411 Locals- Closer Position

   Ah, phone rooms, you gotta love em! The smell of stale coffee and cheap cologne, the promise of a bazillion dollars (realistic 1st year potential!), and those self-consumed salesmen who will steal your lunch without thinking twice about it. They are a dime a dozen, and this week having seen the ad for 411 Locals on Craigslist again, I thought they deserved some attention. Here's what you can expect:
   Upon reading the advertisement for the "closer" position I was given the option to fill out an application online to save some time during the interview process. I was directed to a website with the standard employment questions and some "why should we hire you over any other candidate" questions. I was then shot a link to complete an online assessment which contained math and reading comprehension questions, the whole process took about 45 minutes.
    I called the job line after the assessment and  I was pleased to find out that my results came back at a 93%. 93% of what...I couldn't tell you. But I guess this was a good number as I was immediately invited down for the interview that same morning. Upon arriving I was greeted by the receptionist and asked to have a seat while the hiring manager, we'll call him Byron, was notified I was there. It was at least a half hour before he saw me and we proceeded to an empty office to conduct the interview.
   It turned out Byron had previously worked for one of the employers I had listed on my resume, thankfully in a different department so I was able to skate by on that one. After giving the usual rundown about who they were and where they came from it was time for the real interview. Byron says "We are a performance based company, just like the hiring process is performance based, so we're going to role play." (Yay! I love role plays! Can I be the salesman, and you be the customer?) He hands me a script and gives me the option of reviewing it before we get started. The Hound, being a master role-player (dungeons and dragons, nurse and patient, etc) decided to wing it. He asked that I spin around and face the wall, and after about 5 minutes of rebuttals and listening to his horrible fake country accent, I pulled his imaginary credit card and the interview was over. I was hired. Training to begin the following Monday.
   Bright eyed and bushy tailed I was met Monday morning by a training class of about 12 people including myself, and a portly female instructor who was so cheery she could pass for Mrs. Claus. The class was a joke. Three days of pointless games and product knowledge that turned out to be irrelevant on the sales floor. By the end of class, two of us (your Hound included) were heading to the official Closer position, and the others were off to do a "Press 1 Campaign".
   Oh! I forgot to tell you, that wonderful Craigslist Ad, that says $13.00 vs. Commission, yeah...turns out you really make $10.00 per hour until you write $500 in commissions within one week. No big deal considering that you get to set the amount yourself for what you want to sell the service for. You can sell it for $10 or you can sell it for $10,000 (that's the set up fee, after that it's a steady $99 per month). The only problem was that when I arrived to the floor, NO ONE THERE HAD MADE $500 IN COMMISSION FOR THE WEEK! These season sales veterans, these spin doctors who knew the in's and outs of the business couldn't even hit the $500 mark. (for real?) How could this be possible? One short word my friends, Craigslist. (Wait...maybe that's technically two words.)
   Craigslist is where the business leads are generated from. So trying to a sell a $200 activation to Shakquetta who does weaves out of her mother's basement, just isn't going to happen. Do you know how many people put a Craigslist Ad up for their "business" just because they don't have a job? The salesmen are letting this thing go for $50, $25, even $10, and they get half of that in commission. That was all this JobHound needed to see.
   All in all, I can't say the company is 100% bullsh*t. Fact is, they are a lot better off than a lot of other phone rooms here in Vegas and they have some good things going for them. They are a Google certified partner, have a grade A rating with the BBB, and over 20,000 active accounts. They just need to spend a little money on leads, and a little less time on pointless training.. I also have a hard time with working my tail off and making the owner a millionaire (remember, he gets $99 a month from the second month on), while I'm making myself a pennyaire, but if telemarketing is your gig give it shot, they're hiring. Every dog has his day, maybe today is yours.

