I'm not sure you have to do a ton to prevent a company from lying on this scale to you; while companies might embellish how attractive a job is, completely lying about the scope of your job and the type of work you'll be doing is fairly rare. Here are a few things that might reduce the possibility of this happening:
- Check the glassdoor.com (and/or similar) ratings and feedback about companies to which you're applying.
- Look to work for larger, more established companies with more stability. Sometimes companies shift people around due to having needs to fill, although it's still extremely rare for a job to go from something that sounds director-level to being IT support for marketing.
- Don't put stock in maybes and future promises. The longer out a promotion, raise, etc. is the less likely a company is to follow through on it. If you're going to take a job based on something it might become, make sure you're still willing to take the job based on what the initial offer is.
- Make sure the salary matches the job you're being promised. If someone is offering you a job where you're being groomed for a major, influential role, but they're paying you a small fraction of what that major, influential role would be, then my guess is they're less sincere about you really getting a massive role. You can always experiment with this one by asking for some of that money upfront instead of having it all hinge; that should help you gauge things as well. (If the money matches, at least you'd be getting paid director money to do IT support work.)
Of course, I hope you're making the most of it while you try to move on as immediately as possible. I would also leave them a public review describing the vast differences between the job you were offered and the role you moved into.
manpreet![Tuteehub forum best answer]()
Best Answer
3 years ago
I just started a "dream job" for a big IT company. I was hired to be responsible for their market strategy for in the territory. I was previously covering the whole region, and I was told that once I developed the strategy, it would be applied to all of the region, and when the position opened I would be the most suitable candidate.
After starting, I realised that:
there is already another team covering the (greater) rest of the region, and they already planned to hire somebody for next year. This team is complementary but independent: I would have to change manager to cover the region.
there is already somebody else in an independent division of the company, who is responsible for strategy in that division; my manager asked me not to replicate his efforts, which means that I will effectively have to execute his strategy.
I was told I would be building and managing relationships with key stakeholders over a number of years: I was immediately approached by salespeople telling me that I would not own any relationship, and shortly after that my manager told me that "I will be to busy to manage any relationship anyway".
The way things are, I am being technical support for salespeople, indirectly following orders from my equivalent in another division.
This job is not what I was told during interview. I want to believe there are professional ways and appropriate processes to get formal commitments to the nature of a role.
Independently from where I go next, which steps do I need to take to prevent this situation from repeating?