Perhaps I was a little agitated or excited this afternoon.
- Perhaps I was a little agitated because five (or maybe more; I lost count) scammers had sent me LinkedIn DMs when they gravitated to my #opentowork LinkedIn banner…like flies speeding to a carcass. (Which gave me an excuse to write about identity management on LinkedIn.)
- Or perhaps I was a little excited because a Never Search Alone participant had shared an identity management product marketing position with me.
The bot says hello
After applying for said job, I was reading the company’s website to learn about its identity management product when the company’s bot kept on messaging me.
At 2:30 pm Chat Bot says: Hello, this is an AI Rep from [COMPANY]. If you need any assistance, feel free to ask.
At 2:30 pm Chat Bot says: Saw that you’re interested in our SaaS management and identity governance software. Any questions?
Being the curious type (after all, I worked for IDEMIA), I wondered how the chat bot would deal with what I REALLY wanted to ask about.
- Not about a demo.
- Not about the company’s recent funding round. (Series B, $35 million.)
- Not about how they want to save the badgers or whatever.
- But about my just-completed job application.
At 2:47 pm I say: With 30 years’ identity experience and 9 years as a PMM, I just applied for your Sr PMM Identity Management role. So the only question that I have is when you will interview me.
Yes, 30 years. Not “over 29” years. See my prior post.
And yes, my assumption that the company would immediately drop everything and interview me may have been a little overconfident. But it’s better than imposter syndrome.
And after all, this was just a bot. I assumed that the bot would be completely confused by my question, so no harm would come from overconfidence.
You know what they say about people who assume?
The bot exceeds expectations
At 2:47 pm Chat Bot says: Thanks for applying for the Sr PMM Identity Management role! Could you provide your email address so we can follow up on your application status?
One note here: the bot parroted my response back to me. The company’s job description does not include a job title with the “PMM” acronym.
Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised. The bot was trained to respond to job applicants. So I provided the email address that I used for my job application.
The bot does not meet expectations
That’s when I was UNPLEASANTLY surprised.
At 2:47 pm Chat Bot says: Thank you for your interest. Please provide a business email address so we can follow up on your application status.
Apparently the training wasn’t thorough enough. Think about it; if you’re an individual applying for a job, why would you apply with a “business email address”? Which one? From your current employer? THAT is not a good idea.
But as it turns out, I DO have a business email address-the one for Bredemarket. So I entered that, even though that email address does not appear anywhere on the job application that I had just submitted.
At 2:47 pm Chat Bot says: Thank you for providing your email. Our team will review the conversation and follow up if necessary. How else can I assist you today?
So it will be interesting to see whether the company contacts me at both of my email addresses.
(Post image generated at craiyon.com)
Postscript for those who don’t click on every link in a Bredemarket post
You missed Brian May’s collaboration with the Weebl folks.
This resonated with me because in mid-September I spent some Instagram time thinking about the word “flash” (as in how fast a human can create content).
Bredemarket 