What to Do When They Don’t Hire You, But Steal Your Ideas

It’s painful enough when an employer rejects you. But some add insult to injury by stealing material you prepared to promote your candidacy.

How should you cope?

There’s no surefire cure, as Vincent A. Gaglione Jr. learned. While jobless in spring 2004, the Cleveland resident pursued a middle-management position at an Ohio insurer. The concern asked him to create a marketing strategy focused on its independent field agents. He spent about 50 hours drafting a 25-page plan, then presented his detailed proposal to 20 officials over two days.

“We shook hands,” Mr. Gaglione recalls. “There was a lot of backslapping and they said, ‘We’ll be in touch.'”

He didn’t get the job. Mr. Gaglione soon found out the insurer was test marketing a key piece of his plan, even using the name he had given it. He left angry messages for two executives there. “I didn’t appreciate you guys taking up my time and taking my work,” his voicemail said. They never called back.

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