When reading Monster or Careerbuilder, be wary when you see:
"Account manager"
"Marketing for Fortune 500 company"
"Make $600/week - entry level"
most listings at the very top of Monster and Careerbuilder when you look for Marketing/Advertising
Also:
When you are immediately called back for an interview, sometimes same day.
When you are told to come in on a second interview, which consists of driving around with a salesman seeing what they do.
When you are given the lunchtime speech about the breakdown of the business.
When you ask about benefits and gets brushed off.
When you decided to work there and see how many people come to interview for the job that you were the one out of ten to get.
The above are standard operating procedures for Cydcor, THE deceptive parent company to numerous unethical "marketing" companies around the country. I know for a fact that one of these companies is called Miami Marketing Works, run by one Sara Beth King. The premise of this company is simple: the more sales you get, the more money SBK makes.
I worked with her in Baltimore, then moved to Miami, then to New Jersey. I quit after NJ because I couldn't afford to travel on my own dime any longer. The company is 100% commission didn't pay for any of the travel, which you do a lot of, and this includes gas. You have to get to the office early, around 7:30am, you pound the pavement everyday in work clothes for about 8 hours going DOOR to DOOR, BUSINESS to BUSINESS cold calling, then you come back to the office for another hour and a half.
You have NO life! But the light at the end of the tunnel is that you "own" your own business, which is just a sales office in some crappy office building that teaches recent college grads with way too much pride how to "5 step" aka cheat someone into switching their phone service, office supplies, etc. I was taught that even though you aren't saving them any money, you can lie to them and tell them they will save money. And these aren't corporate businesses. These are mom and pop shops, run by hard working people. Real entreprenuers.
I know through my experience with SBK and Cydcor that this business wasn't right for me. Not because sales were down or because I was having trouble paying for gas in my car because we were actually on salary when I quit. I couldn't handle knowing that I was lying to people (the store owners and kids interviewing) about the product and company respectively. My personal ethics kicked in, and I realized what was going on.
About a week or so after I quit, I realized that I was sold on this, just like we were selling our services to the business owners. I was so blinded by the OPPORTUNITY, that I didn't realize that I was potentially ruining someone's business by lying to them about the money they'll save going to AT&T or whatever. The worst thing I can say is that I worked on salary for a few weeks and didn't get paid for the final week. So SBK pocketed my last week's salary. However at that point, I would have paid to leave.
My purpose here is not to bad mouth anyone. I just want people to know what they are getting themselves into. I actually use some of the less shady sales methods in my job today and they work very well. But don't trust any company that is associated with Cydcor. We were told not to mention that name during interviews because everyone knows it as a corrupt organization and it slipped during at least one interview I had, and the girl looked it up on this web site and didn't come back. Lucky her.
So I suggest that if any of you see Miami Marketing Works, SASS International, YASNY, DeFrancesco Acquisitions, or Cydcor on this site, READ about them. Some people have horror stories, however the 2% that make a career out of it, enjoy it. I just didn't feel rewarded after working such long days. And living out of a suitcase in Random City, NJ working for this guy DeFrancesco who made Ben Affleck's character in Boiler Room seem pious. But this is just a heads up.
I actually had a very good relationship with many of the people I worked with there, including SBK. Some of them are still in the business, but 98% aren't. I just felt the need to share my experiences with others who may find themselves on the same path.
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