  

 
 
  

Ameriprise Financial- Financial Advisor

     You ever think about getting into the stock market? Learning the tricks of the trade and making millions in the process? Managing someone else's assets and making sure they are financially ready for retirement, paying for their children's college, or buying that small home in the south of France? I did, and I thought Ameriprise Financial would be the gateway to such a future. Who doesn't like the idea of setting your own hours and unlimited income potential, right?
   The process of getting hired on with them was no easy task. First, there's the online application followed by a timed two-part personality/intelligence test full of those wonderful math word problems and vocabulary skills (do you know the definition of the word ignominious?). Now The Hound is a fairly intelligent creature, but this test had my brain hurting, and half way through calculating the distance between trains A and B (both of which left the station at the same time on Tuesday, on opposite sides of the hemisphere, in the rain), the test shuts down. I ran out of time, still having a few questions left unanswered. Imagine my surprise when the recruiter called me the next day.
   He was a nice enough fellow, did a thorough job of explaining what the position meant and who they were looking for to fill it. Our conversation turned to a few questions about job history, strengths and weaknesses, and motivation for wanting to join the firm, and after 30ish minutes I was scheduled for an interview with one of the sales managers the next day.
   Dressed for success, I arrived early to a beautiful building where security showed me to a waiting area as they let the manager know I was there. There was a television on the wall that was playing the never ending commercial for the company and before I could get settled into the couch the sales manager arrived and we proceeded into a small meeting room.
   The manager was not at all what I had expected. Walking into a firm that has been around for over a hundred years and manages a zillion dollars in assets I was expecting to meet an older gentleman, a Tommy Lee Jones maybe, and instead I shook hands with a kid who looked like he was fresh out of high school. He reviewed my resume and there were a couple of "tell me about a time when..." questions (Interview 101 stuff, really), and after he explained the sales aspect of the job and how leads are generated.
   This is where he asked me to do a simple role play with him. He would play the previous Ameriprise client, and I would play his new advisor, and I am simply calling to set an appointment for a good time to call him back and discuss his finances. Easy enough, right? So about 5 seconds in, he hits me with the "I'm all set" objection, (the same as no thanks, I'm not interested, or go **** yourself at other sales rooms). I take the path of least resistance, thank him for his time and release the phony phone call. This was incorrect! We try again after a little coaching from my pimple popping future boss, this time including the key phrase "I'm glad you're happy with your current situation. What do you like most about it?" Bingo! After a little digging, the fake appointment was set, and that was the end of the interview.
   Leaving I was a little unsure of my performance in there. The kid had a blank look on his face the entire time, couldn't even get him to crack a smile, and there was no definite decision made as to whether or not I was hired.
   I got the call back from the recruiter the next day who extended me the job offer and I was to begin training 2 weeks later. This is where the real work took place. First, the U-4 requires 10 years of employment history. Ha! There was an employment verification agency checking on all of these too, so you know your Hound had to pull some tricks to get past this part. Then I was still not technically hired for the next 10 weeks until I passed the Series 7, Series 66, and State Life/Health license exams.
   The Hound finished at the top of his class, and out of the 20+ people that were hired only 4 of us made it to the sales floor. My job was done and I moved on shortly after. The idea of a 60+ hour work week spent on the phone wasn't my idea of paradise, but for the up and coming financial advisor it might be.
   Get ready for a lot of self study, a lot of continuing education classes on products and selling, and a whole lot of time on the phone. The closing process to make a deal there is scheduled to take anywhere from 10-28 days, with about 4 separate conversations with a client before a transaction takes place. The average tenure of an advisor there was less than a year, partly because this was a new facility they had just opened up, and partly because the culture is that of the young up and comer, with only a handful of people there above 30 years old. I still see the ad all the time, and I hope this has given you some insight about the hiring process. I wish you luck my friend. Every dog has his day, maybe today is yours.

