But What Do We Sell?

So I'm looking for a job here in the middle. I had been considering a career change before we left Portland and I figured a move to the middle would be a good opportunity to make a clean break and start something new.

The first thing I did was to post my resume on the major internet job sites. Just throw it against the wall and see what sticks, you know. As I soon find out, you get some interesting responses when do this. Most of them having little resemblance to a respectable job.

I get a lot of emails from emails like recruiting15281@fakecompany.com asking me to send them personal info. That's encouraging and makes me feel better.

I also get a lot of emails for jobs I have qualifications for, like IT Director of Microsoft. I assumed they read my email before sending out potential jobs, but that may be a bad assumption.

So I got a call from one company: they told me they do the marketing and sales for a large (I mean, LARGE) financial services company. They asked me to attend informational session. Not having much to do, I went.

The info session wasn't great, nor was it terrible. It just was. Most importantly it was short in specifics. They talked in generalities about selling mutual funds and life insurance. Now, I'm not really into sales, but I figured maybe I could get some financial certifications out of the deal. So I made an appointment to meet one of the guys for an 'interview.'

We met at a coffee shop. The first thing that surprised me was that the guy didn't buy me a cup of coffee. A couple things about that: (1) a cup of black coffee, even at Starbucks, costs like $1.50. If you can't cover that, it's not encouraging; and (2) I'm terrible at business ettiquette, but I know enough to at least offer to buy something for the other person: offer to pay for lunch, a cup of coffee, anything,especially if you're looking for something from that person. I don't know, maybe I was supposed to buy him coffee, since I was looking for the job?

Anyways, after BS-ing for a while, my first question was, 'So I'm new to the area and don't really know anyone. How will I get clients?' After telling me it wasn't too hard to go up to people and just start talking to them, he explained that we had access to resumes we could call. Again, I've never done sales, but it seems strange to call people who post their resumes on line to sell financial products.

After some more talking, it became clear that I was to call these people to see if they wanted to be on my 'team' and sell products. So I tried to clarify what it was we were selling, because everything he had said so far was about hiring more people instead of products they sold. The guy was definitely avoiding the answer, making me more suspicious.

After some more questions and some evasive answering, I finally asked how I was to be compensated. When I was told that I got promotions based mostly on the number of people I hired and less on the products I sold, I decided I didn't need this job.

The guy told me that he liked me and that he would feel comfortable having me on his team. He told me he wouldn't want to hire someone who he wasn't comfortable having baby sit his kids. He said he would want to talk to my wife before I decided to join, since he wanted to make sure she was on board; all I could think of was how Kimberly would laugh in this guy's face as he explained our 'products.' He told me I should go home and pray to God on it, as He would tell me what to do.

I need a job, but I don't need to be involved in a job where they sell nothing. Or where I'm expected to baby sit my 'teammates' kids.