I am not sure if they found me or I found them, but ultimately we communicated via email and set up an interview. The interviewer was very professional and asked good insightful questions, but nothing crazy hard - just what you'd expect. And he then invited me, during the interview, to come to the web based training. I guess they are trying to fill a training class, so I was a decent 'add'. They sent me some materials and access to an online portal to do the paperwork. All very good, no problems. They also were clear that I would not be an 'employee' until I finished training...so it sounds like training is actually part of the interview. Ok, no problem. But then things started to get weird.
The company seems to have a bunch of different names, not all of which have a great reputation online. So I found a few people on LinkedIn that show they have that job title, and I messaged them. 2 responded. Both, essentially, said, 'run as fast as you can'. But I also know that straight commission sales isn't for everybody, so I decided to go the next step and do the training/next part of the interview. I also found it odd that for a company that is as large as they say, they don't have a very good web presence. Very home grown website and no social media presence I could find at all. It's like the pieces just don't add up right with these guys. They say they're a big company, but the collateral just doesn't look like that's right.
The training was odd. It is web-based and real time, so you need to be there and watching as it occurs, but they do not let you interact other than to write 'chat ' questions that the trainer answers as questions come in. That kind of makes sense if there are lots of people being trained, except it turns out that there were just a few of us on the training - like 4-5 people I think, and it was odd that they seemed to want to keep us well separated from one another. I could only know how many others were on the call from when the HR person asked each of us to validate something she was presenting. The primary trainer himself was really good, I thought, and kept things moving well and covered good material. But when the 'group' can't interact or feed questions off one another, the presenter really has no idea where we're following him or when we're lost. I tried at one point to ask a clarification on commissions, (via chat message) but was told to deal with it after the session. That was the only question I asked in the full day session, and even then they didn't want to deal with it as a group. As promised ,the presenter called me after the session to help me understand the commission. He seemed angry and put off by having to deal with me after the session - maybe he was just tired. But I asked then why the group couldn't talk to each other, and he gave me just a bizarre answer. He said they had had "problems with that. Someone went to someone's house once, and it wasn't ok." What the heck does that even mean? I am lost, but clearly he doesn't want to talk about it anymore so we just moved on.
There for me was no one awful thing in the interview. Both the interview and the training/interviewer seemed knowledgeable. As for the job, they are paying me to be the second sort of 'appointment setter' in the process of selling consulting, and I am expected to call in to a more senior person to help me close sales. I don't like that I can't control the sale, but that's my personal preference and not a reflection on the company. But the real issue for me is that the company story just didn't gel to me. I don't get the multiple names, 'under the radar' secrecy approach...complete lack of social media presence...it just doesn't smell right, so I told them via email I would not be returning...so I guess I failed the interview...and that was ok with me. Maybe they're ok for someone else - I really am not sure, but it just felt 'off'...and not in a very good way. I'd rather work with people who are upfront and honest, and I just didn't get that feeling with these guys.
