I recently left a large financial planning firm where I was in a support/operations role, not a sales role. I received a voicemail on my cell from guy named Sona. The voicemail went something like this:
"Hi, this is Sona from the executive offices in Woodland Hills. My colleague passed along your resume that he found on Careerbuilder to me and there's something there that really stands out. Please call me back so we can meet."
I was skeptical mainly because most of the jobs that have been offered to me from Careerbuilder have been financial services sales jobs. I don't think there is anything wrong with these jobs, they are for a specific type of person. I do not believe you are not a go-getter just because you do not want to do sales... I digress. Second thing that made me skeptical was that he never said what company he worked for. He called again and left the exact same message. I ignored them both.
Yesterday I received a call from him on my home phone. This is the telltale sign of a financial services sales job, no normal salaried position will try to contact you this many times. So he tells me again he's impressed and wants to bring me in. I tell him that I didn't respond to his voicemail because he never told me what company he was hiring for in his messages. He says "Aegon USA, you've heard of them right". I have heard of them and have worked with some of their support staff in my previous position.
He says come in tomorrow at 12:45, don't bring your resume, when we bring you in for the second interview, bring your resume. Tomorrow we will go over the "Company Profile." I tell him I have no interest in a sales position, or any position where client prospecting is involved. He says don't worry about that we have our own system, it'll be explained in the company profile. Next telltale sign of a cattle call financial services sales recruiting session is the set interview time. When you have a real interview with one person, they usually ask, "when is a good time to meet", etc
Is this a scam, it depends. There's nothing wrong with financial services sales, it's like any sales job. You're trying to sell a product to a client, you get money, they get the policy. Is the way they going about finding agents a scam? Absolutely, don't waste my time, I am not looking for a sales job, not everyone can be a hustler working 24-7 to get referrals from friends of friends. I was really struggling with whether I should go there this morning since I knew of Aegon, I am very thankful to usacomplaints.com and everyone's stories so I wouldn't waste my time.
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