Being unemployed, I went to Monster.com and found a listing for a talent scout postion with Trans Contintental Talent. The first step is to go to their website and fill out a preliminary form to see if you would be a good canidate for a "Talent Scout".
After completing this form online, which consists of several questions, and several sets of pictures which you must identify the best talent out of 3 pictures, I received an email, which was supposedly from an employee of TCT that would be holding the interview. The message seemed very professional and well written. It stated that she was sorry for the late response, however, she only had time on Thursday at 10:00 A.M. And the interview would last most of the morning and some of the afternoon. She then ellaborated that she would not be able to conduct interviews for several weeks. The email asked me to respond if I could attend. The first fishy thing I found about the email was that there was no phone number to contact, however, I overlooked this because the position sounded very appealing.
I responded to the email promptly stating that I could not make it till about 10:30 A.M. Due to a prior commitment. I recieved a reply stating that "The interview starts at 10:00am sharp. Please be advised." This kind of shocked me, however, I found a sitter for my little girl and made sure I showed up on time. And again, I was surprised that there was not a number to contact to discuss this further.
I arrived on time at the downtown Denver TCT Talent office for so-called 10:00 A.M.interview. Low and behold, there were 37 other people interviewing for the same postion at the same time. I felt really strange at this time, however, I decided to finish out the day to see what it was all about.
We watched a cheesy modeling infomercial which I assume that they show to propective models, broke off into groups of 5-7 people and created a mock talent agency which we had to create a name for as well as pick out the 3 best canidates for models from a packet of comp cards. We then were presented with information about the company, told what a great difference we would be making in peoples life, blah blah blah.
We watched a second video full of testimonials from models, industry professionals, and snippits about how great TCT's product was and how the current chairman, Lou Pearlman has brought to entertainer's like the BackStreet Boys, NSynch, and Britney Spears. At this point I was asking myself, what am I going to have to buy?
After we came back from a lunch break, we were given a piece of paper with the employee compensation package. Apparently, the first 30 days, I would have worked as an independent contractor. My duties would be to go out and scout people that I think have the look the industry is currently looking for. No direct sales, just going out in public, identifying people, giving them a business card and telling them to be at our office at a certain time to take advantage of this opportunity. Wow... What a dream job! Something is definitely wrong here.
The last thing we did was get called in by the office director for a short individual interview. When I entered his office, there were business cards on the desk that had a female's name with the title VP of New Faces. I was curious as to where his office was, being the office director who runs the show in Denver. Needless to say the interview lasted about 3 minutes total. He asked me if I was loyal. I said, "yes", I rambled for a couple minutes, then he cut me off and said, "I don't mean to cut you off, but, do you want the job?" I said, "yes." He then asked me when I can start. I said, "Monday." He replied with, "If you want the job, be here at 10:00 A.M. Tomorrow morning."
Well, I went home, did a ton of research on TCT Talent, Options Talent and E-Model. I decided not to return the next day because of the many scam complaints, and bad business practices this company has been accused of.
I decided to write this because today I received a follow up email from the woman who I was supposed to be interviewing me stating "I was disappointed that we were not able to
coordinate our schedules for the initial interview. I have checked my schedule and would like to invite you to come in for an interview early next week. Please let me know if you are available Thursday, November 21th at 10:00am. I apologize for the short notice but my schedule has been tight. I wanted
to offer you another opportunity to interview for the Talent Scout position. If all goes well, you should expect to be the office until mid-afternoon. Again, please reply directly to this email and include the interview date in the body of you letter. I hope we can arrange this meeting. I look forward to seeing you."
I found this quite entertaining. Considering this person wasn't there for the interview. And now she is trying to reschedule it with me, even though I had already been offered a position.
Guys/Girls, This company has some serious issues and I hope this gives anyone who is looking for a ligitimate job some insight on who this company is.
Best,
Steven
Denver, Colorado
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