Once upon a time, I applied for one of those listings on job sites whose title looks something like: “NO EXPERIENCE? NO PROBLEM! Entry Level Management!” The company was a (live, I believe) marketing group, and their (poorly designed, IMO) website touted their big company clients.
So they contacted me, and I called them. But one thing struck me as very odd about the conversation: the person I talked to refused to tell me what the position’s actual duties were. The best I could get out of her was asking, “So basically, I’d be at an event and I’d be telling people what to do, right?” and getting an affirmative. All my other inquiries along those lines were met by one of two responses:
“It’s too complicated to talk about over the phone.”
“Come in for an interview first. Then we’ll tell you more.”
That raised red flags for me, and I never really followed up further. But I was wondering what exactly was going on. Was my suspicion justified?
I’m still using the set that I was scammed into buying in 1967. It’s good stuff, but I don’t cook waterless. I tried it, but it’s too hard to get the lids off – it’s almost like a pressure cooker.
But yeah, the job is probably something like that. Or maybe home security systems, or time shares. A local restaurant has forms to fill out for a free meal, but when you show up you get a sales pitch for burglar alarms. And the meal, but still . . .
How would any of these suggestions fit in with a company that does live event promotion for charities and non-profits? Is it a bait and switch, in that their website talks only about company fairs and all that to lure you in, and then switches you to some other business they have that they don’t even mention?
I had a job interview for a position once, and the pitch was kinda similar. It turned out to be selling insurance.
The interview was fun, though.
Interviewer: As well-dressed and well-spoken as you are, you could work at a lot of companies in this town, I won’t lie to you.
Me: Would you write the names of those companies on a piece of paper for me?
Interviewer: Tell me about your previous experience.
Me: (Thinking, 'You wouldn’t give me a clue before I came in here and now you want me to rattle off relevant experience?): Well, I was an astronaut for about ten years, before I became Surgeon General of the US…some said I should have finished my PhD at Harvard first, but I had to go for it.
Interviewer: A big part of this job is ‘who you know.’ Could you write the names and phone numbers of people who you think might need insurance?
Me: Sure…
Santa Claus: 0-000-000-0000
Beetle Bailey: 1-800-UBITEME
(etc.)
Years and years ago, before we were married my now wife got sucked into a pyramid scheme. Wait, no, a multil level marketing company. Those were almost exactly the same lines she was told to tell people if they started asking questions. She was told not to answer questions, just to say “It’s really hard to explain, why don’t you come to the next meeting with me.”
Positions like that run the gamut from bad to worse. Bad starts at situations where you are working straight commission but the company provides some level of lead generation. Worse is where they are also looking for you to generate your own leads and make an up-front investment. They want to see you in person because many people have a harder time saying no in person and so you can’t consult with friends and family (and the Dope) to get a reality check. Seeing you in person also implies a certain level of desperation/open mindedness on your part, and probably also helps them weed out the people who are unsuitable even for that kind of work.
Despite my apparent intelligence, I have been suckered into **3 ** of these group-interview-high-pitch-sales job interviews over the years. One was Cutco (I was only 18, didn’t know the ways of the world then), the next was some perfume MLM that I had to drive out to the sticks for their interview and the last was for American Express Financial Reps (they want you to work for them generating leads until you get your Series 7 Broker licence, at which point they might start paying you.) No real job where you can make a real living w/o harassing the populace will keep the potential job duties a secret. I’d call that a scam.
I had something similar. MONY advertised a job as entry level management. It turned out to be selling insurance and annuitys. To get your license was all out of pocket expense. MONY is a legit company and I’m sure people make a living that way but it is in no way entry level management. I guess they say that because you manage yourself. Not for me. At least it wasn’t a hard sell. They showed me a few videos and handed out some literature. A waste of a couple hours but thats all.
When I first moved to North Carolina, I was temping and my agency manager put her boyfriend in touch with me about an employment opportunity. I met with him once, and between his inability to describe the job in any detail at all, his inability to describe the product in any detail at all, and his use of the word “traffic” as a verb in the very vague description he did give me, told me I wanted nothing to do with him or his employment opportunity.
Lots of financial services companies do that. You’re basically an independent contractor exclusively selling their products. Until you’ve got enough of a client base and time in to start generating second-year commissions and residuals, you may as well starve to death. It’s a tough business.
That was my first thought. I wasted my time once going out to a guy’s house after he wouldn’t give me specifics over the phone about the “job”. If he hadn’t been living with his mother, I seriously might have blown his goddamned house up.
The last time I went to a presentation of a pyramid – I mean Multi-Level Marketing – scheme, it was because of the comely young nurse who invited me. If she hadn’t been involved, neither would I.
Once I figured out that even signing up with their scheme (long distance service, I think) wouldn’t help me close the deal I was interested in closing, I was gone.
As to the OP, I can think of few legitimate job opportunities that won’t give you any details in advance – usually HR wants to pre-qualify people so that they (HR) aren’t wasting time.
You’ll spend 3 hours a week staffing an event (and by “staffing” it could mean anything from greeting people and handing out trinkets, to closing a sale, to set-up/clean-up) and the rest of the week cold-calling prospects, trying to get them to buy whatever it is your group is trying to sell.
Remember, in employment ads “marketing” pretty much means “commission-only cold-call sales.”
The vacuum cleaner sales people who came to my house consisted of the guy who did the demo and the guy who was supposed to close the sale - who might well be considered a manager. It was truly an amusing couple of hours, as he went through every sales approach known to man. He started with a religous one -oops - and went to economics and finished with basically saying his children would starve if I didn’t buy the vacuum. The price went from about $1500 to $300 during this time also. I bet he was positive he was going to sell me a vacuum.
