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?
Legally it’s OK, having no experience in some specific product is not a protected class.
Morally no, if the research wasn’t enough and they expect you to have paid for their product already, thats just weird. Just pass and move on.
I’ve seen a lot of fashion sales jobs be really picky. If you don’t own any of the clothes from a particular brand. If you want a job selling, say, Louis Vuitton, they expect you to come and dress in those sorts of clothes.
But having purchased a particular product? Or a service? Typically that sort of thing is something you would be trained on after you get hired. Familiarity with the product? Yes. Necessarily owning it? No.