikram arrives. It’s with a company I’ve never heard of: GlobalLogic; I have to assume it’s the company Rashida said is working with the company that rhymes with “Doogle.” (Also, pay attention to the sheer number of companies that start with “G” in this journey.)
The interview is scheduled for the very next day (less than 24 hours).
No word from Rashida.

July 31

The next morning, when I wake up, I have a barrage of broken-English, really-rude messages from Rashida on LinkedIn. She’s insisting that I need to not only show up to the interview, but to also show up to said interview on time. I’m insulted for no good reason, but maybe it’s because I come from the “If you’re not early, you’re late” camp. She doesn’t know me, goddammit. She’s just thrown another log onto the fire, I think.
I show up for the Google Meet interview and I’m on time. To my surprise, it’s actually pretty great. The person I interview with, though, isn’t a hiring manager — she’s simply a very polite, kind person who I surmise is a future colleague. She details a contract job that I’m totally on board with, telling me how much she loves its flexibility.
I’m encouraged. But something still feels off because, normally, I’d thank the person I interviewed with for their time. I then realize that I have no contact info for her whatsoever. (If anyone knows a nice, affable contract writer named “Courteney Cox” out of Connecticut, please let me know; otherwise, I’ll have to assume “Courteney Cox” is a misspelling of a celebrity’s name.)
I message both Rashida and this Vikram character as a follow-up, thanking them. No reply.

July 31 to August 11

Nothing from anyone. But I’m not interested in the job, remember, so I pretty much just forget about the whole thing.

August 12

I’m well into my fourth re-watch of Halt and Catch Fire. Somewhere around the time Donna finds Gordon digging a hole in the backyard, I get a new flurry of frantic messages on LinkedIn… and two voicemails on my phone… and two emails… and no context.
The gist is that Rashida is frantically trying to inform me that Vikram has struck again! Sure enough, in my inbox, there’s another interview invite. (Vikram, you sly bastard…) But this time, it’s not for a second interview. Nope. I’m apparently an astounding human being because, this time, it’s a “Final Interview.” I somehow leapfrogged every middle gear and went straight into overdrive.
In Classic Vikram form, the interview is scheduled for the next day in less than 24 hours. (This time, no one asked me what my availability is. They just expect me to show up.)
I accept the invite with confusion and pleasure.

August 13

Nearly identical messages from Rashida: emails and a voicemail and LinkedIn IMs that instruct me to show up to the job interview, but more importantly: Be on time. I’m told this twice. Again.
Right before the interview, she emails me this masterpiece:

I show up, on time, for the “Final Interview” on Google Meet. But it’s not an interview at all; instead, it’s a timed skills assessment. It’s with some twentysomething from Chicago named Rachel who tells me that she’s going to watch me write a response to a writing prompt — live. This not-interview is all about her sitting there and watching me type out a paragraph in twenty minutes.
This is perfectly fine by me — if I wasn’t on an iPad, expecting a goddamn interview. (By the way: if you can write on a tablet for an unexpected timed skills assessment, you deserve all the gold.) Anyway, she says that this requires a PC. I laugh and consider just telling this poor woman that this is just a lark — I don’t care. But some part of me still does because I’m quickly running around the house where I’ve been staying, looking for a PC. For a few minutes, all I’m doing is carrying blank-faced Rachel around on a tour of the house, as I narrowly miss cats on the staircase and mutter things that rhyme with “cod-ducking-cammit.”
My son’s gaming PC is available. He has Roblox and Minecraft and a tornado-chasing game, but he doesn’t have a webcam.
She’s patient. I’m pissed. This is embarrassing.
My inner MacGyver kicks in and I quickly and cleverly solve the PC problem. (Evidence: “Wow, that’s really clever.” — Blank-Faced Rachel from Chicago). I take the test. I’m starting to feel (again) like this might actually be a real opportunity, too. There might a real job at the end of this rainbow. Maybe I’ve been wrong.
Blank-Faced Rachel tells me that I did great and that she’ll report back to my recruiter about the Content Writer job. She all but confirms that maybe I’ve been imagining things. But I’m angry. Rashida didn’t prepare me for this. Did she set me up to fail or something, sending me a suicide mission that I improbably survived?
I give Rashida both barrels in an email about her lack of communication about this “interview.” I mean, how dare she tell me to be on time for an interview that wasn’t even an interview. I eagerly await her reply.
The next day, her response arrives

