Between JarusHub and a Nigerian Company on Interview Coaching

Dear Jarus Hub,

USE OF OUR CORPORATE NAME IN YOUR ARTICLE TITLED ‘INTERVIEW COACHING FOR XYZ NIGERIA LIMITED’

We refer to the above subject matter.

Kindly be advised that we are uncomfortable with your use of our registered/corporate name for the collection of interview coaching fees (ranging from N5,000 to N12,000) in order to promote your business which has nothing whatsoever to do with us.

Going forward, we request that the said article with our name be taken down within 24hours and that an unreserved apology is tendered to XYZ Nigeria Limited and also an undertaking that same act shall not re-occur in the future.

In the future, we would appreciate if XYZ Nigeria Limited’s consent is sought before using our name or any of our intellectual property.

Regards.

Our response

Dear XYZ Team,

We acknowledge receipt of your email, which, frankly, is quite strange to us and perhaps portrays a misunderstanding of the service we provide. 
We deem it necessary to provide some education on what we do.

Interview coaching is an effort by specialized career services providers to assist candidates in acing job interviews of companies. It is a stand-alone service that does not have anything to do with the company. While this is a popular service in advanced countries, most notably US and the UK, we are the first to introduce it in this part of the world – perhaps why you found it strange. 

There is nothing in our article that says SeamFix, or any organization, is affiliated to the service we provide, as it is a no-brainer that the service is independent of the company. It is just like a tutorial center preparing candidates for WASSCE or UTME exams – does anyone need the approval of WAEC or JAMB – both registered entities – before preparing candidates for exams of these bodies? 

Interview and assessment coaching service providers in the UK and US have the names of the companies all over their websites. 

Examples from other climes (US in particular):
https://www.caseinterview.com/coaching
https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/prep4success/prep4success-pro
https://www.myconsultingcoach.com/
http://www.vault.com/company-profiles/commercial-banking-and-investment-banking/goldman-sachs-co/company-overview.aspx

These are interview preparation service providers openly advertising they prepare candidates for interview of McKinsey, Bain, Accenture etc for thousands of dollars.

This is what we are replicating in Nigeria – helping our graduates ace the job interviews of companies by teaching them techniques for interview success for a small fee (compared to what obtains in the United States and the UK) and we are happy that over 300 candidates we have prepared for interviews of top companies in Nigeria and abroad were successful in their real interviews and got the jobs.

McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Accenture, Goldman Sachs and other multi-billion dollar companies will never send an email to an interview service provider to pull down an article offering to prepare candidates for their interviews. Such companies have more important things to do than chasing a business that is training candidates for their interviews, which, in any case, they even appreciate. 

Not even WAEC will reach out to an independent coaching center to pull down an advert offering to prepare candidates for their exams.
We have such posts for almost all major companies operating in Nigeria, including multi-million dollar and multinational enterprises, we never got a request like this.

But if XYZ does not understand how this works, we are happy to pull down the post and tender unreserved apologies. We know we operate in a society that is still far from being developed and such bizarre challenge  is part of country-specific risks.

Regards
JarusHub Team