I got a response to my resume posted on Monster.com and called the company. After confirming that this job offered a base salary and benefits I scheduled an interview with Advantage Promotions in Charlotte, NC. I live in Raleigh so this was a 3 hours drive each way.
The office building was quite impressive but it was one of those virtual offices where several companies share the same receptionist, conference room etc. After meeting the Regional Sales Manager I was told to call the National Sales Directer the next morning for a phone interview.
The National Sales Director quizzed me on the sample material and sales pitch I was given the day before and said he wanted to do a one day trial with me. I thought this was odd, but it was an outside sales job and they were offering me a $30,000 base with benefits plus commissions so I said what the heck!
My assignment for the day was to try and sell two ads for the 2008 NC STATE "official" football calendar. I was told this was just to let me test the waters and make sure I wanted to do this kind of job. They had given me last years NC STATE football callendar to use as a sales tool. I thought it was strange that I was going after new advertisers instead of trying to renew the ads from the previous year. I dropped in on one of last years advertisers and the buisness owner told me he never saw any of the calendars and wouldn't do it again. Again, kind of strange but I tried to assume the best.
Later that day I met a buisness owner and she told me that she had just purchased an Ad for the exact same calendar just a week earlier. She even said it was a representative from Advantage Promotions. Obviously this buisness owner was concerend; When I called in to Advantage they first told me they would take care of it and later told me that she must have been mistaken. Here is the best part; I was told previously that Advantage Promotions did not have a representative in my area for 7 months!
So I called in to the company after working 5 hours now and asked them for a written employment offer. They said I would have to work a full day and get 2 sales before they would give me a written job offer. At this point I felt that Advantage Promotions never had any intention of paying me a salary; they just wanted to get a couple of sales out of me without paying any compensation.
ADVERTISERS: please do your due dilligence before paying Advantage Promotions any monies. JOB SEEKERS: keep looking!
0 comments