I am a little reluctant to post this report because I'm embarassed that I fell for such an obvious scam, but I really want to stop this company from ripping off anyone else.
I responded to a listing I found on monster.com. The listing was for sales jobs at multiple Ford dealers in the southeast. It looked like an ad placed by the dealer (s) and did not mention a staffing service. I called the number listed in the ad and scheduled an interview. At no time during this call was I ever told that I would be interviewed by a staffing service.
The interview was at a hotel and there were about 40 people there for the interview. They selected 14 people from that interview. I noticed that I was the only female they selected. I now know that they conduct several of these interviews each week in different cities in the southeast. They told us that we would need to come for training and then we'd be sent to the dealership for which we'd be working. (These were not neccesarily Ford dealers. The dealership I was eventually sent to was not, in fact, a Ford dealership.)
The 2-day "training" was the following week at their headquarters in Graham, NC. I began to get a bad feeling about Dealerstaff as soon as the training began. We were charged $35 for our "text books" which were really nothing but cheap print-outs. This fee was to be paid in cash only. They told us that we were being charged for the text books, not for the training (yeah right).
The next thing I thought was strange was the fact that we were to sit in a different seat after each break, and could not sit next to the same person twice. We were discouraged from getting to know the other people in the class. Then, we were told that after our dealerships were assigned to us, we could not tell the other people in the class what dealerships we'd been assigned. The trainer, Rob Selfors (whose wife owns Dealerstaff), said the reason we could not share this information was because people would get angry if they found out someone was given a more lucrative offer and would want to change dealerships. At this point I was so sketched out that I would have left but a) I was so eager to get a job as I had been out of work for over a month, and b) I had driven a long way for this training and so I felt it was worth it to stick around and give it a chance.
The training was 6 hours a day for two days, but we only covered about 30 minutes worth of information relevant to selling cars. The rest of the time Mr. Selfors bragged about how much money he has made and the cars; pianos; houses; etc. That he buys, told crude and racist jokes, and talked about his life experiences. He also told us crazy stories about some of the things he'd supposedly done when selling cars, which seemed more like instructions for what not to do. The things he supposedly did would get a person fired, and he even told us he'd been fired from many dealerships. He spent a great deal of time talking about his religious faith.
On the second day of training we were to come in and meet with Mr. Selfors individually for 3 minutes to get our dealership assignments. When I went for my meeting Mr. Selfors offered me a job on the Dealerstaff recruitment team. At the interview the week before I noticed that everyone on the recruitment team was female, young, attractive, and blond. I, too, fit this description and wasthus creeped out a little when he offered me the job on the recruitment team. Now I wonder if they selected me for training just so they could get me to work on their recruitment team. Sorry, but I did not pay $35 for your car sales training so that I could get a lousy personnel job! He then told me my dealership, and I was happy with the dealership he assigned me. At the end of the day we were given "appointment slips" telling us the time of our interview the next day and the name of the person with whom we would interview. We were told that the people at the dealership were expecting us and not to annoy them by calling to confirm before the interview. I can't believe I didn't see through that one! Mr. Selfors also told us that we wouldn't have any trouble getting these jobs as the dealerships desperately needed staff and had been waiting for them for a long time over the holidays. He told us that the only way they wouldn't hire us was if there was something majorly wrong, like if we failed a drug test or something.
The next day I went to the dealership only to find that the general sales manager with whom I was to interview was not there and was in fact out of the country on vacation! I told them I had been sent by Dealerstaff. They acted like they didn't know Dealerstaff was sending someone that day. They gave me an application to fill out and told me to wait for one of the other managers to interview me. I saw that someone else from the class was already there, and another one came in a couple hours after me. I don't know how many people the dealsership hired, but no one at Dealerstaff told us that we'd be competing with each other for jobs.
I finally got to speak to someone about an hour and a half after the time I was told my interview would be on my apparently meaningless "appointment slip." I spoke to 3 different managers and was told that WOMEN ARE NOT USUALLY SUCCESSFUL IN THE AUTO SALES BUSINESS!!! One of the managers who interviewed me told me that he would like for me to come back and talk to a woman who, along with her husband, is a co-owner of the business, to talk to her about what the business is like for women. She would be back at the dealership in 3 hours. So I had to kill time for 3 hours in a town I'm not from before going back to the dealership. Even after talking to her I didn't get a definitive answer, which was disappointing since Dealerstaff had led us to believe we wouldn't have any problem getting jobs at our assigned dealerships and would probably start the very next day. After calling the dealership many times I was told business was slow so they wouldn't need any new staff right away and that I should call back in about a month. I called Dealerstaff to let them now this. They checked with the dealership and then told me that the dealership had in fact chosen another candidate. Dealerstaff then wanted to send me to another dealership.
Avoid this company like the plague! Do not give them your money! Don't even waste your time going to a Dealerstaff interview!
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