Speculation pays off in the jobs market

Speculative interviews are those for which no actual job exists but which the clever interviewee can use as a platform to create such a good impression that one will be created. They are time-consuming and they offer a low rate of return, but they have become a key route to finding a new position.

Sometimes banks invite people in for what they admit is a speculative meeting; in other cases, say headhunters, banks pretend there is a real job when there is not. This can be infuriating - but job seekers can make good use of the opportunity and can initiate speculative interviews themselves.

Bob Jarvis, who until three months ago worked in equity capital markets in a large bank, says: "You meet a lot of people who would genuinely love to employ you, but they haven't got the courage to invest money in someone right now."

Jarvis says he has found start-up companies to be particularly wary of hiring new staff. But speculative interviewing is also widespread at investment banks.

Headhunters are partly responsible. In the absence of firm mandates, some recruiters are asking employers to meet well-qualified people on the off-chance that a job offer will ensue.

Sean Springer, a consultant at headhunter Napier Scott, says: "There are an awful lot of headhunters phoning up and trying to sell a candidate. The line manager says he'll see them. But when the human resources department is asked to give the go-ahead, it says there's a hiring freeze so there was never a job anyway."

Colin Jones, a headhunter at Longbridge International, confirms that some headhunters are fuelling the wave of speculative interviews. He says that, in the current environment, many firms are trawling their database for candidates to introduce to clients, even though the fees they might earn are a third or more lower than those for mandated introductions.

The chances of a candidate getting a job through this method are less than 1 in 10, says Jones.

Line managers are also sometimes the unwitting cause of speculative interviews through wishful thinking; they want to hire someone, but the human resources department holds the purse strings and will not let them.

But speculative interviewing can also be a symptom of covert information gathering. Candidates can find themselves taking part in a form of industrial espionage.

One hiring manager at a European bank says: "For the price of a cup of coffee and half-an-hour of your time, you get to find out what your competitors are doing. You can ask the candidates all about the deals they're working on at the moment."

But he says that, for job-seekers, speculative interviews are almost always worthwhile. First, they provide an opportunity to practise interview skills. Second, they can encourage line managers to create a vacancy, often by making an existing employee redundant - a process known as 'churning'.

"There's a real feeling that quality is out on the streets right now. You meet someone and realise he's better than your existing people, so you decide to churn," the hiring manager says.

Michael Moran at Penna, the human resources consultancy, says the possibility of churning justifies attending interviews where there is no particular job available. Banks are almost always willing to create space for the right person, he says.

Revenue generators in particular are often able to turn speculative interviews to their advantage by pointing to the income they could bring in.

Even for non-revenue generators, such as Jarvis, such interviews play an important role. He says he regards those he has been to as part of his wider networking opportunities. Helped by an outplacement provider, Fairplace Consulting, he has drawn up a list of 90 networking contacts, any of which might lead him to his next job. After just three months, he is far from meeting them all.