I had a job interview with a company recently and one of the negative feedback I got was that I hadn’t tried out their product. Now this might be a valid concern if they had any sort of free trial for it, but the lessons they offer start at 60€ and I didn’t feel comfortable spending that amount just to get a better chance at an interview. They also offered no free credits or anything like that during the interview. I did understand how the product worked by researching it online.
I definitely feel that there’s something wrong in asking for an interviewee to spend money on the product they are interviewing for. For one it’s a great setup for a scam. But is there any regulation that should prevent companies from doing this? I am based in the EU and was interviewing for a Spanish company.
UPDATE: This is definitely not a scam, the company is fairly known. This is more of a question of is it right/legal to expect this?
I’ve updated the description to mention that this is definitely not a scam, more like weird and unreasonable behavior.
Honestly, be grateful you even received notice you didn’t make it past the interview. Most jobs just leave you on read so to speak.
If its worded the way you’ve worded it, then I don’t think it is illegal in most countries. That said, if the details could be phrased dramatically, a 60 second news story calling it a fishy practice, might make it illegal… which it should be