I went in to Polaris earlier today for an interview after being called randomly the day before. I thought to myself I send out so many resumes, maybe I don't remember sending one to them, wrong I never did send them my resume. Anyway the person on the phone had told me I had been pre-selected for a preliminary interview. So I scheduled a time to come in and interview since I am looking for a job after being laid-off from Dow Jones at the end of 2008.
As soon as I walked in I was suspicious, from the moment I didnt have to sign in I was thinking to myself that's odd? All companies usually have you sign in, in the lobby. I was allowed to go right up. I walked into suite 203 and was like this is it? There were 4 closed rooms and a long and narrow hallway with about 12 people sitting waiting to be interviewed. To make it even worse the secretary/HR person is calling people like crazy to give them the same speel she gave me to get me to come in. The people seemed to be coming out of the interviews within 10 minutes. I thought to myself these are the fastest interviews of all time?
I filled out some generic form with my info, and then as others have pointed out if you do a google search, was told to check off a list of verbs that describes me the most/least. 15 minutes later I was called into one of the rooms to be interviewed with an attractive woman named Illana. She told me she would be taking intense notes as I described myself so dont mind her. She asked me several questions, made sure I understood they were looking for future "managers" to handle a client Quill, better known as Staples.
She then told me if I was chosen for a 2nd interview I would be notified by 2pm, if not then good luck on my job search. I left there thinking ehh place was kind of a dump, doubt they're going to call me back since it seems like they are seeing over 50 people today alone.
Sure enough just after 2pm I got a call from Frasier telling me I had been chosen for a 2nd interview, and if they could "steal" me for the following day? I agreed and he told me he'd see me tomorrow from 930-6pm. I thought to myself that's also kind of odd but maybe they want to get to know me very well before they hire me? I was actually all set to go until about 10pm tonight when I visited their website for the 2nd time and noticed how very vague it was? I then thought let's do a google search just to be sure I am just being paranoid?
Sure enough I turned up atleast 8-10 postings of people describing the exact scenario I went through and even worse telling me what would be next. Exactly what the 2nd and 3rd interviews consisted of. It seems like this is to good to be true and tomorrow they were going to have me go door to door to businesses to sell supposed Staples products? On top of that they werent going to pay me for lunch, transportation and I even read most times you dont get paid even if you make a sale. It's a full commission job and I knew I sniffed something from the weird website, bio's that look like they were written by a blogger, and worse yet that small, depressing, shadi office.
Do yourself a favor if you're lucky enough to suspect it might be a scam. It is, avoid interviewing there. Save yourself some time that could be used searching for a real job. These places prey on vulnerable desperate people like us that are looking for a good job in an awful economy and might have had some bad luck. Hope you find one of the numerous postings I found before you ever go back for the 2nd interview. I dont understand why places like this can stay in business...
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