The Raphael Group is a white-collar cult that advertises itself as a Career Management / Retail Outplacement Firm.in addition to charging ridiculously expensive fees, they practice "dog-shit metaphysics" on hapless jobseekers who are experiencing vulnerability, typically due to job loss. It's a classic "milk the insecure" scam.
Getting job search assistance from this group is like asking the Boston Strangler for a neck-massage! Their front-line salespeople are slick and engaging. If you don't look under the surface with these people, you'll make a very bad consumer choice because you might think that they really care about you.
Notice in your meeting with them, you'll get a lot of up-front questions and small talk about your family. The questions are designed to open you up and get you talk about very personal information, most of it not related to job search. Twenty-four hours after your first meeting however they'll ask you for the sale and your credit card information, which is where their primary interest lies.
Their secondary interest is to win another convert for their cult culture, which finds its roots in the teachings of Werner Erhard Est, more lately espoused by The Landmark Forum/a.K.A. Landmark Education. The Principals at the Raphael Group, Nancy Raphael and Mike Aquilino are both "Forum-Heads." I have been told that all of the salespeople there are required to attend training through Landmark in order to imbue their sales pitch with the highly manipulative personality "science" that Landmark teaches.
In short, they are "Con-Forumists, " amateur psychologists who combine meta-physics with jobs search in order to conduct EXTRAORDINARY adventures in Master Card and Visa!
Those who do not heed (or have awareness) of this warning will learn a very expensive lesson, as I did. The process that I submitted to required me to fill out a lot of psychology based assessment material (Myers-Briggs, etc.). I thought it was intended to help me find out what jobs I was most suited for, but it was really intended to reveal personality information that was later used to "deconstruct me, " break me down emotionally, and make me feel terrible about not having success in my job search.
By diverting the attention away from their failure to provided me with the help that I was contractually promised, they tried to convince me that the real reason that I was not finding a job was because I suffered from low self-esteem due to a bad relationship that I had as a child with my father!
Luckily, I recognized their duplicity and manipulation right away (but not soon enough to get my money back). Other people I am sure have not been so lucky. If you don't want to take my word, do a little research yourself. Go to the link http://www.100megsfree4.com/apostate., and read the stories of people who have gotten sucked into the Landmark cult. There's a lot listed, so if you need to take the short tour, be sure to read the articles: "Mindbreakers, " "Out of Control, " then scroll way down and read "The Con-Forumists, " and "Mind Game Courses." I devoured these articles one after another, because every one of them reflected accurate depictions of my experience with Raphael Group. The Forum and Raphael Group are one and the same. It was frightening.
But let's suppose you are really desperate. Maybe you have already met with them and fell in love with your salesperson, or maybe I have inspired your curiosity so much now that you want to meet with them even more than before. Here's the tip-off. If you listen very carefully to the way they talk to you in your first meeting with them, you'll hear a strange new vocabulary. That's the dead-giveaway that you're in the presence of a Landmark disciple, someone whose only intention is to thwart your job search so they can empty your pockets and your soul. Here are some examples of the Landmark lingo, so listen for the following words and phrases:
Mike, a slick Italian with beautiful cuff-links, is the guy who sold me.in our meeting, I was impressed with his attention toward me and because he was so intent taking copious notes&all for me. He said things like: "I REALLY GOT THAT ABOUT YOU, " or "I GET IT." That's because Landmark people are always striving to "GET IT." Translated from Landmark-speak, it means: I understand.
The salespeople there use other words that are indicators of the cult culture: EXTRAORDINARY, POSSIBILITIES, CONNECTED, TRANSFORMATION, BREAKTHROUGH, COMMITTED. They'll tell you that their coaching is designed to help you work on your thinking, or your FILES. They want to talk to you about WHO YOU ARE BEING. Then, after you open your heart and spill your guts, they'll thank you for SHARING.
If you let them go too far in their meeting with you, they'll go to work on the fringes on your emotional barriers. They do this to set up the sale, so if you resist paying their $10,000 fee, they'll tell you that your resistance is the result of your emotional issues or your "files" holding you back. That they are really COMMITTED to you having a BREAKTHROUGH as their client. It's all a bunch of pop-psychology mumbo jumbo. Some of it is really sick stuff, so stay the hell away from these people!
Looking for a job is hard enough work in the current economic climate. These people made it even harder for me. Some days, if you're sitting in front of the internet like I was, it's enough to make you go insane. I can promise you, if you get hooked into this bunch you're risking your mental health and your finances as well as your future. Take care. Be careful and good luck.
Michael
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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