I’ll keep this brief and would appreciate honest feedback…
A District Sales Manager for a big company contacted me (after somebody recommended me) about a great job opportunity 2 weeks before Christmas and told me a sales rep of his is retiring and was interested in talking to me in regards to a job where I would walk into a book of business and make good $$ right away…I went in to interview and he started talking about salary etc. at the end and then gave me an application/background check to take home and complete (my background check would have shown my license is suspended now due to missed court appearance)…I mailed it back to him along with a thank you note and followed up…Then, he asked me to come back in and have a conversation with one of his senior sales reps (so we could ‘pick each others brains’)…The meeting went really well and we stayed in touch…Then, he told me he wanted to bring me back in (a 3rd time) after the New Year…
With that said, he called me yesterday and said the position is not going to be availible right now as he originally thought and that it’s going to be “later in the year” before they are ready to hire somebody…He told me he would get back to me when that time comes and talk then…We both agreed to keep in touch until that time comes…
(This is a man with a great reputation and honest…also a friend of my parents)
What are your thoughts? Advice? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated!
@Kimballkid- Basically asking what you would take from the fact that the he tells me the position is not availible yet after saying they are looking to make a hire beginning of 2012??
@Anyone- I’m 25 and am still learning things in the business world. What would be a reason a company “isn’t ready to make a hire” after they give you indication on plans for a new hire at the first of the new year??
I could be any number of things. They may have decided they could make do without another person, they may have decided business wasn’t good enough to hire another person, they may have found something in your background check that raised an alarm bell, they may want someone with more experience. The sky’s the limit as far as to why they would wait.
I don’t know that it really matters what it “means” - after all, that doesn’t change the fact that you aren’t going to be hired there right now.
There are plenty of reasons why a company might not be hiring right now after they thought they were going to. Maybe the person who was going to leave changed his/her mind. Maybe it’s taking longer to get together a case to fire the person than they thought. Maybe the year-end financial report for the company shows they can’t afford a new employee right now. Or maybe the guy is doing a kind brush off and they went with someone else; the “maybe later” bit is possibly a hint to get your act together and you’d be a possibility later on.
What matters is you fix anything questionable. Deal with your legal situation ASAP. Also consider gently asking a trusted family member who also knows this guy to casually ask about how the search for a new candidate is going/how his job is going/whatever, if you know someone who can do that credibly without completely looking like it’s a “hey why didn’t you hire Junior?” query.
Maybe they didn’t actually have a position, they’re just trying to build a file of potential candidates in case one opens up soon.
Maybe they interviewed you as a courtesy to the person who recommended you (although the fact that they called you back suggests to me it was more than just a courtesy interview.)
Does anyone else think it’s weird that a company would take a retiring salesman’s book and hand it over to a new hire? Isn’t the more standard practice to let the rest of the sales force pick over all the good accounts and leave the new hire with whatever no one else wants?
This seemed really weird to me too. Usually at the age and experience level of the OP, you’d be lucky to get a book of business at all to start out with. Sounds like, at the very least, the OP was being fed a bit of BS on this point.
I had an interview and second interview for a position that they stressed they needed RIGHT NOW? They made it seem like the process would (had to) take one week, no more than 2.
Four months later they called me to let me know someone else was offered the job.
Mrs Cad applied for a job 6 weeks ago and still hasn’t heard back and the job is still up. I think they are waiting on a government contract.
Its possible that the sales rep who was retiring decided to hold off a few months.
Its possible that they were able to book business during the busy season and can get by splitting the territory until things heat up again.
Its possible that they’ve decided to try splitting the territory.
Its possible that there are multiple reps in this territory and they decided to let the existing reps split the book.
Its possible that they lost a huge account and aren’t sure if they’ll be replacing the retired person.
Its possible that they have a buyout offer or something from another firm and won’t hire until that gets sorted out (if ever), or that they are picking up or dropping lines.
My Dad retired after a career in sales two years ago. He had an account service person on his territory. Originally they were going to hire to replace him. The other logical thing to do would be to promote the account service person. Two years later, they haven’t hired anyone and the account service person is servicing all my Dad’s old accounts.