ITT Tech Education Recruiter Interview

   So it's a regular Friday afternoon, finishing up the call backs from the applications I had submitted throughout the week, when the phone rings and it's ITT Tech, asking if I can come in for an interview. I look at the clock, going on 2:30 in the afternoon, and deciding I would like to get a head start on my weekend, I tell them I'm tied up for the rest of the day, but would love to schedule something for Monday. The woman on the phone immediately responded by asking if I was available this evening for an interview, and sets me up for a 7:30pm interview before releasing the call fairly abruptly. Did I just get the urgency rebuttal and close? Peaking my interest I decided to attend the interview. I chose unwisely...
   7:15 I stroll through the door, dressed to the nines: suit pants, tie, jacket, the appropriate amount of cologne considering I am to be interviewed by the same woman that called. We'll call her Ann, and she met me only after about a five minute wait, which I utilized making the usual small talk with the receptionist. Ann walks me back to a small room not big enough to stretch your legs out in. I sat at one end of the small desk that divided the room into two equal parts and as she went to grab me a bottled water, I took in everything the "office" had to offer. It was decorated with a couple of advertising pieces of success stories about the students at ITT, and how they are living the life of their dreams now after graduation and a similar poster on the adjacent wall describing the course of study at the institution. There was a computer monitor that took up about a third of desk, powered down, and harsh florescent beamed down upon me for the few moments it took for her to return. The ambiance felt like more of an interrogation room than a place of conducting business, and the atmosphere was just a prelude of things to come.
   After her return, I slid Ann a copy of my resume (which they already had, hence the reason they called me) and she pulled out a neatly stapled, three page cookie-cutter interview sheet, the likes of which I have become very familiar with. What I was not expecting was that this sheet was merely a prop to set the stage and make me feel comfortable. No question she asked was from this page, rather, she spent the next 10 minutes grilling me on my experience, qualifications, and tenure at the positions listed in my resume. She was like a dog on a school boy's homework and proceeded to rip apart my specially crafted resume, exploiting any holes in employment, and more concerned about how I left a company than the work I accomplished there. Repetitive questions designed to trip me up and catch me in a lie (which she might very well have done, had I not been your beloved Job Hound), all boil down to her revealing that this is just the preliminary process, and before I knew it she was now on her way to "see if the Director was available" and continue with round two.
   I can hear her and the Director speaking in another sardine can across the hall, the door to my can was closed so all I could make out was the sound of voices and not actual conversation but I knew they were talking about The Hound. After about 5 minutes Ann returns with the Director, we'll call him Kent, a late forties/early fifties shorter man whose hair line had receded back to about the top of his skull, and whose father obviously never taught him how to tie a tie. What the man lacked in physical appeal he made up for in brain power, and I soon learned that was the name of the game when dealing with this fellow. He fired off about three or four questions in regard to my resume at about a mile a minute, and I quickly went from feeling like an interrogation victim to an assassination victim. This guy was sharp, and the fact that I had the two of them crammed in on one side of the desk and me on the other didn't help either. It was like an episode of good cop/bad cop, and Shiny McBaldspot was trying to get me to sweat. The Hound is used to these type of interrogation tactics when it comes to job interviews though, and like a Judo master used their own force against them.
   When asked why they should take a chance on me, I told them they shouldn't, that there were plenty of people obviously more qualified for the position than I. This caused them to take a step back, and I could almost see Kent removing his finger from the red button that would have opened up the secret hatch beneath my chair and dropped me into their hidden shark tank. I asked why they were hiring in the first place (obviously having THE most superior education institution known to man), that surely talent should be begging to come in to work for them. This caught them off guard, they weren't used to people calling their bluff, and they lightened up a bit after that.
   By that time though, I had lost interest. I didn't even bother to ask follow up questions after they had finished. I knew what they were about, and hopefully you should too now.
   I don't like the idea of companies or corporations who start thinking that their sh*t doesn't stink, that they're better than me, better than you, and better than anyone else who they should decide to invite in. They called me, remember? I've been down that road before my friends and it leads to a whole lot of stress and insecurity when it comes to your job. Those are the "what have you done for me lately" kind of gigs. I knew they were a bit shady going in after reading this, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/08/for-profit-college-recruiters-documents_n_820337.html, but I had to see for myself. The salary is good, benefits are good, and if you feel like this is your niche, have at it Haus. Every dog has his day, maybe today is yours.