I'd been looking for a job in Michigans' dead economy for a few weeks when I recieved the following email:
Dear xxx xxxxx,
Thank you for your interest in a position with Universal Marketing Group. My name is Lindsay xxxx, and I am the HumanResources Manager at Universal Marketing Group. I've received your resume, reviewed your qualifications, past experiencesand skill, as well as compared your resume to others received.
After evaluating these things against our criteria, I would like toinvite you to come in for a personal interview with one of our managers. Congratulations on being selected, as there were many resumes that were submitted and reviewed. With new locations, newclients, and current campaigns that include some of the area's professional and amateur sports teams, as well as a few of theregion's premier restaurants and golf courses on the horizon, it is important that we set up your initial interview as soon as possible, as we are promptly looking to fill our openings.
Please call me to schedule an initial one-on-one interview during our office hours, which are Monday-Friday 8am-5pm. Below you will find our directions to our office in Auburn Hills. Thanks again and I look forward to speaking with you soon!
Sincerely, xxxx xxxxx
Human Resources ManagerUniversal Marketing Group, Inc.
I drive out to this interview thinking I'm interviewing for a legit business but I couldn't have been more wrong. After sitting through an interview I'm told that it isn't a sales position, it's a position "Servicing exsisting clients who include ApppleBees & The Houston Rockets" and several other big names. The man interviewing me also shares with me that this company is huge and are nearly ready to go public so this is just the time to be joining them. He then tells me that he thinks he has another position I might be great for taking pictures and writing stories for a golf magazine that Universal produces.
This position, he tells me, would be even more lucrative then the one I was already interviewing for. The position I applied for, which was listed at Monster with a salary of $32,000-$38,000 sounded great but this could be even better. He told me to come back the next week and to, "Make sure you're dressed like you are today (I was wearing a custom tailored suit I'd paid $600 for and a pair of $300 shoes). You'll be going out with one of our top guys to see some clients, so make sure you bring a notepad you're gonna want to take notes. Be here at 11:00am and we'll have another face to face when you get back in at 8:00pm."
So the next week I come back, in another fine suit, and I make sure to put a fresh legal pad in my briefcase for those notes. After sitting in the lobby for twenty minutes or so I'm greeted by the man who interviewed me the previous week. He introduces me to this guy who's gonna show me a day in the life, but not until I've filled out a waiver saying that I understand no job has been offered to me yet and that I will not be compensated for the day. That this is just an observation day for both the company and myself to evaluate one another.
This guy who's taking me out says we are going to Ann Arbor, "To the Big House" he said, so I'm thinking sweet we are going to go do something for The University of Michigan's Football team. He and I, and three other client relations people get in a grand am and hit the road.
Ten minutes into the drive I realize we aren't heading towards Ann Arbor, we're heading to Detroit. Turns out another client relations rep. Who lives in the city is coming too and he needs a ride. Thats when I first thought to myself, this is wrong... Something just dosen't seem quite right.
After this guy gets in the car we now have six adults in suits piled ontop of one another in a five seat car that really only comfortably seats four. We make the hour drive to Ann Arbor where this guy who's showing me the ropes and myself are let out onto a street corner in a neighborhood miles away from the stadium. I go to grab my briefcase and he says, "No don't take that, you don't need that today." As I watch the car with my briefcase inside take off into the distance this master salesman opens up his briefcase and takes out a GD Coupon Book!
It's like 2:30 in the afternoon by now, I'm hours from home, even further from my car, my briefcase has driven off to god knows where and now I'm being told for the first time that the job is door to door coupon book sales, that there is no salary of $32,000 to $38,000, they pay you $10 for every $30 book you sell, and that I'm stuck out here till' at least 7:30.
I spend the next five exruciating hours freezing, for I had no coat, getting rained on in my nice suit, and walking umteen miles in dress shoes! And as if that wasn't bad enough this guy I'm with is completely insane. He wouldn't stop telling racist jokes even though I told him he was sick and I didn't approve of such discussion. He insists on knocking on doors with No Soliciting signs because, "I'm not Soliciting I'm offering a service to the community."
Even though this behavior leads to multiple confrontations with residents of this unfortunate neighborhood throughout the course of the day. He tries to pick up on the stay at home wives. Truly one of the worst people I've ever had the displeasure of meeting. They pawn the whole thing off as "Contributing to a charity in your local community" because a tiny stipens of the proceeds goes to the national wheelchair basketball association. He also tells me he's from out of town and has been living with four other co-workers in a motel room for the past few months, but that soon he'll be going to Seattle and then to Phoenix to open up new offices in "untapped markets."
He tells me they don't tell you what the job is before hand because too many people wouldn't even give it a shot if they did.
After this nightmare of a day which is really nothing more than repeatedly kicking me while I'm down, I literally had to take back empty cans to get money to drive my out of work self out to their office that morning. I'd been out of work for nearly three weeks and money was very tight.
After this abhored day, we stand on that same street corner where I'd watched my briefcase race off some six hours earlier, now its dark outside... And it's raining. After 45 minutes in the rain, in the dark, doing nothing but waiting for this ride to return we finally get picked up, at 8:55pm. Master salesman had sold a whoping three books over the course of some 100 plus houses we'd gone to. Thats right, $30 was all this guy made for this ordeal, but hey it beats the $0 I made.
All six of us pile back in and the driver takes well over an hour to make the 45 min. Drive because she has no idea where she is going. I got back to my car in their still bustling with underlings parking lot at about 10:30pm making it a 12 hour day, and told them all to go to hell when they told me to come inside for my face to face. These people are clearly sick. It is as if they've amassed an army of foolish people who mean well, but are incapable of seeing the scam that is their job. All of the individuals I talked to firmly believed this would make them millions of dollars one day. The whole thing is sick. They clearly misrepresented themselves in the job posting, they held my briefcase ransome for gods' sake.
I'm happy to report I am now gainfully employed with a REAL company so my story ends happily. But they shouldn't be able to do this. Call your local media and report this scam, they love that sort of thing; I have. Nothing makes me angrier than seeing people have been telling this story for months on here. My nightmare could have been avoided. Stop these criminals now!
Casanova, metro detroit
White Lake, Michigan
U.S.A.
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