Can you even really call this a job interview?

Tazlima

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I went to a job interview today, and by "interview," I mean I was shuffled into a room with approximately a dozen other people to listen to a 90-minute talk where the presenter first spent ten minutes telling us her life story, and how she was so happy with the company, and how she had risen to regional manager in just 3 years. The next 50 minutes were spent telling us how wonderful and amazing their life insurance products were, and how they practically sold themselves, and how those lucky people selected now would be looking at advancement opportunities by December.

They very carefully avoided talking about, yanno, the stuff people WANT to know about a job, like oh, I dunno, what the actual work entails, what they're looking for in a candidate, hours, pay, etc.

I got trapped in a similar situation years and years ago. That one was a straight-up MLM scam. This one seemed more legit than that - with actual money to be made, but they could have at least clarified in the job listing that it was a sales position (they didn't mention anything of the sort). I already know I'd be a terrible salesperson: "You wanna buy this stuff? No? OK. I'll leave you alone then." If they'd mentioned it was sales, I could have saved their time as well as mine.

I don't know what happened after the first hour, because I left. I was actually ready to walk out in the first five minutes, but they didn't pause the presentation to take questions, or have a bathroom break, or anything resembling a logical place to excuse myself. It was REALLY hard to finally just stand up and leave the room in the middle of the presenter's sentence.

The funny part, though, was that AW publishing advice kept floating through my mind. "They're trying to sell the company to the applicants," I thought. "That's totally backwards. If it were really that good a workplace, they'd be making the applicants work to sell themselves to the company." I never really considered how much overlap there is between shady publishing practices and shady job recruiting practices.

Just thought it was interesting.
 
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Maryn

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I'm pleased to say that the older I get, the more willing I am to get up and leave without waiting for any break in the pitch. I find that once I do it, often others follow within a short time.

Don't worry if you can't yet do it. Your time will come!

I'm amused and pleased you thought of AW's publishing tips during this sham.

Maryn, proud of you
 

Myrealana

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The last time I was job-searching, I had a couple "interviews" like that.

I left the second one when I realized how many people they'd called in. After that, I became much more discerning in accepting interviews in the first place. If they wouldn't be open about what the job entails in our initial phone call, they weren't worth my time.

You're right, it's a lot like publishing. The more time a service spends telling me how wonderful they are instead of ensuring my book is the right "fit" for their market, the more likely it is to be a scam of some kind.

Good publishers, agents or other services have to be discerning in what they accept. Cattle calls that accept anything aren't there to benefit the writer, just like insurance companies that interview 25 people a day and bring on 5 new agents a week are not there to actually help employees succeed.
 

Tazlima

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I'm pleased to say that the older I get, the more willing I am to get up and leave without waiting for any break in the pitch. I find that once I do it, often others follow within a short time.

Don't worry if you can't yet do it. Your time will come!

Lol, I did do it eventually! It just took me a while to work up the nerve. (Which is silly. Walking out of a room shouldn't be so hard. Darn social conditioning... grumble, grumble).
 
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Chris P

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I had exactly the same experience about 25 years ago. The ad in the paper was calling for water analysts, and read like a call for bench technicians at an environmental lab. I show up at the offices of an outfit selling in-home water purification equipment. I saw one guy walking around talking to everyone, looking like he worked there while about 20 other people showed up in interview clothes. They finally herd us all into the presentation room, including the guy I saw talking to all the staff earlier. As the main guy launched into his spiel on how great the equipment was, the other guy would interrupt, exclaiming "Wait wait. You mean this will actually get LEAD out of my water? AMAZING!" We were played a recording of Paul Harvey advertising the product, and (the early Clinton years were not as enlightened as I would like) the presenter brought a Good Housekeeping magazine to the only woman in the room saying "You might have seen this, miss" and showed her their full-page ad. The only water analysis was putting one drop of surgical soap into a flask of purified water and watching the foam, and 10 or 20 drops into city tap water and looking at the dirty scum. He then went on to regale us with how much money their star sales rep (Steve Wallace or whoever) makes a year selling a unit EVERY SINGLE DAY!! "Now, you probably can't be a Steve Wallace, but you can do pretty well." Oh, and another dead note even for the time, was they told us we could not close a sale to a woman customer unless her husband was there. "We have to cancel too many sales when the Mr comes home and finds out what she committed to." I too walked out, telling not to bother holding on to my resume or calling. At all. Ever.

Lol. I don't think I've ever had a normal job interview, but that one just about tops it.
 

Tazlima

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We were played a recording of Paul Harvey advertising the product, and (the early Clinton years were not as enlightened as I would like) the presenter brought a Good Housekeeping magazine to the only woman in the room saying "You might have seen this, miss" and showed her their full-page ad.

LMAO! The place I went today was like, "our products are so good that we don't advertise - it's all sold by word of mouth! Oh, except for this Nascar driver we pay to wear our logo.

They had a life-size cardboard cutout of the guy. Fancy!

Oh, and the position they advertised was called a "Benefits Coordinator," which I thought was perhaps something in HR, or possibly working a support line for people calling in to their insurance with questions about their existing coverage.

Now we know: Benefits Coordinator = Cold-calling insurance salesman
 
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Snitchcat

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Hehehe. I remember these types of job interviews. I walked into one years ago and walked out ten minutes later. Was interrupted and asked why I was walking out and my reply was along the lines of "Not my type of job; don't need to try it to know."

Got to another one and found a mass of people milling around the lectern-like reception. Asked one of these people if they worked there; said person declared they were an interviewee. Asked the "receptionist" what the interview process was for all these people: "Panel / group interview." Okay, so something I needed practice in, thus stayed for it.

About twenty minutes into the "group interview" the main interviewer said to me, "I know you don't know the language here, so there's no need to answer the following question; not sure you could answer it anyway. Oh, and there's no need to make up any stories; we'll get to examples later". Insulted and angry? Oh yes, but not the time to show it. So, in the "language here", my response: "Thank you for pointing out what I do and don't know. Your business model is shady, answers no questions that I have, and asks me to pay you to hire me. Thanks for your time; I'm taking mine back."

They said I was rude and scolded me there and then. I said, "Thank you for showing me exactly what I needed to know." (Aka: what a bunch of dicks.) "I'm glad to know I shan't be working for such a scammy outfit. Thank you for your time; good-bye."

Yeah, not professional of me. OTOH, I got the experience I wanted. :)

There was one that was even more amusing: Tried to get me to purchase their products to sell and told me that I'd be working for the company, but I'd be self-employed. Too many contradictions. The sales person who tried to convince me failed, so she got her boss to try. Her boss said he was a great sales person and it all came from the training he had in that company. You can see where this is leading. He failed to convince me. My "flimsy excuse" to leave: I have to go home and cook now.

Plenty of places do "interviews" like that, though. It's their one of their main income methods: fleece the "employees".
 

crystalbrincks

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Since last year I actually started to enjoy such interviews. The atmosphere reminds me of the Office series and imagine I'm a characted from it, like Jim or Darryl and behave the way they would. Because it's impossible to take such interwies seriously, so let them at least entertain you. The only legit interview I had was at https://writingpeak.co.uk/write-my-paper-help service in UK and I still work with them
 
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Tazlima

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Heh, the job-hunt saga continues.

Had what felt like a really, really good interview today... except for when I mentioned the MS Office suite program that "you use to make Powerpoint presentations" - and after uttering those words, blanked on the actual name of the program.

:gone:

I only hope they found the lapse charming and amusing, rather than idiotic. Doggone interview nerves.
 
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