Does this seem fishy to anyone? What should I do?
Hi everyone. My name's Beth, I live in England and I've recently graduated, so now I'm looking for full time work. This is going to be really long and I apologise. I'll happily put it behind a cut if need be.
I had an interview yesterday and I feel very uncomfortable about the company and the job. The advert was put up the day I applied and said they were an advertising company looking for 20 people to be part of their sales and marketing team in their new office, with an immediate start and no experience necessary. The salary was £1200-£30000. Perhaps I should have been suspicious then. But the day after I applied, a lovely lady (this lady actually was really nice, and made me feel really comfortable with the whole thing - if only she'd interviewed me!) called me and asked me to come for an interview the next day.
I didn't get into the interview room until 45 minutes after my interview started. Okay, they're running late, that's fair enough. But I was their last interview of the day and I felt like the guy was rushing through it. He only asked me about two questions and didn't let me answer them properly. He said if I was successful in yesterday's interview, I'd be invited back for an assessment on Monday. During the interview, I felt like he was being quite rude to me - he was speaking very, very fast and the one time I politely asked him to repeat himself, he was really snappy and rude about it. Also, I filled out an application form on the website in the first place, got the phone call for the interview, and before I went into the room, I had to fill out another application form. On this form, it asked for my marital status. It wasn't on the diversity monitoring bit - there wasn't one of those. It was just right there on the front of my application form, with all my other details, and the interviewer was looking at the form while he interviewed me. I know that's not technically wrong, but it did make me a little uncomfortable - how is my marital status relevant in any way?
Anyway, the job actually turned out to be knocking on people's doors and approaching them in the street trying to sell them stuff and raising money for charity. Now, I've applied for jobs as street fundraisers before, and I'm fine with that, but the advert for this job was very misleading, and I'm not all that comfortable with the door-knocking bit. If I wanted to do fundraising, I'd apply to one of the other companies, where the people are much nicer and I know the job is legit.
I've also got a feeling that the pay is made up pretty much entirely of commission. I've googled the company and all it brings up is their website (which says very little about them) and other places they've posted ads. They've been posting this same thing - 20 people, immediate start, all over the internet since early June.
I was invited back on Monday and it seems that what I'll be doing then is working for 9 hours (12pm-9:30pm!) on the street for free. I wouldn't mind this working for free assessment thing if I was sure the job I might get at the end was legit, but I'm not.
I will be going back on Monday, partly to satisfy my curiousity and partly on the offchance that it might be legit and not as bad as it looks. But does anyone have any thoughts about this or any suggestions about things that I should ask them on Monday? Any other warning signs I should look out for?
Edit: After doing a bit more Googling, it's pretty much been confirmed that this is a very shady business. The guy who interviewed me has been doing this under different business names since at least 2005. The company is part of the Cobra Group, and googling Cobra Group scams has brought up a lot of information.
I still think I'll go on Monday - I want him to know that I know what he's playing at, even though I know it won't make any difference since I suppose they are technically legit.
Am I allowed to name and shame the company and the guy who interviewed me? Googling the company's name hasn't brought up much, but googling his name has brought up a few things.
I had an interview yesterday and I feel very uncomfortable about the company and the job. The advert was put up the day I applied and said they were an advertising company looking for 20 people to be part of their sales and marketing team in their new office, with an immediate start and no experience necessary. The salary was £1200-£30000. Perhaps I should have been suspicious then. But the day after I applied, a lovely lady (this lady actually was really nice, and made me feel really comfortable with the whole thing - if only she'd interviewed me!) called me and asked me to come for an interview the next day.
I didn't get into the interview room until 45 minutes after my interview started. Okay, they're running late, that's fair enough. But I was their last interview of the day and I felt like the guy was rushing through it. He only asked me about two questions and didn't let me answer them properly. He said if I was successful in yesterday's interview, I'd be invited back for an assessment on Monday. During the interview, I felt like he was being quite rude to me - he was speaking very, very fast and the one time I politely asked him to repeat himself, he was really snappy and rude about it. Also, I filled out an application form on the website in the first place, got the phone call for the interview, and before I went into the room, I had to fill out another application form. On this form, it asked for my marital status. It wasn't on the diversity monitoring bit - there wasn't one of those. It was just right there on the front of my application form, with all my other details, and the interviewer was looking at the form while he interviewed me. I know that's not technically wrong, but it did make me a little uncomfortable - how is my marital status relevant in any way?
Anyway, the job actually turned out to be knocking on people's doors and approaching them in the street trying to sell them stuff and raising money for charity. Now, I've applied for jobs as street fundraisers before, and I'm fine with that, but the advert for this job was very misleading, and I'm not all that comfortable with the door-knocking bit. If I wanted to do fundraising, I'd apply to one of the other companies, where the people are much nicer and I know the job is legit.
I've also got a feeling that the pay is made up pretty much entirely of commission. I've googled the company and all it brings up is their website (which says very little about them) and other places they've posted ads. They've been posting this same thing - 20 people, immediate start, all over the internet since early June.
I was invited back on Monday and it seems that what I'll be doing then is working for 9 hours (12pm-9:30pm!) on the street for free. I wouldn't mind this working for free assessment thing if I was sure the job I might get at the end was legit, but I'm not.
I will be going back on Monday, partly to satisfy my curiousity and partly on the offchance that it might be legit and not as bad as it looks. But does anyone have any thoughts about this or any suggestions about things that I should ask them on Monday? Any other warning signs I should look out for?
Edit: After doing a bit more Googling, it's pretty much been confirmed that this is a very shady business. The guy who interviewed me has been doing this under different business names since at least 2005. The company is part of the Cobra Group, and googling Cobra Group scams has brought up a lot of information.
I still think I'll go on Monday - I want him to know that I know what he's playing at, even though I know it won't make any difference since I suppose they are technically legit.
Am I allowed to name and shame the company and the guy who interviewed me? Googling the company's name hasn't brought up much, but googling his name has brought up a few things.