I have a job working in a field that is especially rewarding and gives me a lot of opportunities to make a difference every single day. I have excellent benefits, nearly too much vacation, and a great deal of project flexibility.
There was just one fly in the ointment—I was making less after 3 years than some of my friends were making in their first year out of college. Granted, that is the price of working for the government, but with my life in flux (I am getting married in the Fall and have some debts from when I made half of what I make now and couldn't afford to live), it was time for me to start making some real money. I knew that I would make a good salesman, and wanted the proverbial "thrill of the kill" at my work.
I decided to go to www.careerbuilder.com to check out what was available in the area. The first place I looked at was enticing..."Potential management opportunity/sales and marketing" et cetera. I sent them my resume, and within 3 hours, I received a call-back from them. This should have been a red flag, but as I had not done my research yet, I had no reason to think anything other than my resume was really good (don't I sound confident?). Boy was I mistaken.
I typed "Cor Concepts" into Google, and lo and behold, the first two hits on the page were usacomplaints.com complaints... BEFORE THE CORCONCEPTS WEBPAGE! I don't know what kind of "marketing" agency would allow this, so I knew something was fishy. I then called Cor Concepts, and this time, the person who picked up was the "president." (I say "president" because if there are only 3 perennial employees, what are you the president of?) I told her about these webpage hits. She immediately got very defensive, and said that she needed specific examples because she didn't know what I was talking about. I said "go to google, type in your comany name."
I never made it to the interview to even see what it was about, but it became obvious that after a little digging, I would have wasted a lot of my time and money. These places offer you no base pay. They offer you no health benefits. They don't pay for the faintly ludicrous travel expenses (because you have to get yourself to all of the sales venues, which are frequently nothing more than door-to-door deals where the commission may be $10... If you make the sale). And the reality is that most of the time you are selling junk that people really don't need.
I tend to be a person who says that the market takes care of itself.By educating themselves and using a little street-smarts, people can avoid being taken advantage of. But this is definitely a predatory business, and if you are a sucker, they will snare you. They have an annual attrition rate of over 90%. Deduce what you will, but any place that turns over that many employees is not a good business. Just listen for phrases in interviews to smell out whether or not these people are legitimate. If they won't talk about salary, if they won't talk about what it is that you will specifically be doing, or if they tell you to "wear comfortable shoes" on your second interview, beware. These places are a scam, and only make money because they don't pay you anything and you essentially shoulder all of their costs of doing business except for the office itself.
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