I have to admit that “will update you” is an incredibly effective way of deflecting my irrational rage over about a position I never applied for in the first place. I briefly wonder if she knows that I’ve been leading her on. Maybe this whole experience is my punishment for trying to teach her a lesson…

August 14-August 19

Absolutely no updates. But something tells me that…

August 20

… there we go!

Exactly one week later, Rashida returns with her LinkedIn-email-phone trifecta-assault, only this time she’s asking about some “Gignext Assessment Form” link. Per usual, there’s no hello.

As if by magic, I then receive an email telling me that I’ve been (and watch the word choices here) selected for the “Remote Associate Analyst” role with Google through GlobalLogic. At this point, there are just way too many “G’s” involved, and I have no idea what the hell is going on. That whole “Content Writer” is a distant memory now — which I suspect is the entire point. They simply want someone who’s starving for a job, not the job.

Here’s where the whole thing reaches a new level of WTF, too.

I’m running out of steam for this whole thing, to be honest, but I follow the link anyway. Just to see if I’ve been wrong…

What awaits me is indescribable, but it feels a lot like when your character dies in a Choose Your Own Adventure book and you get kicked all the way back to the beginning to start over. Sadly, I don’t have some mummy’s tomb, Genghis Khan’s sword, a space vampire’s bite or a time-travel accident to blame. I’m the reason for the Page 1 reset. I stare at the email in slack-jawed wonder.
I ask Rashida for an explanation. She doesn’t answer my question, so I decide to do nothing. This will teach her.

August 21

The next day, I’m notified by yet another company that they’re conducting a background check on behalf of “Global Logic” (this time with a space in between the two words, not one). I never once agreed to this happening, but it’s apparently already in motion. Who am I to stop this unstoppable machine? I’m clearly in deep.

August 22–August 26

The background-check firm argues with itself in my inbox, asking for documentation about previous jobs and residences and references that I don’t provide. Every few hours, though, I receive updates that tell me I’ve cleared yet another phase of the background check. They thank me for my W-2s; they tell me they’ve contacted references that don’t exist.
Miraculously, I’m finally notified that this company has everything it needs. I’m stunned and — not gonna lie — little frightened. It’s starting to feel like I’m somehow participating in everything when I’m asleep, Fight Club-style.
Still no real updates. Until…

August 27

Exactly one week later, Rashida unleashes an explosion of messages on me. Most of them make no sense, but I’m wondering if it’s because I’m the one who’s going insane. Her LinkedIn messages look like she’s been writing to me while bouncing on a trampoline — my inbox is just a wild carnival of punctuation problems and frowns and exclamation points. Lots and lots of exclamation points.
My start date is September 4 she tells me, with a frown. (She corrects the frown with a bracket, by the way, and not a smiley face.)
“Keep your eyes open for more emails” her email tells me. Plus, another query about a Gignext assessment form.
But, wait. There’s more:

There’s no explanation, there’s no apology, there’s no mention of that imaginary Content Writer job. There’s only talk about a full-time, $23/hour analyst job that I’ll have to apply to.
Then, a few hours later, she hits me again with her three-pronged attack — and this time, she says her manager has been trying to reach me to no avail:

I call this guy. I get an automated voicemail message saying that I’ve reached “Zero-Zero-Zero-Eight-Zero-One.” And while I start to leave a message for him, he calls me. No pleasantries; no introduction. Just a blunt question: “Do you have vacation coming up?”
I’ve already told Rashida this, but I sincerely wonder if I actually have. Maybe I’m making this entire experience up in my head. Maybe he’s not real. Whatever the case, he seems satisfied. And while I start to ask him a question to anchor me in reality, he hangs up.
During this exchange, as I stare at my inbox, an email pops up from “GPS Americas” (another “G”!) with a slew of new Indian names cc’d on it. This email also has more typos and grammar/spelling errors than any other email so far. It asks me to follow a link to a “GlobalLogic New Hire Document” which is a Typeform sheet. Basically, it’s like the party RSVP form that your aunt sent you for your Labor Day party.

