Definitely proceed with caution when applying! I did not do research into the company until a few hours before my interview and I kind of wish I would have...
I applied via LinkedIn and heard back relatively quickly, then scheduled a Zoom interview. A woman had emailed me to schedule and I thought she was the one who would be conducting the interview but that was not the case...it was honestly a little confusing because when I tried to connect to the link for the interview it did not work; I was going to email the lady about it which is when I realized her email had a different name attached to it as well?
Anywho, I finally got into the zoom meeting and a man was conducting the interview. It was also a group interview with one other person which I was not expecting...THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING!!
Tell me why one of the first things we were told is, "You are not allowed to ask any questions during this interview"? WHO?? That was the first red flag for me. He proceeded to say that the point of the interview was to ask US questions and tell us about the role and that we should take notes on any questions we may have that will be answered in a secondary interview if we are selected, those would be individual. It felt almost like they wanted to weed out the competent and incompetent -- those who could be swindled and follow blindly vs. independent thinkers.
You obviously don't know me but if you did you would not be surprised to hear that I asked questions and presented issues regardless of the instructions not to, mostly because of the red flags I was receiving. The guy went on to hype up the company and ask questions like where we were from, tell him about ourselves, all the usuals. This is when I first realized how different my background was from my fellow interviewee...her background was in IT, mine is in marketing and media...yet, we were both interviewing for a position in marketing? Or so I thought.
Basically, the position consists of you standing in Costco haggling people to work with certain tiling, flooring, etc. companies that are associated with Arch Preneurs. This is where I presented my first question of, "How does this relate to marketing? Where would marketing opportunities be presented if we are simply hounding down people as they are exiting Costco?". He did not directly answer my questions. Instead he said how we do not sell to these people, we simply convince them to work with the companies underneath us...again, there was no clarification as to where marketing would come into play.
Instead, he proceeded to boast about their "training opportunities" and "workshops". Basically what they mean by that is that they would place you in a management training program. Everyone starts out in the same role, goes through the Costco process, attends "cross-training"
seminars, and has to eventually work on getting "five people below you" in order to receive a promotion -- the more people you gain underneath you, the higher you will climb...anyone thinking "PYRAMID SCHEME"??
I brought up how they should proceed about this process with caution and compassion because the way they are going about this is it seems like they want as many bodies as possible, hype up this training program and opportunities for "growth", simply to expand the company. But they don't hone to your speciality or strengths. It seems like they want a bunch of clones almost. I was hoping the girl I was interviewing with would get the hint that they don't care about her background or MA she was finishing up with. They will put her through the same process as someone with a completely different degree and background for the sake of getting more numbers.
Surprisingly, despite my questions and calling-out, they called me back within 30 minutes to offer me another interview. I let them go to voicemail.
They should not label the position as marketing. It is sales driven. For some people, I am sure this would work and would benefit them. It just seems unfair to disregard experiences and skills that may render someone a prime candidate for a specialty position for the sake of getting someone their "five" underneath them in hopes of a promotion. We should be more than a number, in my opinion.