August 28

I receive an email from someone new, announcing that “all parties have completed” my docs (which ones?) and that they’re waiting for an “executed copy.” (From whom, I wonder, and what does ‘executed’ mean beyond trying to sound important?).
This person says that my background check can finally start.
If I’d actually thought I was starting a job on September 4, I’d have lost my mind entirely — but since I’m not, I have a little perspective. No one is going to complete a background check that starts on a Thursday ahead of a holiday weekend, let alone have it clear before the 4th. This is science fiction.
Why do I care?
What’s happening to me?
Why am I sad?
Another gem is buried in this email as the very last sentence of an email telling me that all of my documents have been completed and received: “Please review and complete the attached documents.”
There are no attachments.

August 29

Another day, another job offer. It’s flattering to be wanted.
Some messages at this point refer to me as “Paul”; some refer to me as “Carl” (my actual first name). Someone must be drunk on their end.

This message also tells me that they’ve “processed my profile” and that I’m “ready for Placement” (capital “P”) and all kinds of other nonsense phrases. They’re unaware that I also… wait for it…

Yep. Yet another job offer, but to “Carl” this time. This one’s serious, too, because it asks for banking information.

I’m starting to wonder who’s more important to them: Carl or Paul?
I’m expected to show up to a job in less than five days — despite no contract, no agreed-upon hourly rate, three unanswered application requests from “them,” a background check company that hasn’t yet confirmed it’s done, no hiring manager, a fake UPS tracking number for a Chromebook…
A blizzard of “welcome aboard” emails follow — from three different companies, all with “G” names.
Of all the emails, the one I love the best is the one that tells me to watch for an email that will tell me about another email about my first-day orientation — itself an email that will arrive on the first day. But if I don’t receive this email, be sure to email them, it says. (This is no way, shape or form confusing…)

It goes on from there, but it wasn’t entertaining. fact, I realized that by entertaining the process for the purpose of this article, I was part of the problem. I was keeping their charade alive and validating their efforts.

I stopped responding and watched Digitive’s emails continue to spiral off into their own infinite, self-swallowing existence. After a while, it didn’t even feel like I was part of Digitive’s endgame; it was all just falling all around me without anything done on my part, landing wherever the threads were programmed to land. And even though I was the target, the scam didn’t consider the discerning human at the end of it all. It just withered away as if ignoring my presence altogether, kind of like that theory about Indiana Jones having absolutely no bearing on any of those movies’ plots. Things just happened around him the way they were always going to happen. The Nazis still opened the Ark, that crystal-noggin creature still escaped in a UFO, and the machine of Digitive’s pretend processes still threw countless onboarding emails into my inbox.

Even from a bemused distance, it was an exhausting experience — one that unfolded through overlapping emails, messages about other messages, promises about promises, contradictory updates, endless names, empty adjectives and hurried last-second demands. It’s a lot of sound and fury, signifying fucking nothing.

I’ll say it again: career theater is quietly and effectively killing the American job marketplace in ways that no one at the Bureau of Labor Statistics can even begin to compute. Somewhere along the way, like a train on a railway switchtrack, I’d been thrown from a (probably) legitimate job to an entirely different job. I know Digitive’s efforts might seem obvious, but had I been an actual candidate fueled with anxiety and desperation, it’d have been difficult to see through their carefully calculated, hurricane-strength bluster. Digitive’s messages were as scheduled (7 days exactly, remember?) as they were depressing reminders that entire companies exist solely to run these pointless long cons on job applicants.

I still find it hard to believe that chasing unemployed Americans is even remotely profitable, but as this Redditor explains, it’s the reason Digitive and its contemporaries are thriving:

It’s hard to find candidates willing to work for shitty pay, say $25/hr. Once these guys find a good candidate, they drag out the process until they are sure the candidate is desperate and can’t find another job. Then they automatically sign up the candidate for one of the shitty roles in their pipeline, say at $23/hr, skimming $2/hr off the top. As long as the candidate stays with the job, [they] make money off of them.

I have to assume this is correct, but it sure as hell sounds like it.

These aren’t scam artists, but they’re definitely scam-adjacent. In my case, they tried to pair an overqualified, hopefully-blind-and-exhausted-by-the-process writer with a secret shitty job. They work hard to get you in the door with a genuinely real job interview that was never real in any meaningful way. (I never interviewed with a hiring manager anywhere along the line. Just “Courteney Cox.”) The second you’re in their door, though? Well, if you’re unsuspecting or unaware, it’s lights out.

To me, the most saddening part of this experience is how everyone seems aware that the American job-search experience is a minefield full of dead ends and deception but nothing’s changed. Awareness doesn’t equal action. But look at Digitive: when it comes to awareness, they’re many clicks upriver — they’ve already turned their awareness of a broken system completely against us. After all, it’s the guiding principle in how they fill all these substandard jobs of theirs.

Soon enough, job seekers will contend with much worse, too. I’m sure AI interviewers are right around the corner. Or maybe insta-sites that pop up to support a fake company, serve their purpose for 36 hours, and vanish back into the ether. Hell, maybe “Rashida” was just a recruiter bot programed to be punctual and nothing else. But don’t misread this as doom and gloom.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the threat nor the liability that it sounds like. In fact, it’s actually where our strength lies. You see, companies like Digitive rely on what Digitive’s name celebrates: nothing. The real world is their enemy and it always will be. And that’s the message that’s been hiding in plain sight: all of these tactics and efforts reflect their own desperations and anxieties.

That’s why today’s applicants should take comfort in knowing that there’s only so far it can go. They need us. Who’s the perfect candidate for this job I was being recruited for? Honestly? ChatGPT, not a petulant writer with a Master’s degree. The Digitives of the world should enlist AI chatbots for these jobs, not exhaust humans through a cold, calculated “hiring process” for $20/hour jobs. AI could knock that “remote analyst” job out of the park, I bet.

In a recent screed about AI, director Steven Soderbergh said:

“[AI] has no life experience. It’s never been hungover. It’s never made a meal for anybody it loved. It’s never been scared walking home late at night. It’s never felt insecure because somebody that it went to high school with 20 years ago has become incredibly successful. I’m not afraid of it.”

These “recruiters” are no different. They don’t know what it feels like to be a job applicant at the other end of this spear. Similarly, we shouldn’t be afraid of the world’s Digitives; rather, we should follow their lead with turning awareness into action. And here, action means inaction. We need to not indulge their messages, not jump toward every sketchy opportunity, and not entertain their nonsense for seven weeks — all for the purpose of a Medium article. We all know better. The less we feed their efforts, the less of a job-applicant battlefield it becomes. After all, before long, they’ll be talking to themselves — an echo chamber of job scams and false leads.

Reality always wins. It’s why corporations have annointed “authenticity” as a valued commodity. All of those HR-marketing pushes to “bring your true self to work”? They underscore just how priceless “truth” is. There’s no algorithm that can ever match the power of an authentic, one-on-one interview — especially for a position that actually exists. These so-called “recruiters” can only fake their value, or disguise the distance they install between applicants and jobs for so long.

If you look closely enough, you’ll see that these companies are as weak, fragile and desperate as they need their targets to be (i.e. me). But the longer we all ignore the fact that they’ve recruited themselves to shape and influence the job market, the more we become applicants to the job market’s increasingly distant and bleak future.